[Legendaryl]

Hi everyone, I am facing an issue with my heel edge. I have no problem with my toe edge turning with pencil line trail. However, whenever I turn to my heel edge, I feel I am unable to maintain pencil line turns across the mountain. I, in the end sliding my turn according to ‘1’ in the image:

However, whenever I do ‘2’, it feels very weird and I have to actively close/turn my left shoulder (I’m regular) towards the right. But this feeling make me feel weird and throws my balance and “squat” off balance

Any advice would be much appreciated please🙏🏻

thank you in advance!!!

 

[Legendaryl]

It sounds like you are having difficulty maintaining the same smooth turns on your heel edge that you are able to do on your toe edge. This is a common problem for snowboarders, especially beginners or those who have been riding for a short time.
There could be several reasons why you are struggling with your heel edge turns. It could be related to your stance or body position, your technique, or the condition of the snow or terrain you are riding on.
One way to improve your heel edge turns is to focus on your weight distribution and body position. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed between your front and back foot, and keep your knees bent and your body facing down the slope.
Another technique that can be helpful is to practice skidding turns on your heel edge. Start by traversing across the slope on your heel edge, then gradually increase the angle of your board until you start to skid and slide. Practice controlling your speed and direction by adjusting the amount of pressure you put on your edges.
Finally, it's important to remember that learning to snowboard takes time and practice. Don't get discouraged if you don't master heel edge turns right away. Keep practicing, and you'll eventually develop the skills and confidence you need to ride with ease.


Regenerate response

Thanks for the advices. Will keep in mind and keep practicing!

 

[Legendaryl]

It sounds like you are counter-rotating your body (upper body twisting in a different direction to your lower body).

For toeside to heelside transition for a regular rider, you should be opening your front shoulder to the left in the same direction of your turn (not twisting it to the opposite direction to the right - that is counter rotation and will throw off your balance).

You may be counter-rotated on your toeside edge as well. For toeside turns your shoulder should be turning to the right and you aren't able to look directly down the hill. Many people want to see directly downhill with on toeside so they end up counter rotating their body. Keep the correct body position with shoulder aligned and just look across the slope.

Try riding with your hands on your hips focusing on keeping your upper body inalign with your lower body.

Do your turns slower on mellower terrain! (counter rotation often happens when someone is riding too fast and trying to force a turn around quicker or scrub speed). To start do slow turns with with entire body align: first looking where you want to go, point your shoulder in that same direction, and hips and knees will follow. Always keep your shoulder inalign with your board. Once you are comfortable with keeping everything inalign, then can try turning more with knees/ankles.

For toe to heel, your front knee will open to the left and your foot will twist to left to make the turn. Using the lower joints will make the turn happen faster but if you are counter-rotating, you need to fix that first by focusing on keeping the position of your upper body align with your lower body.

Here is a good video on basics of turning:

You can't get a good carve while counter-rotated, so once that part is fixed you should feel your riding improve a lot.

Thanks! I don’t think I’m counter-rotating though. But nonetheless I’ll practice what you have said and internalise that video. Appreciate it!

 

[Legendaryl]

Along with the other good advice in this thread, are your boots centered properly on your board or are they too far toeside? Can you post pictures?

 

[Legendaryl]

Yep. I'm yet to even start using ChatGPT, but reading this answer my thought was "this is exactly how I imagine chatGPT answering this question".

So I'll do a purely human answer: The OP said:

This to me doesn't mean you have to close your front shoulder and counter rotate. In my opinion, it probably means you ride with a pronounced duck stance but have a reflex of tucking your back knee inside when turning heeledge, while riding probably a board that is torsionally soft between the feet. This tucking the back knee applies torsion to your board, generating less edge angle under the back foot than under the front foot, causing the oversteering. Another possibility is that your basic stance might actually be facing too much forward for your binding angles.
When closing your front shoulder, you actually realign your torso and put less pressure on the back knee, which in turn generates less torsion to the board, so less oversteering.

If it's what I think, here are possible workarounds:

• consiously try to keep the knees well separated (still feels wierd at first, but less than closing the front shoulder)
• ride with a less pronounced duck stance
• some other points mentionned actually work, but if your problem is too much torsion, they are lower priority in my opinion.

Anyway this is just my opinion based on your drawing and quick description, and that is in no way any more valid than any other opinion expressed there. Except the one of ChatGPT. ChatGPT has no snowboarding experience.

@money4me247 @QReuCk2 - thanks for your both detailed response. I will look into the video by Malcom Moore. Not saying I completely did not counter-rotate, but I am very conscious of it and have had instructors as well as other people riding with me and not pointing out that I have a severe counter-rotating issue that would have caused it. That said, I'm definitely not a super proficient rider and not saying I didn't counter-rotate but I don't think the whole issue is sole based on it. However, I think what @QReuCk2 said had made sense and felt like what the issue is for me; it could be my weight distribution? Could be my binding angles and stance width? as I have pointed out that the HeelEdge "sitting/getting low/not breaking at waist while bending low" feels very weird and awkward whenever I "squat/sit/get low/not slouching/not bending at waist"... It definitely did not feel natural and could be my back leg stance angle and width? Also, it could be I'm naturally leaning on my back foot more and not having equal weight distribution?

How do I fix that weird feeling on heel side? How is it suppose to feel? Or is it supposed to feel weird?

Please see this link for a similar heel traverse that I am doing. (this guy is not me, and is an instructor who's doing that on purpose for other purposes for his video, but I happened to see the similar way the board(back leg) slides/skids instead of drawing a pencil line).

Heelside turn.mp4

drive.google.com

 

[Legendaryl]

Nice! I personally rarely have had this convenience. Have you tried asking them to film you? I think posting such a film here would go a long way in helping diagnose your issues.

EDIT: Looks like your most recent post w/video was about 8 months ago - [Need help] Beginner's S-Turns

Updated video would help a lot - it’s unclear to me how much progress you might have made since then. How many days of riding have you had since?

Thanks. I'll have to source for the videos of me riding. Unfortunately, most of the time I'm riding by myself, so I don't have anyone taking videos of me.

Separately, can I ask if you guys have any tips/guides/video links for me to understand how does one heel turn while their shin is against the tongue of the boots? I don't have a video of myself, but from memory and muscle memory, I don't think that whenever I heel turn/on heel edge, my shin is pushed towards my tongue, instead I feel my shin is away from the tongue of the boot.

 

[Legendaryl]

@money4me247 Thanks for your long reply and I understand and watched a lot of videos and sort of "know" what I'm supposed to be doing vs. what I am 'able' to do. For e.g. (see attached image), I know I am supposed to push the shin forward with knees bent and lift my toes. But somehow I am unable to do that, especially lifting toes while "sited/squat" (not sure if its physical/anatomy issue?) - pushing shin forwards from the resultant of knees bending. Instead, whenever I bend my knees and "sit/squat" I can't seem to push my shin forward. I am the left photo (not drawn to scale for other parts of the body position, take it for what its worth to explain just solely the "shin" issue).

 

[Legendaryl]

Stance width / angles:
For stance width - if your board is the right size for you (weight-wise), just use reference stance. This is usually equal to slightly more than shoulder width apart type athletic stance that allows you to squat and stand up easily (usually the same length as your forearm). What is your weight, board length, and stance width?

Thanks for the detailed reply and guides. Will review it against my riding. Thanks a lot!
As for my stats.
Weight: 174lbs / 79kg
Board Length: 156cm
Stance width: 20.5" to 21.5" (played around)
Binding angles: Played with +18/-12, +15/-12, +15/-9, +12/-12, +9/-9.

 

[Legendaryl]

Found another video. This is when I was in Japan in December, though I went for another trip just 2 weeks back. This lap is me taking it slow (trying to focus on my technique) on red/blue runs (depending on which part of the globe).

Google Drive: Sign-in

Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

drive.google.com

For your advice and comments please

 

[Legendaryl]

Probably hips too far back / leaning too far back. You can even see it in your stick drawing, if your hips are more above your heel edge, you get the right position but sitting too far back, you can't get it. You also don't have to squat down that much for normal turns... people get more aggressively lower for high angle carving, but for a normal turns, you are not squatting down so far that your knees are up tp your waist.

I see. Yeah my drawing was not intended to be exactly as what it is, just the gist/concept of it as disclaimed. I drew it on iPhone with my fat finger. haha

But "Hips too far back/leaning too far back"? But if I don't lean back, I can't seem to "squat/sit" into the heel or keep my body upright. What do you mean by "if your hips are more above your heel edge, you get the right position but sitting too far back, you can't get it?"

Those are all pretty normal stance width and binding angles. Shouldn't be causing an issue if you feel comfy with it.

Yeah im comfortable with most of these less then super duck stance.

Can't access it slash video doesnt open for me.

Apologies. ToBeUploaded.MP4