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Toeside Turns - Advice Needed (Video)

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#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys,

So I've been snowboarding a whole 7 times - started in Park City last year. My friends got me started by leaving heal-side first, and I learned how to connect to toeside turns just by trial and error. I haven't ever had a lesson - my friends have been helpful but have never really closely critiqued my technique etc.

I just got back from Breck and while I had a good time there, I realized I have a long way to go to get "comfortable" on a board. My major problem is that I don't feel comfortable on toeside turns unless its REALLY flat and terrain is predictable. If a bump comes up that I didn't see, it shakes me and I almost lose my balance and then want to slow WAY down. I don't know why but I don't feel the same on heel-side turns.

I also realized on this trip that I have been turning completely wrong. I had read somewhere on here (Snowolf?) that the turns should be initiated by the front foot by angling the board. I got to have one day out on the mountain after reading this and realized that I typically turn the board using my backfoot like a rudder. So I worked on that a bit - but to be honest, I don't really get how to do it with the front and not use the back to really control everything through a turn.

Also, I realized on toe-side turns I was using ONLY my toes and feet to change the pressure on the board. This resulted in my feet and low legs getting extremely tired quickly. I had read here that I should really use my shins to push down on my boots and let the boot stiffness and equipment push down toeside for turns. I started trying to do this, but I feel even more unstable on toeside turns when I do this.

So I could really use some critique and guidance from you guys. Due to my lack of confidence when in toeside turns I typically don't go very fast, afraid something will bounce me off balance and I'll catch an edge and die (just kidding, but not really). Here's a video of me last weekend - let er rip.

Oh, and I'm 6'0", 185 lbs and have a Ride Machete 158 board

 
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#2 ·
Two reasons for the lack of confidence.

One: The feeling catching an edge. When you are using your back foot to pivot the board you need to keep the board fairly flat to the ground when changing edges. The flatter the board the easier it is to catch the edge, but the faster and easier to pivot the baord around.

Two: Feeling like every bump is going to knock you over. This is feeling is from two specific thinks. One. On your toeside your shoulders are open a little wider than they need be to the nose of the board. This cause your spine to twist up and your front leg to straighten out, leaving most of your weight on the back foot. because you need the board to be fairly flat to pivot you are creating tilt in the board by leaning your whole body. A straight leg can't absorb bumps, It is hard to maintain balance on one leg, and when your weight is out past the edge of the snowboard you have to work harder at maintaining your balance.

There would be two exercises I would work with you first on.

One- Rotation. We would start by getting our body to rotate and be aligned in the direction that we are turning. Two steps to this. First would be to practice rotating our hips by envisioning our knee out over our Big toe and moving out and around to the little toe for toe to heel. For heel to toe the knee would go from out over the pinky toe to out over the big toe. Second, with our hands on the toe side have our lead hand rest on the inside of our front leg and the back hand on the hamstring/outsidebutt area of our back leg. Then when turning to the heels the hand should move to front hand on front leg hamstring and back hand on inside of back leg(as if you were goin to scratch your nut closest to the back leg). This should help keep your body front should/hip/knee/outside of front foot always pointing in the direction you are trying to make your board go. It will also help you to be aligned to be able to keep bend your knees evenly and not have one that is forced to be staighter and the other to support more weight.

Two- we would work on progressively learning how to tilt our board edge. First with both feet and then by seperating the feet a little bit to get a one, two feeling. To do this we first would start with a j-turn on steeper green. Startout with the board flat and nose pointed down the fall line. Next, with your ankles followed up by levering against your highback, think of increasing the angle of your board with the snow5-10 degrees at a time. one way to envision this is to think like you are ratching your bindings, at each click you flex your ankles up an or lever your hi-back a quarter of an inch. Start with ankles first and then the levering. Try to not make a full body lean. To assist with not leaning up the hill as you ratch your ankles up, you will release your knees down(i.e. bend your knees MORE; this should feel like you are lowering your hips down toward your heels. Half way through your j you the Big toe to little toe movement from above to help round out and finish your j-turn. Next try this on toes by starting out on a flat board. Bend your knees out over your pinky toes like a cowboy straddling a horse. Feel your butt scope underneath your hips and your hips push forward while slightly arching your back to keep it upright. This will help position you out over the toes. Next try to bend your boots a little at time by lowering your knees and hips down. After starting to make this movement start to extend out your ankles by pushing down on your toes and raising your heels(i.e. standing on your toes like a ballerina)... Make these move similiar to the ratcheting you did on your heelside. About half way through make the front knee rotate from over the pinky toe to over the big toe. Don't forget your hands :) to help make sure the rest of your body is following suit.

After getting this down try starting the movements with the front first and then use the back foot.

Next step is to smooth out the ratcheting and incorporate these movements into your riding. This is jsut the start. Be sure to look through finishing your turns and not getting caught starring straight down the run. This will cause you to block your spine and prevent your lower movement(primarliy the rotary movements from being able to finish out.)

P.S. By the way for only 7 times with out lessons you are looking good.
 
#3 ·
Thanks GJS - wow, alot more detail than I expected!

Two reasons for the lack of confidence.

One: The feeling catching an edge. When you are using your back foot to pivot the board you need to keep the board fairly flat to the ground when changing edges. The flatter the board the easier it is to catch the edge, but the faster and easier to pivot the baord around.
Completely agree - I think I naturally do this due to the fear of not being able to get the board around quick enough. But yeah, so easy to catch an edge. I sat on the hill just watching other guys go buy and the "good ones" seemed so calm and unstressed while boarding - that is NOT me!

Two: Feeling like every bump is going to knock you over. This is feeling is from two specific thinks. One. On your toeside your shoulders are open a little wider than they need be to the nose of the board. This cause your spine to twist up and your front leg to straighten out, leaving most of your weight on the back foot. because you need the board to be fairly flat to pivot you are creating tilt in the board by leaning your whole body. A straight leg can't absorb bumps, It is hard to maintain balance on one leg, and when your weight is out past the edge of the snowboard you have to work harder at maintaining your balance.
When you say open, do you mean my shoulders are facing the nose of the board too much? As in if I'm traveling north, my shoulders (and face presumably) would be facing north? So that would mean that if I'm traveling north, my shoulders should be facing east as much as possible? I have realized that my weight is typically on my back foot with the exception of when I try to turn quickly - I briefly put my weight on the front foot so I can get the back around quick enough. I think I naturally done this as I'm naturally nervous about going too fast - weight on front foot has typically sent me to higher speeds. From reading things on this forum, it seems that my weight should be on the front foot most of the time and to use the front foot to initiate turns - I have tried to do this but I'm obviously not there yet!

There would be two exercises I would work with you first on.

One- Rotation. We would start by getting our body to rotate and be aligned in the direction that we are turning. Two steps to this. First would be to practice rotating our hips by envisioning our knee out over our Big toe and moving out and around to the little toe for toe to heel. For heel to toe the knee would go from out over the pinky toe to out over the big toe.
Little confused by this - when you say "knee out over our Big toe and moving out and around to the little toe for toe to heel", do you mean both knees? So that would mean my left knee would move to the left (toward little toe on left foot) and my right knee would move to the right (toward little toe on right foot)? I just searched youtube hoping for a video.

Second, with our hands on the toe side have our lead hand rest on the inside of our front leg and the back hand on the hamstring/outsidebutt area of our back leg. Then when turning to the heels the hand should move to front hand on front leg hamstring and back hand on inside of back leg(as if you were goin to scratch your nut closest to the back leg). This should help keep your body front should/hip/knee/outside of front foot always pointing in the direction you are trying to make your board go. It will also help you to be aligned to be able to keep bend your knees evenly and not have one that is forced to be staighter and the other to support more weight.
Will definitely try this - will practice without the board first to try and visualize the pattern and implications of on board/balance, etc.

Two- we would work on progressively learning how to tilt our board edge. First with both feet and then by seperating the feet a little bit to get a one, two feeling. To do this we first would start with a j-turn on steeper green. Startout with the board flat and nose pointed down the fall line. Next, with your ankles followed up by levering against your highback, think of increasing the angle of your board with the snow5-10 degrees at a time. one way to envision this is to think like you are ratching your bindings, at each click you flex your ankles up an or lever your hi-back a quarter of an inch. Start with ankles first and then the levering. Try to not make a full body lean.To assist with not leaning up the hill as you ratch your ankles up, you will release your knees down(i.e. bend your knees MORE; this should feel like you are lowering your hips down toward your heels. Half way through your j you the Big toe to little toe movement from above to help round out and finish your j-turn.
When you say levering against highback, you mean pushing my calves/back of leg onto the highback of the binding, right? So as I envision this, it seems like I should be half squatting (defensive position in basketball or wall-sit), and using ankles and highback to force right side of my board to lift up and engage left edge of my board at the start of the turn, then utilize the rotation (exercise 1 above) while doing hand/leg exercises to ensure alignment of my body.

Next try this on toes by starting out on a flat board. Bend your knees out over your pinky toes like a cowboy straddling a horse. Feel your butt scope underneath your hips and your hips push forward while slightly arching your back to keep it upright. This will help position you out over the toes. Next try to bend your boots a little at time by lowering your knees and hips down. After starting to make this movement start to extend out your ankles by pushing down on your toes and raising your heels(i.e. standing on your toes like a ballerina)... Make these move similiar to the ratcheting you did on your heelside. About half way through make the front knee rotate from over the pinky toe to over the big toe. Don't forget your hands :) to help make sure the rest of your body is following suit.
Question on this - you didn't mention how much you use your ankles vs. pushing down on toes. And I'm guessing that when you mean pushing down on toes, you mean pushing my shins into the front of the boot - or the opposite of levering via highback? As I mentioned in my first post, I have historically been relying 100% on my ankles for toeside, which has fatigued the crap out of my calves/feet/leg muscles. So it sounds like it should be a combination of the two (ankles and pushing down on boot)? I tried this a bit but couldn't get a sense of how much of either I should be relying on to sustain the toe-side turn.


After getting this down try starting the movements with the front first and then use the back foot.

Next step is to smooth out the ratcheting and incorporate these movements into your riding. This is jsut the start. Be sure to look through finishing your turns and not getting caught starring straight down the run. This will cause you to block your spine and prevent your lower movement(primarliy the rotary movements from being able to finish out.)
Got it - i can see how these exercises can be linked. When you say look through, that is to maintain my body alignment and avoid having my shoulders too open to the front of the board (as you alluded to in point 2 above)?

P.S. By the way for only 7 times with out lessons you are looking good.
Thanks man! I think I have decent good balance and was a big skier when I was younger so I'm comfortable being on an edge (which I think is a big part of skiing or boarding). I was able to connect connect heel and toe turns on my first day and since this point my focus has not been on technique but just getting down the damn hill. I typically pick things up pretty quickly and reach a level of ability that allows me to "play ball" (or in this case, get down the hill), but I usually do it in a way that is not 100% correct and is incredibly inefficient and then have to work extremely hard to transition from "getting down the hill" to "getting down the hill the right way". In my experience, the later takes 90% of the time and effort and is sometimes not intuitive. I liken it to basketball - you can quickly learn to shoot so the ball goes in the basket, but your shooting form will likely be terrible/ugly without proper coaching (that's where you guys come in).

Thanks for your help - I would really like to have the right technique for many reasons - 1) Good technique seems to result in less crashes/caught edges, 2) less stress/fatigue on my legs (I have to stop 2-3 times down a run),3) can go faster without feeling unsafe and lastly, 4) can enjoy myself without constant fear of crashing/burning.
 
#4 ·
Since you have not had any real training and are sort of winging it, this should help you with a lot of your questions:

Wolf Snowboarding

I would also second what gjsnowboarder said in that for having only ridden 7 times, you have a lot of natural ability so with the correct technique, you should progress fast and become very solid in a short time.
thanks Snowulf - I have actually watched your videos. Ironically, I watched your videos the night before my last day at Breck and tried to do the turning as depicted in Part 4. You make it look so easy...it felt like I was doing the same thing but when looking at my video vs yours...obviously not! My back-end seems to slide alot more than yours, and your trailing lines in the snow look alot cleaner. When I watch your videos its hard for me to tell when you're bending your legs and/or using ankles - they are subtle movements?

This ruddering is so common with self taught riders or riders taught by friends but it is a very poor way to ride so it is good you have recognized it early on. Additionally, you are doing something that is also common to self taught riders and that is twisting at the waist to face forward. This makes any toeside turn super difficult. Until you advance into dynamic skidded turns, you will want to keep your hips and shoulder pretty much aligned with your board. The exception to this will be the use of an anticipatory rotation for your turns. Until you start learning to actually carve, all of your steering is going to rely heavily on the front foot. Even though you are going to skid your turns, it is good to start using the sidecut of the board to turn you as opposed to pivot.
Yeah, I think this is something that gjsnowboarder pointed out as well. So am I understanding this correctly - my shoulders should be pointing due east (assuming board is pointed directly north), and only my neck should have my head pointing forward (I'm the left guy in the pic below)? I have no idea what dynamic skidded turns means - I'll look it up.



There are three ways you can turn a board; pivot, tilt and for you most importantly twist! With front foot steering, you are using the front foot to subtlety twist your board to engage its sidecut. By opening and closing the ankle joint, you can pressure your toe edge or your heel edge as needed to initiate your turns. This twist or torsional steering is something you are really going to want to focus on right now.

Let`s take a step WAY back and go to an almost flat area and unstrap the back foot and do some one footed fade turns! Point the board straight down this shallow incline and pick up some speed. Remember to maintain your loose athletic stance. In the video, you are riding very stiff and very tall; loosen up and allow the ankles and knees to flex so you drop down a little bit. You should feel your shins starting to rest on the tongues of your boots. Additionally, shift your entire body a little toward the nose of the board with a slight foot to foot shift of your hips. Your back leg should be just a tad straighter than your front leg.

Now, as you are gliding along, make a shallow heel side turn by first, looking over your shoulder to where you want to end up at the end of the turn. This sets your upper body up perfectly to make this turn. As you do this, sit into the turn just a bit. It should feel like you are getting ready to sit down in a chair. Next, lift the toes of the front foot by closing the ankle joint so that you feel all of your weight on the heel of that foot. While you are doing this, try to pull your front knee toward the nose of the board to add a little bit of rotational force. Hold this position through your turn.

So what does the back foot do then? Simple! Your back foot is going to do the EXACT same thing you just did with the front foot, ONLY later!. As the board enters this turn and the nose starts pulling up out of the fall line, begin to gradually apply heel pressure with the back foot to "lock" the tail into the turn. This prevent the tail from totally washing out. Now, as the board approaches perpendicularity to the fall line, you need to slowly RELAX the front foot to slow and stop the turn thus allowing the board to traverse across the hill rather than continue turning.
Yes, you had been helping another person with toe-side turns and I had thoroughly read your responses to him (http://www.snowboardingforum.com/tips-tricks-instructors/20624-struggling-toeside-turns.html). I think I understand the concept - the front foot, depending on weighting toward toe or heel, initiates the tilt of the board and allows the natural shape of the board to start a turn, right? I practiced this a little bit on some flat areas and kind of felt what you meant. Maybe I'm not doing it right but it seemed that the board didn't turn THAT much, meaning, that when I attempted to lift the right side of the board by lifting my toes and pushing back into the backstop, the board did start to turn left but not much. Maybe I wasn't going fast enough? How sharp of a turn does this method allow you to do?

I think I get the timing of the back foot. So the first foot initiates the turn, and commits the FRONT edge and allows the board's natural shape to begin a turn, THEN the back foot locks in the BACK edge to avoid the end of the boarding from skidding or fish tailing out (the ruddering effect). Is this what results in your turns looking alot cleaner than mine? I actually did notice the difference in your tracks in the snow vs. mine - mine look like i am going much faster than I actually am and that my ass-end drifts (like a car) on every turn.

Now for toeside.....:eek:

For the toeside fade turn, start out as before and pick up some speed. You will already be looking generally in the direct you are turning so just turn your head a little bit but focus on a spot and try to steer to it. Because you have a habit of riding open shouldered, I want you to actually point to where you are going with the front hand. This is overdoing the shoulder rotation, but in your case you need to do this to compensate for the bad habit already developed.

As you do this, start to "kneel" down with the front leg. Drive your front knee down and in toward the center of the board. This is where you should feel the shin really pushing on the tongue of the boot. As you are doing this, lift your front heel to sort of stand on the tippy toes with the front foot. This will really get the sidecut to engage and give you a solid turn entry. In addition, another great aid is to actually drop your front shoulder lower as you initiate the turn. You can even imagine that as you are riding, you are reaching down in the snow to pick up an ice cold beer someone left in the snow...:D
Got it - I actually read your description in the thread above and it instantly made sense to me why I am getting so fatigued doing toe-side turns. As mentioned in my original post, I have historically been using 100% of my TOES and FEET to do toe-side turns. I'm not sure about others, but that is physically impossible for me to sustain - my legs and feet start cramping like crazy and I have to stop multiple times in a run. So what you're doing when you drive your shins into the boot is utilizing the boot's natural stiffness to help engage the right side of the board (I have Salomon F22s - pretty stiff boots). To be honest, I didn't know what stiffness of the boot mattered - I'm guessing this is why?

One questions I have on this - how does this help with balance? So I tried this at very low speeds, trying to use 100% of the boot and shins to maintain a toeside turn (my feet thanked me), and I noticed that my balance was terrible because I was essentially bending my knees not for balance but to engage and maintain the edge. Does this get better with time/practice? I like the fact my knees are bent, but I liken it to a ballerina in a squat like position on her tippe-toes on an angled floor - you push her and they'll fall over.

There is a tendency to bend at the waist and lean over into the toeside turn. AVOID this! It sets you up for trouble big time as it puts your center of mass well over the toe edge of the board and cause you to push you rear out over the heel edge which counteracts what you want to be doing. On top of that, we get a lot of our sense of balance from our vision. If you are bent at the waist, you entire sight picture is at an angle and this will mess with your head in a bad way. flex the lower body and keep your upper body straight.
So I think I'm starting to get this. So stance wise, for both heel and toe-side turns, I should have knees bent, and most of edge initiation should be done with my leading (left foot) by either: (1) Toeside: Pushing shins into tongue of boot to engage right edge, (2) heelside: Lifting toes and leaning back on backstop. So as I visualize that, its like body from the knees up is staying static and my toes/heel and either shins/back of leg (calf area) are initiating the edge?

Right now, your confidence is lacking because you have not mastered any real technique that gives you the feeling that you have control. Using this front foot steering and using edge angle more is going to give you that control and your confidence will increase exponentially....:thumbsup:
Got it and totally agree. Dumb question but is this the way that good snowboarders turn? Meaning, they never use their back foot to turn, etc?
 
#5 ·
Yes, you are doing this right. I can spin the board 360 in a board length doing this actually. The issue generally is the result of the rider not shifting their weight forward nearly enough onto the front foot. When you have nearly 100% of your body weight on that front foot, it does not take much movement to make a HUGE directional change.
Got it - for beginners, it seems counter-intuitive/dangerous to put weight on the front foot, especially on steeper terrain.

Absolutely this gets a lot easier with practice. A couple of things here. For one you mentioned doing this at low speed. Ever try leaning hard into a turn on a bike at slow speeds? Does not work out well does it? Try a little more speed when doing this. This speed generates centrifugal force in a turn that tends to pull you toward the outside of the turn just like on a bike. This force is actually a stabilizing force that counteracts the balance issue that tends to make you fall toward the inside of the turn.
Good point - I'll try and find a medium-banked slope to do this.


Remember on toeside to not just push the shins into the boots forward, but also drop the knee down toward the snow. More so with the front knee than the back. Do not use both knees yet; save that for when you start carving...:D For now drop the front knee like you are proposing!

Lastly, to prevent this falling forward thing, you can use the "hump and dump" method. For toeside, push your pelvis out in front of you and arch the back to stay centered over the board. If done right you will feel a bit "obscene" at first....:laugh: The "dump" part is for heelside; squatting more as if your were taking a dump. Graphic I know, but it is a great memory aid...:thumbsup:
Got it - helpful visuals. It's tough to know how this is gonna feel without being the mountain strapped up - there is no way to practice this without the board, huh?

Now, a little "anticipatory rotation" of the upper body is totally appropriate for turn initiation; especially since you are fighting the "open shoulder syndrome". For heelside, slightly twist your hips heelside and look over the front shoulder, allowing the front shoulder to move over the top of your heel edge. This sets up your upper body ideally for a very positive heelside turn initiation. For toeside, twist the hips toeside while pushing that front knee down and in. Use the front hand to actually point to where you want to go for now. This is not the ideal way to steer later on, but right now do this as a training aid to help you remember to close your front shoulder. Believe me, when you simply point where you want to go in the toeside turn, everything else feels like it just happens automatically....:thumbsup:
I think this is the part I'm going to struggle the most with. So thinking about this...essentially the rotation of the hips is to help initiate the turns. On toeside, pushing the knee down and in helps the board cut to the right quicker?
 
#9 ·
Great job for only having ridden under 10 days. I think the rest has already been covered, but I would just add to bend your knees more and keep your weight forward to initiate the turns more smoothly.

I'm actually in the process of learning switch so it's a bit like learning all over again. I have to constantly remind myself to keep my weight forward when I'm riding switch.
 
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