eastoakland

I can't seem to figure out how to pop off my heels properly to do some heelside 180s on flat ground. I swear I must be doing something wrong because I can maybe get an inch off the ground and I sometimes feel like I'm hurting my lower back just to get that 1 inch. My heels can't extend like my toes to give pop. I think my method is completely wrong

Music Moves

It is a bit more difficult to learn this. In my case, there were a few things I had to learn:

1. I wasn't "sitting" in the approach enough. What I mean is that in order to get a combination of decent pop and good form in the air, I needed to mimic a good-postured sitting position to initiate my compression... good-postured meaning bending my knees with my back as straight as possible.

2. Keep the head turned down the mountain as much as possible because this is the direction you're spinning... even when you are winding your torso, keep that head facing the direction of the spin.

Once these concepts are instilled as second-nature, you will need to find your correct board placement. This can vary depending on what you are coming off of, but for ground, it should be a quick pop. What makes it even easier is as you are coming out of a toeside turn and about to link into a heelside turn, pop either right as you hit the flat area of your base or as you're going onto your heel edge. Experiment with whether you want to do it from falt or from the edge, as it can really be done from both. For me, it depends on what I'm going to do after the front 180.

These realizations helped me... hope they work for you as well.

Officer Shred

You're never going to get much pop off your heels to spin frontside on FLAT snow. You need either a rise in terrain (roller, whatever) or you need to find another way to pop. That said, it can still be done.

There's a few ways you can pop frontside on flats without using your heels. You can ollie, nollie, or even pop off your toes. What you need is time in the air, so find a way to put yourself in the air. Once you're up there, a 180 rotation can happen fairly easily.

You're barely spinning for a 180. You can get all of your rotation around regardless of whether you use your heel edge or not. The rotation comes from your body's movement (pre-wind, unwind, using your hips etc.)

I'd give frontside off your toes a go - they're super fun!

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xxfinnellxx

It takes practice. A super easy way to do it is to cut along a steep (that way you have good edge lock and support) then whind and ollie. That will teach you what it will feel like, then just practice the rotation. You should pretty much prewind your front shoulder and hips over your toe edge maybe 30 degrees and then throw that whole core section behind you. Once you get the right muscle groups triggered (like a golf swing) then it will soon become easy.

Exactly why I like spinning backside. Its easy to get a good lock on a jump and on flat ground, easy to torque up for, and its already natural to hop off your toes. Feels SOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD when you have backside spins beyond dialed.

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Helgason Pride

2011 edit thingy. Peep it, there are backflips. http://vimeo.com/28588117

eastoakland

Oops. I probably didn't make myself clear. I have no problem doing frontside and backside 180s off my toes. It's just trying jump off my toes is where I get about an inch off the ground and end up catching an edge for not getting enough air. Just trying to add new techniques to my repertoire.

Thanks for the advice so far.

xxfinnellxx

something called an ollie

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Helgason Pride

2011 edit thingy. Peep it, there are backflips. http://vimeo.com/28588117

eastoakland

lol k thanks. I thought it would be possible to pop straight off the heels as one could do with their toes. No point in trying to learn an impossible technique.

Extremo

You need speed to pop of your heels. That's pretty much it. If you focus too much on thrusting upward with your knees it'll throw off your spin technique. Just work your way up and use your speed to increase your pop.

xxfinnellxx

Just try jumping off both your heel's in the living room, its gonna be awkward. That awkwardness kill's your ability to rotate properly.

Its really easy to pop evenly off both of your toes, and you can do so with your heels but only very lightly so that it doesn't throw you off. Just try jumping half a foot off the ground off both your heels in the living room, its going to be very very awkward and I doubt that you can really do it. You loose a lot of true pop by not using your ankles. Its pretty easy to pop well over 6" off the ground from your toes because you have that natural power loaded into your ankles.

Alright, back to snowboard sense.

When popping off your heels on a snowboard, you have to do so very lightly so that it doesn't feel so awkward that it disturbs your rotation, let alone your balance in general. its very hard to do frontside spins on flat ground without using a proper ollie. Best way to feel this out is to just simply torque up for your rotation and as you ollie, try to scoop your backfoot in front of you. Takes a bit of practice to feel out properly. Super fun off of rollers once you find the sweet spot in your pop.

Another way of thinking about it is like doing a frontside shove it on a skate board. If you think of it like doing a frontside bigspin on a skateboard then you'll understand the form perfectly. Its that kind of motion in your legs that will allow you to get perfect frontside spins in the flats. Just torque up harder and look sooner to get that front 3.

When popping off my heels on jumps, i usually pop off both for low rotations like 1's and 3's on larger jumps. When i get into 5's and 7's I'll do that scoop technique because it feels better and cleaner, that way I feel more confident on getting those larger and faster rotations around. But the consequences is that you can easily end up corked (which is cool, but can make you end up not landing on your board) because your shifting your weight over your tail to get that ollie.

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Helgason Pride

2011 edit thingy. Peep it, there are backflips. http://vimeo.com/28588117

eddiethebus

i struggled with frontside spins off the heels so just choose to do them off the toes instead, might be worth giving that ago. Once i'd been doing them off the toes for a while heels just came naturally as i already knew i could get the rotation