Tail press...Board sliding under butt

[yojik]

Hi everyone - Been working on holding presses longer and I'm finding that the board likes to slide under my butt and therefore put me into a toeside slash.

Any tips on preventing this from happening? I'm trying to project my weight down into one point on the tail like in the Snowboard Addiction videos but the board washes out anyway.

[Bayoh]

Dunno if this'll help. For me, when I started learning how to tail press, it helped to look straight back with my torso facing uphill to keep my weight centered. Once I got a feel for how to balance my weight properly I had an easier time just leaning back to achieve the press.

[slyder]

your body weight is not completely centered. Your actually initiating a turn as you are leaning to your toe-side and starting to carve and once the board starts to bite it is coming around hard. The "slash" you are referring to. Since we know that in the past you have been toe-side heavy put some extra effort into leaning more on your heels. More than likely your upper body is centered more over your edge not ontop of the center of the board.

Can a buddy video tape you from behind. This would really help in recognizing where your body position truely is

[hhaidar]

a few things to think about. are you breaking (bending) at the waist? If so you're probably going to turn towards the toe edge, keep that upper body straight. Try to shift your hips straight back (towards the tail) so that your back foot, hip, and shoulder make a straight line.
one other thing that sometimes help me smooth out presses is to think about "flattening" my back foot inside the boot...think about having your toes spread out and your foot flat, this will transfer to the snow.
Finally, try looking further ahead of you while you do your press, it helps...a lot. Go back to somewhere really gradual to get the press on lockdown before you go back to doing it on any kind of steeper terrain. Being on something mellow i.e. almost flat, will let you relax and experiment w/movements. just some things to try, hope it helps!

[Leo]

Just to add...

There are two methods of pressing... one is the lean method and the other is the lift method. The lift method is easiest with a soft board. Find a good balance between both methods.

Also, for myself, it helps to turn my torso towards the front. It's a sort of counter-rotation to prevent slipping toe-side. You can also spread your arms out to both sides to help with balance.

How do you initiate your tail presses? I like to nollie into mine. It's actually easier than pressing from flat basing, plus I think it adds style points.

You can do some cool stuff once you get your balance down. I like to grab my tail when I press. My buddy does this weird-looking, but sick press where he bends all the way back down and has rear palm down on the tail with this elbow bending outwards. Play around with it then work on your nose presses next.

[yojik]

I think it comes from getting a little lazy and not really using the heel to help press. I'll work harder next time to keep the weight distributed evenly over heel + toe.