Originally Posted by SnowMotion

4)Take lessons (yes i'm a coach and bias but)Its worth it. I was a self taught rider and it took me 6 years to pick up what I can teach someone in a day or two. So it is worth it! Here is a few tips on getting your moneys worth. Ask about the instructors when you sign up. Find out who has been teaching there the longest or who has the most experience with your level riders. When you understand how something is done and how it feels when you are doing it right or wrong. Ask the instructor to move on and you will practice on your own time. They are trained to get you back for more lessons not give you as much info as possible and you practice for free. Last thing if anyone teaches you something called "the falling leaf" get your money back.

Originally Posted by Snowolf

Going to chine in here on this point as an 8 year AASI instructor. AASI has in fact dropped the falling leaf from their teaching progression too for the same reasons that Snow Motion speaks about. I totally agree with your point about how and why in a lesson progression the falling leaf can do the things you speak of but what AASI has discovered is those same things can be accomplished with Garlands.

When two years ago the ski school I worked at told us to stop teaching the falling leaf I was pretty skeptical myself but in the last two years, I have found that I have had a better success rate of getting more people in group lessons linking turns in their first never ever lesson using garlands instead of leafing.

As for the personal comments about Snowmotion, you do not know their history or personal relationships they have with area mountains so you are merely working off of speculation here not fact....

Originally Posted by MGD81

A garland is a more aggressive falling leaf. To say 1 is obsolete and the other is a great teaching tool makes no sense to me. Its all about the way you teach it. I teach something probably in the middle of the two, not much flat-basing on our sideslip hill as its purposefully steep and our clients tend to be more fragile than most resorts. But the twist/fore/edge control movements are still there.

And your right, I don't know the details. I do however know that if you try and teach in CO you will get arrested, and I do know that there aren't many GM's of ski resorts that are going to be happy with you taking away their most profitable source of income.

Originally Posted by Snowolf

A Garland is not really just an "aggressive falling leaf". It teaches the rider to ride in one direction where the falling leaf is 50% switch which can further confuse students on the whole regular/goofy thing and creates horrible habits if the student takes no further lessons. The Garland also gets the rider used to pointing the nose down the hill and steering it back up the hill instead of keeping the board across the fall line the entire time. Not bashing you here at all so don`t take it that way.

Originally Posted by dreampow

Can you describe this garland concept in more detail please?

I have taught 6 or 7 friends the basics and always used falling leaf because thats how my buddy taught me.

People who have good balance get past it in half a day or less and its all good while some people tend to get stuck in it.

In those cases I can see how its a crutch and stops progress.

If there is a better way it would be good to know.

Originally Posted by Snowolf

Cro nailed it...

To add to his answer, The Garland turn is generally started from the sideslip position with the board across the fall line. The rider should shift their weight to their front foot and relax the front foot so as to release any uphill edge pressure. This allows the nose of the board to begin to slip downhill and allow the board to begin to move. The rider allows the nose to almost point straight down the fall line then they will use the front foot to pressure their edge and twist the board to steer it back across the fall line. They can either come to a complete stop and repeat or they can learn to slow down and release again.

This teaches them to torsionally steer the board with the front foot as well as allow them to gain experience at turn initiation without fully committing to making a complete turn. Garlands should be done heelside and toeside. Once the rider is comfortable allowing the board to point straight down the fall line for a couple of seconds before steering back across it, they are ready to make completed linked turns.

The main reason these are so much better than falling leafing is because this exposes the new rider to being on the board with it pointed down the fall line and steering it back out of this position to slow down and stop. With the falling leaf, most new riders fear letting it point too far down the fall line and this creates a mental block that can be a bitch to overcome especially if the rider is timid or fearful.

As Snow Motion said, basic snowboarding is ridiculously simple. The biggest obstacle to learning to link turns is simple fear and hesitation. The Garland turn gets the new rider to face their fears and overcome them quickly whereas the falling leaf actually enhances their fear of pointing the board down the hill. The Garland also teaches the rider to ride their board directionally instead of the constant switching between regular and goofy. This switching back and forth at this stage of learning to ride is a major inhibitor of progression and the new rider may go for a very long time with no clue as to whether they are regular or goofy.

Originally Posted by dreampow

Falling leaf has a place, not in a lesson, but its not always a bad thing. I started doing falling leaf toeside and heelside.

By lunch on day 1 I was linking turns on green runs without hardly falling. Day 2 I was negotiating blues and some ungroomed blue pistes with 2 feet of powder.

Certainly doing falling leaf for too long is counter productive, but I think it helped me to grasp the feel and balance of being on either edge before linking turns.