wear protection.
My take is that you are afraid to fall and get hurt. eliminate that and you will be more confident.

 

I'm going to take this advice as I was falling a lot while turning toe to heel side when going at a speed, and ended up falling on my butt resulting in a lot of bruising. Going to get some tailbone protection and just keep trying to get used to speed for my next trip.

I'm pretty sure I'm rushing those turns when I am going at speed, because if I take myself very close to perpendicular on my toe side prior to initiating turns, they go a lot smoother as I take it slowly and shift weight correctly. Hopefully I learn to deal with turning with a little bit of speed soon.

 

1. I noticed that when I'm in my toe side, turning to heel side, it goes really fast, and before I know it, I'm already on the other side of the slope and have to turn back to toeside or else I'll hit the trees on the side. I ended up skidding my turns alot and have to side slip to slow down in order to be confident enough to initiate another toeside turn.
This does not happening the heel to toeside turn, everything's pretty smooth. It's almost like my turn from toe to heel is too quick and my turn is overshoot upon completion,

2. I freak out to imitate the toe side turn. I know I'm on the back seat, but I cannot for the life of me to lean down the slope because I'm afraid of gaining speed. What can I do to overcome this fear? Sometimes when I do have the courage to do so,I out weight on my front leg while keeping my rear leg heel edge dig in, the boards starts turning and it turns beautifully, but that's when I'm possessed and not freaked out.

1.It sounds like you are rushing your edge transition. If you changes edges before your weight transfers over to the other edge, you can kind of get "stuck" with your board still turning, but your upper body is still lagging (and when your body is counter-rotated or twisted, it is hard to do much of anything until you untwist it). Try focusing on going from toeside to flatboard (for just a moment), and then to heelside to make the edge transition smoother.

2. One way to slow it down is to go completely perpendicular to the fall line (across the hill). That way when you finish your turn, you aren't picking up anymore speed because you are not going downhill (this give you a little breather before doing your next turn). Here is video of my wife doing big S-turns down a decently steep slope (this was early in her third season of snowboarding). You can see because she starts and ends her turn coming across the fall line - she really isn't pick up a lot of speed despite the steeper pitch of the slope. When doing this... it is IMPORTANT to LOOK UPHILL with your peripheral vision... because some people might not be paying attention and plow into you. You can see my wife keeps her head pointing in the direction she is travelling (not always pointing downhill) so she can see uphill out of the corner of her eye.

To slow it down ever more you can do garlands. Check out the video below

If you feel in control of your speed, you will feel much more confidant. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the video!!! Love how your wife rides!!! So smooth and calm!! Thats essentially what I'm doing, but I don't have alot of space to go all the way across the slope, so while doing that, I ended up skidding/ side slipping down until the speed is slow enough for me to initiate the toe side turn!

 

On steeper terrains, my issue is

2. I freak out to imitate the toe side turn. I know I'm on the back seat, but I cannot for the life of me to lean down the slope because I'm afraid of gaining speed. What can I do to overcome this fear? Sometimes when I do have the courage to do so,I out weight on my front leg while keeping my rear leg heel edge dig in, the boards starts turning and it turns beautifully, but that's when I'm possessed and not freaked out.
What can I do to gain more confidence?


Thanks!!

The fear is natural. A big factor into it is the fact that you're not used to the speed yet. With time, experience, and practice you'll continue to get better. A progression of getting better also means you're able to handle more speed. Take it slow and continue to learn. As you learn to control your board and learn to feel your edges you'll be able to gain confidence in your riding abilities.

 

Yeah, not sure why I have no fea turnng from toe to heel side on steeper terrain, but I freak out when I have to turn from heel to toe.

 

It's because you are turning your back towards the fall-line and you brain thinks you are going backwards down the hill and balks.

 

Honestly, the best thing you can possibly do at this point is get a lesson. Once you nail toe side turns and linking turns, that's when you can start progressing by leaps and bounds.

 

Does this sound familiar..?

You go to initiate the turn but you're already feeling apprehensive, so you're already leaning slightly toward the tail out of fear 'away from the turn'.

You start the turn but because your weight is back you disengage the front edge quickly.

The board starts to point down the hill, it's picking up speed because it doesn't have an edge engaged and it's not turning because the rear edge isn't fully engaged and the front hasn't re-engaged.

You counteract this by learning further back/toward the tail still, away from the fall line as a self protection reaction, or to try and 'pull' the nose around somehow.

Eventually the board comes around and the edges re-engage. You've already picked up a ton of speed and by the time you've got centered again and can start to control the speed you've run out of piste/trail..

 

Hey Fayewolf, glad to see you back again...:thumbsup:

For your heelside issue, the reason most people struggle with this is not committing to the turn and not turning their head over their front shoulder to look down at where they want to go. I see people in my classes day after day trying to make this turn but remain looking up the hill. Additionally, the best way to to manage speed is to flex down low to initiate your turn and extend up through it as we discussed last season. The reason you go flying off to the side so fast is you are remaining too static in the turn and not getting nearly aggressive enough with your movements.

Skidding your turns is not necessarily a bad thing if you are skidding at the right stage of the turn. Your snow spray should being thrown to the side of the run not down the hill. If all of your spray is going down the hill, you are delaying your braking action and doing it at the bottom of your turn. Instead, get more aggressive with your edge earlier in the turn and start your skidd near the top of the turn, through the control phase then ease up at completion to reduce this slip down the hill.

For your toeside steep terrain freak out issue, again, get lowere, much lower. This really helps with the fear as well as board performance. In addition, if you are freaked out going into the turn, chances are you are holding your rear hand out in front of you to "catch yourself" when you fall forward. I see this all of the time. When you go to initiate your toeside turn on steep terrain, get that back hand behind you and drop that front shoulder like your are diving into the turn. It will feel "wrong" and scary I know, but it is the only way to stay in control on steep terrain. Leaning back uphill is causing the the dealy in turn initiation and completion and causes the speed buildup.

Yay! Thank you snowolf! Yeah, I went back a second time and I notice how high and static I was, I did attempt to go lower and it was a bit better. I know I was still leaning back because I can see myself in slow motion, brain tells me to shoulder dip, lean towards front, toe edge engage, and it's like act of god if I can do it or not. When I do it, I'm in total control, when I freak out, I lean back and cannot do anything and just fall, these are not bad falls though, not like when I first learn, now those are crazily painful.

I looked at your video on catrack again, and oretty much use the technique of making lots of turns, complete turns on a gentler black run, and I survived!!!

 

Just keep pluggin away at it. You pretty much have the knowledge and know what you should do. Now its just a matter of "time behind the wheel" and keep working at it. It will come, just hang in there and keep at it; having fun the whole time. If you drink, having a good strong beer before going out really can help. Don`t get blitzed, but just enough to take the edge off of the fear can make a HUGE difference.

As silly as it sounds, liquid courage really does help. :laugh:

 

Just keep pluggin away at it. You pretty much have the knowledge and know what you should do. Now its just a matter of "time behind the wheel" and keep working at it. It will come, just hang in there and keep at it; having fun the whole time. If you drink, having a good strong beer before going out really can help. Don`t get blitzed, but just enough to take the edge off of the fear can make a HUGE difference.

OF COURSE! A BEER!! SNowolf once again coming through with great advice...here I thought beer was frowned upon when snowboarding hehe Although beer could be a bad idea for me...it gives me that tough guy courage and next thing I know I'm starting a fight with a guy that out weighs me by 150 lbs...can only imagine what I would do on the slopes...might think i'm TRice and jump off a cliff...I'll stay away from the beer till my skills progress

 

A BEER! Not SIX BEERS!