crzygoguma

You cruise your mountain and stop at a favorite step down feature.
You take a deep breath and start preparing mentally the trick you wish to slay.
You get up, and begin to take off.
As you approach the lip, you notice that the speed doesn't feel right.
It's too late to fully stop and the consequences of trying will be devastating.
You look down, only to find yourself about to land on a knuckle...

What's your guys' take when landing on knuckles is inevitable?
I hate it so much and the pain sucks, I wonder if there is a "less" painful way of dealing with this...

myschims

try to absorb the impact and most of the time end up bouncing and doing a few rolls. not really much you can do it avoid it haha

Qball

Try to absorb as much impact as possible and try to absorb it with both legs equally. Also I don't recommend EST, I have personally seen shit go really bad with it. My friend knuckled a ~50ft jump and his front binding turned to about -15 on him and fucked his knee.

Music Moves

Depends on how large the jump is...

I hit a few this past season on 40ish footers and that combined with some drops with flatter landings gave me a stress fracture in the fibula of my back leg.

Schims hit it though... try to absorb the impact at all costs. I've found that lowering my tail/nose (depending on the trick) so that it hits first helps. The flex of the board sort of allows you to roll into the impact and provides a lot more cushion. But if you land perpendicular to the slope, you're basically fucked.

crzygoguma

yeah, I almost knocked myself out.
I landed and kneed my chin really hard, guess I was loosening myself up too much :\

twin89

yeah, i pretty much think "ooo shit!" then land, but try to soak up that impact with a roll or something. Try if possible to avoid kneeing your chin, this hurts like a bitch and you can def knock some teeth out or cut your tongue off if you are unlucky...

Best advice is prob just let others go before you and then copy their speed if they are clearing the jump easily. I no longer am the first guy to hit a new jump, it's just not worth the risk.

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Too Fast!

Donutz

Although hitting the knuckle def hurts and all, I'm less scared of that than I am of overshooting the landing slope. I've seen a couple of videos of guys that completely overshot their landings. That actually distinctly resembles a recurring nightmare that I've had all my life. So, it's kind of a good news/bad news thing with me.

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Illegitimi non carborundum

I hate the parts between winter...

HoboMaster

I have to agree overshooting is more painful then hitting the knuckle. Dropping on a flat after all that momentum is just awful.

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PowderHound and TreeNinja

Inky

Casing hurts less then overshooting but you look like a pussy. Both suck.

Deviant

I have a similar nightmare, every winter for the last 19 years. I'm riding some epic park and hit a jump 3x too fast and watch the landing go by as I'm still going up.

This is actually a good technique for any hard landing/crash. Exhaling upon impact (for me anyways) keeps me from knocking the wind out of myself, which to me hurts more than a sprain, bump or bruise. I absolutely hate that feeling. Anytime I'm going to hit hard I'll let out a loud grunt, like a GRRRR! upon impact and it's worked so far.

Although it's not a true knuckle landing between both feet, if you feel like you are going to come up just a little short you can kinda bone or push out your front leg and get the board a little more further forward. Word to the wise though, DO NOT land in the full melancholy position with your front leg tweaked like that or you're in for some serious pain, this is only for when you're about to case your back foot on the knuckle. It's difficult to explain but once you do it once you'll understand.

From my experience, taking a knee to the chin is when you kinda just give up and let the crash happen. I'd say it's safe to assume most of us aren't hitting these 100 foot super-kickers we see on TV. With that knee to chin impact it's basically just collapsing into the knuckle upon impact. Remember your legs are strong, and like when riding sloppy stuff at higher speeds you can use your legs as shock absorbers. Or think of it like jumping off a ledge, you're not going to just hit and let your body fold onto itself, so don't do it on a park jump. Don't close your eyes, brace yourself for the impact and watch it come so you can prepare yourself accordingly, hearing (and feeling) the "clack" of your upper and lower teeth smacking together is not a good feeling.

Ok last thing, and maybe I'm overthinking it because of a night of too many PBRs, but thought I'd add this in. For you newer riders hitting progression park stuff. Not only pay attention to the approach, starting point, and speed of other riders hitting a jump, pay attention to the rider themselves. If you see a younger kid pointing it heading towards a jump, it doesn't mean it will work for you too. A smaller kid will need more speed making it to the landing than an adult. Around here progression park stuff is a shorter landing and you'll need to judge your speed accordingly. Usually hitting a knuckle on that stuff won't hurt nearly as bad as a larger park jump so watch your speed going into it, don't be self-conscious about coming up short on your first hit because those of us on the chairlift have always seen much worse, lol. Same goes for different weather conditions. If it's dumping and you need to point it to get the the landing ok, but don't do the same on hardpack. Seems like a moot point to make but honestly have seen people do it around here and overshoot horribly.