Originally Posted by Snowolf

Quite common actually and the leading cause of this is the fact that the human body is designed to flex more on the toeside. When on heelside, we don't have the range of motion in our lower body joints we do when toeside. Heelside chatter is always 90% due to being too stiff.

To help reduce this, use more dynamic movements; especially timing your flexion and extension. Use a down unweight for making your edge changes instead of an up unweight that almost every high level intermediate rider uses. The down unweight allows for earlier and more positive edge engagement early in the turn. As you work the top of the turn, slowly extend to set that edge. As you pass through the apex of the turn, you need begin to flex again. This flexing action makes your legs more loose and this will absorb a lot of that chatter. Anytime chatter happens, bend something! Always get loose to quiet chatter.




Typically, people hesitate on toeside turn initiation and this could be happening to you. The last statement you made also clues us in to where a problem may lay. In trees and bumps, your shoulders should not be aligned with the hips knees and the board. Tree and mogul riding requires the most dynamic riding skill of all. There should be a lot of upper and lower body separation to make these short radius dynamic skidded turns in this environment. Your shoulders should be pointing down the fall line while you allow the lower spine to swivel. The fully aligned turn is not effective enough to control your board in the conditions described. Get more dynamic and allow upper and lower body separation.




This is called using good fore-aft movements and these movements are critical for making smooth, controlled turns on steep terrain. It only takes a lack of fear to straight line a steep, not skill. True skill is being able to make fairly consistent turn shapes on gnarly steeps. Among other thing and the thing the CASI instructor as eluding to is this fore aft movement.

Basically, as we all know when you initiate a turn on steep terrain we need to get more flexed and forward toward the nose. Problem is, the intermediate ride believes this where they need to ride all of the time. Nope! There is a time to be aft on your board and that is steep terrain.

So, shift to the nose to initiate the turn. As the board travels through the turn, before apex, shift your weight aft. This will feel like you squirted the board out ahead of you and you are riding the tail. After apex through the bottom of a turn, you want to be aft to prevent the tail from skidding and it is much more effective to finish a turn while aft.

Hope that helps actually open up more questions for this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to advanced dynamic riding....

Originally Posted by Snowolf

An up unweight is very similar to a pop. Most intermediate riders rise up to switch edges then drop back down into riding position and stay fairly static.

A down unweight is a very similar to a retraction where the rider flexes the legs rapidly and the upper body drops toward the board. When this happens, there is momentary near weightlessness of the board just like the pop that allows for quick, easy edge release and re engagement.

The advantage of the down unweight is the fact that it allows the rider to set their edge early and in a very positive manner in a fully flexed position from which they can slowly extend (rise) through the apex of the turn (fully extended and widest part of the turn). This extension, pressures the edge and increase rate of turn and provides for greater edge hold.

After apex, through the bottom of the turn, the rider starts flexing down again. This movements helps quiet board chatter and skid through the bottom of the turn. As the board crosses the fall line, the rider drops the rest of the way to full flex through a retraction of the legs and the process repeats again.

When the rider uses this correctly with proper timing in conjunction with proper fore-aft movements, the result are incredible for high performance turn on very challenging terrain.