Just with a quick view of that video, I'd wager people are going to recommend you ride with a more athletic stance.

The first toe side turn you do in that video, your legs are completely straight and this will certainly prevent you from keeping your balance while riding.

You would need to bend your knees more and be "at the ready position" (many sports have this position when you're waiting/anticipating a sudden movement. No need to bend at the waist, just bend at the ankles and knees and keep your upper body relaxed.

 

another trick is to take your front shoulder, raise that arm parallel to the snow, and point it straight downhill. every time you want to turn, point that hand in the direction you want to turn. this will teach you to open and close your hips and shoulders more smoothly.

your hips are your center of gravity so all full body movements start there, and it applies to boarding as well. your legs are just the conduit between your hips and the board.

watch somebody good ride and you'll notice that on both toe and heelside turns their hips are in the exact same position and height from the snow. the lean of the turns just depends on the speed of the rider and thhe degree of the turn.

as far as the steeps go, the best way i caan describe it is to think of it like driving a manual vehicle. you can "feel" when its time to shift because of the tension in the engine. its the same with steeps turns. you can "feel" when the force of the turn allows the greatest transfer of energy to the ensuing turn.

that is a bit of an advanced technique though. i suggest mastering your turns before trying steep turns.

i hope this helps

 

another trick is to take your front shoulder, raise that arm parallel to the snow, and point it straight downhill. every time you want to turn, point that hand in the direction you want to turn. this will teach you to open and close your hips and shoulders more smoothly.

I think this might have been like an older way of teaching how to link turns, but its been discouraged because pointing isnt really that responsive. It might eventually make you start to turn, but it will have to go from your shoulder, down your body, to your hips, then to your legs which takes a while and is not really how you should snowboard. Heres a good vid to watch, pretty cheesy though

Link snowboard turns -- SnowProfessor.com

The biggest problem i see with your linking turns is that you are "ruddering" your back foot, essentially steering with it, when you are supposed to steer with your front foot. This is why a lot of snow gets kicked up every time you turn toeside, which can make you easily catch an edge and fall. When your going straight and want to turn toeside, just put pressure on the toe edge of the front foot, and as you start turning (and you will if you are doing it right) then commit with the whole body.

 

bend those knees and steer with your shoulders, easy peezy butter steezy
also be confident: if you think you're going to fall, you're going to fall it's that simple. just think "I am about to put this mountain in it's place which is under my feet"

 

Kingscare: I always hear my dude yelling to me "BEND YOUR KNEES!!!" Works fine on heelside..don't know what happens on toes. The videos are great because I get to look at what I've done and say...OH thaaat's why i ate shit! Thank you!




Dude...I think my main issue is I'm in my head..I'm gonna say that to myself

The Rome Blue is a pretty stiff freeride board and might not be the best deck for timid riders still learning to turn confidently. I was having the same problem so I ditched my Arbor Eden for the softer Ride Rapture. My riding was instantly better. I bought the Ride on sale, knowing I would probably outgrow it within a season, so now it's my rock board.

Thanks Lilfoot, if I had done that anytime last season would have been cool, but dude I love my Rome, she's been good to me and I learned everything I know with her, she's responsive, holds the edges like a champ, and when i master what i'm asking her to do..she'll do it. I'm not backing down from her, I want to rise up to meet her. I rented several different boards before I picked up the Rome. I do want to try out a softer board soon though, when I'm ready to progress and start taking little jumps, but not until I ride my Rome right! The board isn't the issue, my form is.


Snowolf!!! What can I say, your advice and encouragement has been invaluable to me every step of the way. I have always tried to remember to apply that pressure to the first foot first and let the back follow like you advised last season. I watched your videos over and over and the way in which you explain everything gives me effective tools I can (and have!) applied on the mountain. Many thanks!!! I will conquer it...I want it so bad, more than anything I have ever wanted. Oh yeah...what the hell is going on with my arm... it's spastic!!! :dunno:

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice, next vid I post, I'll be down and dirty using that torso with the mountain under my feet like "easy peezy butter steezy" [that said with the utmost respect to the mountain, I understand I am just a passenger and I sm ever humbled and grateful for the rides.] !!!

Peace and love!

 

The Rome Blue is a pretty stiff freeride board and might not be the best deck for timid riders still learning to turn confidently. I was having the same problem so I ditched my Arbor Eden for the softer Ride Rapture. My riding was instantly better. I bought the Ride on sale, knowing I would probably outgrow it within a season, so now it's my rock board.

 

The ideal riding is done with a quiet upper body. You control your board from the waist down and balance from the waist up......

I don't see that as entirely true. It depends on the rider and their feel for the board.
See a "quiet" upper body would only be needed for the rider who is trying to steer too much with the torso not allowing the body and board to twist as it does when you're linking turns. But as for initiating the turn, you need to point your shoulder in the direction you want the nose to steer because it presets your body for a smooth transition to the edge of the board. :thumbsup:
learning the turn if far from perfecting it.

 

But as for initiating the turn, you need to point your shoulder in the direction you want the nose to steer because...

need to? i disagree. i can absolutely initiate a turn without pointing my shoulder in the direction of the turn. so i don't need to do that.

as ever i agree wth snowolf. there's nothing wrong with subtly leading with the hand or the shoulder but if there's any suggestion that this is (primarily) the movement which is actually translating into board performance, conventional wisdom (and the aasi) consider it poor technique. do people do it? yes. it is necessary? no.

alasdair

 

wow I'd like to see you ride b/c I know that if you were trying to turn without turning your shoulders, yes even subtly as you and snowolf say, then I think you'd have problems. Seriously, try using orange tape and put it on your front shoulder, if that shit doesn't move perceptibly the direction before the board turns, I'd be surprised. And like I said, if you're doing those short C turns it's easy to steer with the lower body so your shoulders don't do as much. but if you're just learning, or even having trouble with your turns, I doubt that overusing your shoulders is an issue.

 

yes, for the short C shaped turns you want your feet to do most of the board control while your upper body remains on a balance, but if you want to lay down some nice long graceful carves then you need to steer with your front shoulder. That doen't mean control. that just means where you want the board to point. it doesn't put any pressure on the edges; you need to lean forward or backward to do that. but the nastiest wipeouts happen when someone tries to engage their edge without pointing their shoulder at their intended target first. essentially it means get your upper body engaged, not just your head or your eyes.

 

i'll agree to disagree. have a great day.

alasdair

 

if the shoulders are perfectly aligned with the board the whole time, how does that make me incorrect?

 

because you can't "point your shoulder in the direction you want the nose to steer" and still have your shoulders perfectly aligned with the board. they are mutually exclusive.

alasdair

 

Did I say rotate? hmmmm
Maybe everyone is just confused and I conceed since I have not been generous enough to distinguish subtlties.
I feel with my feet, so I don't really make conscious decisions to "steer" with them, I just know that generally where my shoulder is pointing that's where I'm going and I start with that.

 

Youre not making much sense. At first you say to point with your shoulder and thats where you will go. Then you say you turn with your feet, and that your shoulder happens to be pointing the way youre going. Obviously, if you make a toe or heelside turn using feet etc and torsional flex as snowolf and others have stated, your shoulder is going to rotate after because your whole body is rotating.

Therefore, the fact that you even argued about this and brought up the whole "shoulder pointing" method would suggest that you mean to point your shoulder, which will steer in the direction you want to go. If you had agreed that turning with your feet is correct (and it is) then there would have been no disagreement.

 

is there something complicated about the concept I'm trying to project?

 

just passing on some advice that I've found helpful.

 

yup, like I said, confused b/c I didn't distinguish subtlties. I dunno you're the instructor I'm sure you've helped more people than I have, I just remember that steering with my feet didn't do me any favors when I was starting out b/c keeping my body centered on the board used to be a problem for me especially on steep runs. it wasn't until my bro said "steer with your shoulders" that I really started getting the hang of it. so maybe it's just psychological.

 

^ you know, you're obviously free to ride (and explain how to ride) however the hell you like. the reason that snowolf and myself (and the entire aasi) are very deliberate in explaining and teaching in such a defined, structured way is that it's fundamental. if you build a solid platform of good fundamentals, then people can build on that successfully with well-considered progressions which demonstrably improve people's riding.

you can duct tape your feet to the board and fishtail all the way down the trail, throwing your upperbody round to steer the tail of your board all the way if you like. when you try to take your riding to the next level - say, on more challenging terrain - you're going to hit the limit of your technique and, possibly, hurt yourself.

i'm not sure i'm very sympathetic to your new "don't shoot the messenger" position. you have to take some responsibility as you chose to be the messenger in the first place...

alasdair

 

wow no one was confused except you and snowolf. and seeing as both of you put words into my mouth, I hardly see it as my fault for delivering advice that helped me progress into the snowboarder I am today. I'm always looking for ways to improve myself, but don't misinterpret me, you guys seem smart enough to avoid doing that.

basically I said, this works. then snowolf said, no it doesn't. if I wanted the guy to rotate his shoulders, I would have said, rotate your shoulders. but i didn't. I said point. if you point with your front shoulder that connotates a whole sequence of motions for me, but if it doesn't for you, don't try to sell me this "your technique will limit your riding" crap because I'm not buying it.

 

wow no one was confused except you and snowolf.

I am very much still a beginning boarder and what you were saying seemed to contradict what Snowolf was saying. I also interpreted what you were saying as to rotate your shoulder to the direction you want to turn.

 

sorry for that. I'm pretty sure I posted first and well that's my advice take it or leave it.

 

The ideal riding is done with a quiet upper body. You control your board from the waist down and balance from the waist up......

and really I could be wrong but isn't balancing part of controlling the board?

 

A rider can transition from edge to edge all day long and do so aggressively so long as that board is tracking true with no side slip. You start rotating shoulders and you are going to pivot the board and hook a leading edge.

One more thing - my dude had me try this put your arms out like i'm doing ballet or some shit and use my head and
shoulders to turn...and like clockwork....I caught that edge... Haard..every single effing time. After years of dancing, yoga and pilates, the flexibility and isolation of my body did not allow for this. I told him that shit was not working, unless the end result required me to eat mass amounts of snow at random periods throughout the run... now I know why. He said that's how his peoples taught him that way, but it always felt weird and wrong every time I tried.

 

Couple points

To the OP :
Alot of advice(both good and bad) have been given to you. But, this is what I saw in the video :
1. You ride with your weight a little back. This is causing your front leg to be stiffer than your back. Collapse that front leg to bring your weight forward. This will allow you to twist the board like SnowWolf has said. With your front leg so stiff, you can't move your knee to generate twist.
2. Your weight looks like it is staying on heelside even when on your toeside turn. In the first toeside turn in the video, you moved your weight to toeside and made a nice toeside turn, but you moved it too far to toeside so you lost balance and fell. Take the movement you did in that first toeside turn and dial it back a bit, make it smaller and softer.
3. When you change edges to toeside, you aren't following through with hips and shoulders. Your hips and shoulders stay rotated to heelside while you are on toeside. Try turning your hips and shoulders A LITTLE ahead of the board in your toeside turn like they are in your heelside.

To SnowWolf :

For Dynamic Skidded turns, the rider rides down the grade with his shoulder basically pointed straight down the hill while the hips and lower body move underneath him making completed short radius C shaped turns. The rider is controlling the board 100% from the waist down.

Be careful with comments like this. You are describing one way to make a dynamic skidded turn. Really, any turn when the distance between the board and the riders hips changes is dynamic. It really doesn't have much to do with the upperbody. Personally, I use shoulder and hip rotation alot on steeps and bumps in the middle, "control" portion of the turn. But that's probably a topic for another thread.

As far as the arguement, I think we can all agree that some shoulder/hip rotation is ok, its more a question of the intensity of the movement.....

 

To the OP :
Alot of advice(both good and bad) have been given to you. But, this is what I saw in the video :
1. You ride with your weight a little back. This is causing your front leg to be stiffer than your back. Collapse that front leg to bring your weight forward. This will allow you to twist the board like SnowWolf has said. With your front leg so stiff, you can't move your knee to generate twist.
2. Your weight looks like it is staying on heelside even when on your toeside turn. In the first toeside turn in the video, you moved your weight to toeside and made a nice toeside turn, but you moved it too far to toeside so you lost balance and fell. Take the movement you did in that first toeside turn and dial it back a bit, make it smaller and softer.
3. When you change edges to toeside, you aren't following through with hips and shoulders. Your hips and shoulders stay rotated to heelside while you are on toeside. Try turning your hips and shoulders A LITTLE ahead of the board in your toeside turn like they are in your heelside.

Thanks for the advice! Everything you're saying is spot on. On that first turn i felt that..I leaned all the way onto the snow! My head and shoulders do have that tendency to stay isolated while the rest of me carries on (not good!). My instructor on my first lessons saw I was struggling with this, he said sometimes people who do yoga and/or dance, etc. are more flexible and struggle with this method. but then again...that's how he was trying to teach me with that wrong method and I don't have enough experience to know if his whole flexibility was legit or horseshit, in retrospect i think it's quite possible he was just whistling dixie :dunno: Felt wrong then still wrong now. The back foot is something I have certainly struggled with. This season I've tried to make it a point to be more aware of my body so I'm working on it. Thanks for taking the time to check out the vid and for the helpful suggestions!

If you're having trouble bending your knees during toe side turns and not getting in that athletic position. Just concentrate on pushing your shins against the large tongue of your boots. The position is very comfortable and with the way snowboard boots are made it feels very natural.

That sounds familiar...my entire 3rd day ever my dude took me to the top (Cornice Bowl in Mammoth) and I toesided the whole way down. Yes..ass first for the 1.5 hours it took me to get down! :laugh: He always new it was me coming, I was the only one facing up the mountain. But point of the story is, when my legs got tired (there's a fucking surprise) i just leaned on my boots to give them a break. Good tip!

Snowolf what can I say? Thank you for the great tips and exercises, I will put them to use this weekend (DUMPING IN MAMMOTH ) You explain things so concisely and all of your advice is always constructive, positive and purposeful. [Insert Namaskar smiley]

Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to respond!

 

If you're having trouble bending your knees during toe side turns and not getting in that athletic position. Just concentrate on pushing your shins against the large tongue of your boots. The position is very comfortable and with the way snowboard boots are made it feels very natural.

 

I know I am late to the party (no time to hit up message boards), but since our site & videos were referenced I figure I should say my piece.

The reason modern American (AASI) instructors don't like the shoulder method is that it is inefficient. Snowolf said balance from the waist up & turn from the waist down. I would mofiy that the say turn from the FEET up and balance with the whole body. Whatever you do with your feet goes right to the board with no "middle men" (the rest of your body).

Does shoulder steering work? Yes, that's how we USED to teach. There are lots of ways to snowboard, what AASI strives for is the most efficient and simple. Efficient means more time on the hill and less fatigue.

To the OP:
BEND YOUR KNEES!!
For the steeper runs (all runs) try to keep your shoulders and hips parallel with the snow. As the slope gets steeper, many riders level their shoulder to the horizon and get in the back seat, making it hard to turn.

Look around the entire how to snowboard series on our site. There is even a video that might give you some stance ideas to try.

Have fun!

--rick
SnowProfessor.com

 

THANKS !!!!! Man, i had a great couple of days and i really got to work on not just my overall riding, but my powder riding...another thing...the powder i rode yesterday and today forced me to dig in, and use the right form. I was super aware of my body position and the difference in the rhythm of the ride when my upper body was quiet )) and the rest of me just got down. Every time i sketched and tried to force the toeside turn in the powder today...no bueno! I wish i had video, but conditions were super shitty for that.

I couldn't wait to update this post today because, as it happens, I heard 2 different sets of people saying "you need to turn with your shoulder!" It really is vital to progression to be taught the correct form and body trajectory (is that the right word??? :dunno: )

Giving the right information to people who are really willing to invest the time and effort in learning and going forward is invaluable. Breaking bad form and bad habits are wicked hard and brutally painful....

Thanks to everyone here who takes the time to really make sure the right info/tips/advice is given.

 

Maybe someone can tell me if this is wrong...i'd like to hear from someone like Snowolf...

The thing that helped me best on toe side turns was stopping myself from trying to push down with my toes and instead use my lower shins to basically push into the tongue of my boot if that makes sense...it seemed to really help me keep my balance more for faster carves...

 

Took the words out of my mouth. I bend my knees (more aggressively for more aggressive carving/skidding) then push with my shins. This is a prime example of why getting the right boots is so important. Same concept for heelside.

As for learning how to effectively do toesides, I personally practiced my toeside stops. I would get a good amount of speed and come to a complete toeside stop. The speed forced me to do an aggressive stop which meant I had to lean forward a lot more. I am not talking racer speeds or anything, just a good momentum. That is how I became comfortable with aggressive toeside leans. On steeps, I like to put my fist into the snow while I do toeside turns. Sort of leverage I guess, but for me it is just purely for fun. I don't recommend it though as a beginner. You might do some bad damage to the hand/arm if you bite it.

 

Ok good, lol. Chances are i heard it in one of your videos or read it here somewhere and started doing it..it really made a huge difference.
For some reason when I pushed with my toes, i can get sort of ...confused? If that makes sense..where one foot is going toeside and the other is heelside...usually when im going fast and concentrating on not falling...which im sure is very bad...now its not really possible using my shins.

 

Be careful though with this leaning. Often a newer rider gets into a really bad habit of using lean (inclination) as their only turning method and they do not use good lower body flexion (hips, knees and ankles). The steeper the terrain, the more you need to remember to lower your front shoulder and shift your body weight down the hill toward the nose of the board.

A good exercise to do for really getting the feel of this toe down pressure is to be riding across the flats in a straight line and play around with it. With only the front foot, apply slight pressure to the edge by pushing the toes down on the foot bed of the boot, then releasing. Doing this will give you feel of how a very subtle movement of the toes can steer the board. Once you get this concept and incorporate it into your riding with the other turn initiation tactics, your toes become your "fine tuning adjustment" Lean and driving the knee forward into the tongues of the boots is the power behind it, but these subtle movements really clean it up and make it a precise and smooth, stable turn.

You need to move to Michigan

But yah, as I said I don't recommend what I do for beginners. This was just a way of getting rid of that "sketch" feeling I had when I do aggressive leans. I'd say being able to learn how to link turns effectively was one of the most rewarding feelings of snowboarding. I still remember when I learned how to do it. I was ecstatic!

 

The two basic techniques here are known as Inclination and Angulation. Inclination is this aggressive lean; also known as a cross over turn. You lean your entire body to edge the board. Works very well in smooth, firm snow. Angulation is using flex of the ankles, knees and hips to edge the board while keeping the body over the board. Very effective in very soft snow and on hard or icy snow. Anytime edge hold is questionable, you should employ Angulation rather than Inclination...:thumbsup:

Great tip. I am usually in firm snow here in Michigan. I do have some rare powder days and you are absolutely correct. The lean does not work in that situation. Slush too. It's more like surfing in water in those cases. Lean too much and you wipe out. :thumbsup: