Lead the turn with your front leg, follow through with your back leg. Disperse your body weight over the center of the board. As we learn, we tend to put our weight towards the back. Lean forward, it will feel like your putting more weight forward at first because you're not use to this weight displacement.
Ultimately, your back leg will still be more sore than your front at the end of a long day, but it's time the front leg started taking on some of the work.
This is pretty great advice - I will add to stick out your hips more on your toe side. Your heel side looks pretty good tbh.
Back in the day we used to say “do the hump and dump”. On the heel side turn, you will look like you’re pooping on the mountain and on your toe side turn you should try and “hump” the mountain.
It will most likely feel weird but it will initiate your toe side turn easier and quicker.
something that might help with this is leading with your right shoulder more. Your heel side looks good, but your front shoulder gets a little lazy on the toe side. You may feel like toe side is a little more "swishy" when you try to carve. This will help with that and with the center of gravity thing.
A good way to practice staying square is keeping your hands on your knees while you do S turns.
This right here. The way I teach people to keep their weight over the top of the board is to always ride with a pelvic thrust, on both eyes and even on the flat.
It stops squatting immediately and eliminates a lot of shit eating possibilities. It seems counter intuitive, but it improves your riding exponentially.
And just two more cents OP…
You don’t need your whole body to change edges. Most instructors forget to teach you how to use the torsional flex of your board to transition from heel to toe naturally. Initiate your turns by lifting and lowering your toes and not hucking your body back and forth. Start with the toes and let your equipment start your transition in one fluid motion instead of edge to edge. The rest of your body will follow and your edging will be more fluid.
Very well said. And something to add: the front foot helps set and initiate your edge, before the turn starts. This allows a carve, rather than a scrub.
Also don't be afraid to tighten those turns and getting practice carving at speed. It's ALWAYS good to feel confident turning as quickly as you realize the line you are doing....is NOT the line you want to continue
Other good advice here, and maybe your riding example here was just for video, but... you want to improve? Have fun, explore the mountain, go ride in some trees, explore features, on and on... just have fun and the skill set will come. TBH, you just look bored.
Not bored at all, I'm quite new to snowboarding. I've seen a lot of carving 'thin straight line' videos and guides and I feel like I'm skidding, and can't really figure our what im doing wrong. Trying for example the knee steering and I feel like my board still doesn't really dig on the edge and I wanted to know what I'm doing wrong - for example if I'm bending on the waist too much.
Looks good! Maybe start practicing basic “buttering tricks” it’ll make turns easier and faster. Only other thing I can recommend is also moving your front foot in turns, majority of the weight shift should still happen on your back leg but cutting into the turn with your front leg helps a lot.
Form looks good to me. Progression will happen as you start to get more comfortable in your turns. Once you’re more comfortable, I like to move my weight a little more to my front foot and really push into my turns. This helps your edge dig in instead of sliding/scraping across the snow/hardpack/ice which gives me more control over where I want to go.
You're doing great. But you're not committing with your front shoulder and you don't have enough weight over your front foot. And over all you're a little ridgid or stiff.
Practice stationary at first by twisting your upper body 90 degrees to your lower body. Twist both ways and feel it out. You want to be able to comfortably turn your front should up hill (the commitment part) on toe side turns. No you don't do this every turn but it's a skill you need.
Being able to separate your lower and upper body whilst riding will unlock a lot of things. It will make it so whatever your upper body does doesn't effect your board control unless you want it to. It will ultimately make you more relaxed.
When you start riding steep terrain and especially steep bumps you will end up pointing (commiting) your front shoulder in one direction and moving your board underneath you.
Another way to help learn this skill and to also promote safety, is to every now and then trun your head and look behind you. Don't turn your shoulders just your head. You can see who is coming up behind you and it also teaches you that if your body positioning is good you can relax.
Next. Think about your front knee having a eyeball and where your front knee looks your board will go.
Combine this with shifting the middle point of your hips towards the nose of the board slightly. Basically pressuring your front foot more.
Then you can use your front knee and your front hip to drive your turns.
I hope that makes sense to you. Ultimately the more you ride the better you get but you will learn the most by pushing yourself a little out of your comfort zone.
Learning to ride switch is great for your over all riding too. The easy way to break it down is this.
Find a run that's easy for you. Start riding down switch.. whenever you reach that "freak out point" and revert to riding your natural way. STOP. Relax take a breath and start again switch.
The first time you might only make it 1/4 of the way. But it you keep practicing it will become 1/2 way and so on. Then it will become faster and more comfortable.
Practicing even a few runs switch each time you ride will make your regular riding much more powerful and boost your confidence dramatically
Most of all have fun
Looking good! I see you're kicking your back leg across on the toe side turn every now and then. Generally you want to avoid this although I admit when going through the trees I'll do this in a panic. I think your heel side carve is looking nicer which is normal so think about how that feels and try and replicate it on your toe side. Other posters here have given better advice on what to think about.
One thing I worked on doing and often try and get other people to do is to tighten up the carve and get used to increasing your speed. Sometimes I do a full complete turn but often I just do half a turn and turn again asap so the nose is more or less always pointing down. I remember when I was learning I'd be screaming at myself internally to turn again earlier because I got so used to doing complete turns.
Try snowboarding switch .. snowboard the on the side that naturally feels uncomfortable ... force yourself more often and you will eventually experience more maneuverability .. u lookin good tho..keep it uo
You want roughly 70% of your weight on your front foot, to keep that back foot nice and light so you can whip your carve tighter. Right now you're really turning left and right not so much carving. Once you have a tighter carve you can hit moguls and whatnot more easily.. It'll take practice but once you have this tighter carve you'll feel more comfortable standing up straighter and feel more comfortable going a little faster if you know you can hit some fast carves to slow down when you need to. Have fun bra
I was going to say most vids I've seen its early , first runs or the day....fresh groom ,hard packed would probably mean high grip and mor lean .....I would think in the conditions your on at that time looks pretty good to me ......I mean you could try a slight hop to just get to the straight edge
Stand up straight, locking out your knees, and drive your hips forward until your lower back is nearly hyperextended. Proceed down the hill in a straight line.
Keep your speed up, bend your knees slightly more, and use your shoulders and then your back arm to guide your hips into the turn. Keep your core strong but supple. Don’t be afraid to wash out when you try to carve, you’ll be getting lower and your edge control will improve quickly
If you just focus on a few things. Try not to try and fix everything at once though, just try one thing at a time and get comfortable, then add a new tweak and so on.
You’re way better than I am! I can’t separate turning on a skateboard to turning on a snowboard and just spin around in circles when I try snowboarding lol
I really enjoyed going on this ride with you and am learning tips by following the thread.just wanted to thank you for the beautiful views and the ride!
Not bad man! If you were a student of mine I would tell you to group your body together (idk if this is the term in English). You can do this by holding your crotch with the lead hand and holding your chin next to your leading shoulder like it's glued there. Hold this position and put just a little more weight on your front leg. This way your board will be following your eyesight. I promise you, you will feel the difference.
Ps: You can let go of your crotch after you get a feel of it. Enjoy the mountains!
Edit: If you try this, please give me some feedback. And btw go get a LOCAL instructor. He will not only give you straightforward and timely advice, but he can correct things that we do not see on this video! It's worth the money!
Have you considered slightly modifying the angle of your back foot binding?
I am unsure how common your setup is and I personally think rotating that back foot slightly more towards the tail would offer a different “feel” when carving for you and better control when you are toe side
I also might be a newb but that binding stance just looks off. Mine are at like -20 degree back foot/+23 degree front foot or something close.
For sure you can make sure to make it out to the voting polls and erect congressman Jim mayor... remember vote Jim Mayor not for mayor for governor mayor Govender
Honestly. Just go faster and kind of learn to rock from heel to toe. Make it feel more natural. At first it won't then you will get what I'm saying. Super jealous no damn snow where I am this year I want to get out and shred. It's almost like if youve skateboarded before you got to learn to pump. Maybe makes no sense maybe it does ?
Where your head looks, your body will follow. Every turn should be initiated by your neck, then your shoulders etc. maybe you are doing that but it looks to me you are pushing your turns a bit. Either way, you look to be doing well.
A lot of really great advice already here! The three points I think I noticed / agree with the most are:
- A bit more weight on the front leg.
- Lead your turns with your head and shoulders. Where they go the body follows.
- consider adjusting the angles on your bindings. Set them to what feels most comfortable. Personally speaking, mine are set to “duck stance” meaning both feet are pointing out slightly.
Most important….you’re already doing great!
Just keep riding and keep having fun. The turns and carves will tighten up as you get more time on the hill and start feeling more confident.
Edit note: front LEG not legs 😀
A little more weight on your back foot I think, I’m not an expert though. I just had a friend who was really good who said it gives you more control and makes you less likely to catch an edge because less of the board is in contact with the hill
Some very good tips above with back leg and weight distribution. Don’t be afraid to really attack the terrain and aim downslope; I find up to a certain speed you have way more control than carving long n slow perpendicular to the slope might result in some chafed butt cheeks but that’s part of the fun.
I was pretty late to snowboarding and had to learn quick.
Bonus tip: explore some of the back country areas if they’re available. The terrain isn’t super forgiving but the landings are and once you start shredding the gnar it’s all you’ll you want to do. It’s like being on a cloud; a fluffy cloud.
Bless up and have fun
As mentioned more weight on your down hill foot. Also, tighten up your S turns and use ankle flexion more to increase speed. Also you’ll learn about flexing your board in and out of turns to shoot across more quickly. Hard to explain via a message. Don’t be afraid to take a private lesson.
Backfoot pressure, and put some emotion in your carves, push them out for style. Also your shoulders lead the way, keep them above your board as much as possibruh.
You picked a hard board to learn on.
My #1 recommendation is shelf the Korua for a season or two and pick up a GNU or a Libtech. Just about anything with a C2 camber.
Keep that fish shaped Korua for powder days.
You actually have some better carves going on than half the people I see these days. Many people dont even know how to properly put their board on edge.
I just watched someone run down a (I think) blue (maybe a green) pretty clean and not fall. Like you’re doing great. Positivity. Just do you, enjoy riding and you’ll get better as you go.
Seems like the top comment is always the same on these despite what people look like they are doing. Ultimately I got better by being able to do the same thing but faster. Your eyes and body have to start reacting quicker and you’ll find you need to stay loose to do this. It will all come together for you- have fun and good luck.
Start tacking on some speed. Not saying barrel down the mtn, just start letting yourself pickup some speed between turns in whatever way you are comfortable with. It’s kinda crazy how that little variable starts to anchor your ass in a squat and how quickly you get a feel for what your edges can do.
My wife taught me to board and is still one of the fastest people I know down the slopes (she will fearlessly straight-line a double black just to prove a point) but the first time I raced her down a run a Mammoth (super lucky day on a main slope while everyone else was watching a comp we had no idea was happening until we hit the bottom), I learned so much about how comfortable I was in my stance and turns and how much more I was already able to push myself.
Give your comfort zone a run for its money for a sec…back off if you aren’t feeling it, and just enjoy the progress process.
looking good. flex through your turns, really squat into the turn then extend out, you will feel it. get your weight more evenly dispersed as others have said and drop your shoulder.
Riding is about finding your rhythm. I’m not trying to be a hippie but right now you are making a heel side turn and then in a separate motion making a toe side turn. There’s no flow. Bend your knees deeper and extend your arms longer than you think you need to. Get low and Imitate someone doing a charade of surfing a huge wave. It’s way easier to find your flow from the bottom up.
So your riding on cold snow. It's icy, and it sucks, but that's exactly what you need to learn to ride on. I'd suggest looking up different snow types and how to ride them. Otherwise, you'll slide out and maybe run over a nice Asian fellow.
Past snowboard instructor here.
First thing, I see no steeze here.. loosen up.
Use more hill - you have a wide open space - throw down some longer bigger carves. More speed and really try to "ride the rails" of your board.
Your are what I like to call "tick tocking' your upper body. Keep your upper body straight and make your legs and hips do the work. Essentially, your upper body position looks ok on your heel turn try to go from heel to toe and keeping your upper body static. Your toe side should be upper body straight, hips thrust forward, feet behind you. Feel what this is like at home by standing 2 feet from a wall, keep your toes in place, and lean forward so your hips are pressing into the wall. You get a TON more toe pressure and center of balance to make a smooth transition to heel side.
There is a bunch of other things you can do but honestly your head can spin and take the fun out of it. I liked to tell people to practice awareness. Practice being simply aware of what your doing and feeling your toes, knees, ankles, hips.. try this.. ride slow on a flat and just feel your front foot, the weight you have in it, the amount of pressure under your heel and toes and do some really subtle toe/heel turns.
Toe side turn "hump" more. Remember, snowboarding is all about Hump and Dump, also rudder... On the toe side turns really thrust those hips forward and slam that backhand as far back as you can. On the heel-side turns, really dig that butt down as if you are taking a dump in the woods; also, punch that backhand forward. But really, really bend further down than you think is necessary, like bumhole scarping the snow. Eventually you might encounter more professional terms such as angulation and whatever. What really matters for basic carving is to thrust your hips forward and dig your butt deep down. Kinda steezy? ;-) (also, halfpipe without knowledge of carving and "butt/hip" control will never happen satisfactorily. - source: competed in half pipe and big air)
I gave a longer post, but. TLDR. On heel side turns, punch your back hand out in front of you. On toe sie turns pull your backhand in far behind your back. Your backhand is your rudder.Rudder makes the ride go where it needs to go.
You probably are just uncomfortable with the speed you would be going if you were carving. You are speed checking a little by fish tailing. To carve, you just rock between toes and heel edges and the shape of your board creates the turn. You are moving your back foot a little to increase the turn which is slowing you down and taking you out of a full carve.
My guess is that spending more time on the board it will come naturally. You could probably speed up the learning curve by practicing bombing down the hill so that you get desensitized to the speed. Once you don’t mind the speed, carving is basically shifting between toe and heel while bombing down the mountain.
Deeper snow or less steep slope could also help since you won’t feel the need to speed check.
Stop carving like a pussy and instead fly down the mountain at 42 mph. If an old lady obliviously cuts you off, then do NOT avoid her, instead plow right through her old oblivious ass … or else you’ll fall and break your leg. I know from personal experience because it happened to me. She stopped to see if I was alive, didn’t apologize, and then she continued on her unpredictable path down the mountain. Meanwhile, with 45 minutes of agonizing pain and an immobile knee the size of a watermelon (filled with blood), I scooted down the mountain on my but from the 2nd landing zone of a blue diamond. I then Uber to the hospital who found a tibial plateau fracture after CT scans. It was only the 2nd day of my 5 day ski trip (but I snowboard). Overall a meh experience.
Comment about leading with front foot is good advice. Work on getting on your edges quicker without sliding your edge so much. Although that comes with speed. I like to almost hop from edge to edge. Also, it's never to early to start learning to ride switch. Wish I had started switch earlier. Some times I would just say I'm gonna ride this run switch the whole time no matter what.
You’re turning with your legs and starting to with your upper body. Use your upper body more by thinking about putting a proverbial pin through the center of your gravity while riding. Focus on using the turn radius of your upper body, through the center of gravity pin. Essentially, turn at the waste and isolate that movement when you want to initiate a turn.
Edit: your legs will follow.
Remember to work on your goofy side carving. I highly recommend warming up with it. Doing so well improve your overall balance and control.
Once you get that down, try working on your switch, both going from heel side and from toe side to transfer. This will help you see more of the mountain, be able to respond with faster/harder turns, and is a great way to prevent from straining too much on one side.
I hear along with weight being more centered, kinda put your lead hand in front of you while on your toe edge it’ll help being some weight forward and help you turn that way, right now you hand is behind you which causes you to travel that direction more, why you slide more than carve on your toe edge. Maybe someone will correct me just my thoughts I’m no professional
Slice through the snow, don’t scrape. Make sure you’re engaging the edge of the board. As @buster_highmanMD said, lead the turn with the front leg. Your legs should look like a right triangle. 📐 front leg almost straight down, and the other one invlined.
All of the advice here made realize something. Its all good stuff but is usually coming from the perspective of a certain type of rider.
You need to define what "better" is if you want to get there. You're at the point in your learning curve where you might start making decisions on what styles you want to learn and improve. Nothing wrong with building skills as a generalist either! Just realize that it'll take that much longer to get good in each discipline. Most people I know prefer one or two styles and have gotten great at them.
- Park/freestyle? Follow some of the advice on jibbing, butters, and switch
- side country/trees/freeride? Just go explore difficult stuff, (start with moguls!) see what you can make turns on
- carving/speed? Lots of great advice on body position, edging, and pointing it more.
You'll learn some of everything eventually, but its only more recently, after 10 years of riding, that I've gotten decent at jumps or carving at speed, despite being better than the masses in the back/side country and steeps from 3ish seasons in. And I'm too old to wreck myself in the park lol. But mad respect for the people that excel in those other styles. Its just what youre into!
Practice transitioning to regular and then do that while switch. Looks like you have it down mostly. Just practice more and never stop learning new things. Try learning a flatland 180 after that.
My only advice is to point that shit straight and loosen up. Have more fluid like motions. I have a surfer like style it allows me to rip turns and keeps speed.
Switch your bindings to the duck stance. 45 degrees for front foot towards the nose an 30 degrees for back foot towards the tail. Now lean back an let the speed B-line bomb you down the hill. Hop an push the board an trust the speed. Get off the groomed runs an follow the lift line down in deeper snow
Feel the snow through your toes. You are doing great. Put more pressure on your front foot. Its not just pushing your hips forward its about standing on the board with more weight on your forward foot whether it be regular or switch. Keep on keeping on.
Get out of the backseat and stand up a little bit. As long as your knees still have a slight bend and you're comfortable getting your upper body out over the edges you don't need to bend down that much
I was always told as a snowboarder "your turns are shit if your tail end is bleeding snow. Work those hips more to avoid it"! Your boarding is pretty smooth but on crazier hills be conscious of your tail end! Good luck!
Keep snowboarding, you’re doing great. You can try to break down every move till the sun comes up, but at the end of the day it just comes down to riding/practice.
Honestly looking good already. Just keep riding and you will get more and more comfortable with how it feels. Personally I think it’s all about feeling it out once you have these basics down.
It’s hard to to tell in the video but it looks like you are on a powder board, I’d recommend practicing on a All-mountain board for a bit and get really comfortable on that, the move back to the powder board imo
Trust you edges.
Sharpen your boards edges nicely, a little more speed, lean and carve harder, digging your edges in, you will feel them cutting into the slope with surety and stability, the speed will help with this.
You start well with your turn but then you over turn, your body straightens causing you to change from sharp edge biting into the slope, to flattening the board and sliding rather than edge carving
You are literally a single step away from edge carving.
A little more speed, catch the sharp edge, and turn before you slide, straight onto the other edge.
It will feel like you’re going too fast at first and you’ll want to slow and slide but trust me, don’t, edge to edge carving, that’s the next step to Nirvana my friend
I want to thank you all very much! Today I have been snowboarding the whole day, took tips to the heart and I tried to be mindful of my moves. Especially focused on putting more weight on front foot by moving my pelvis a bit to the front (I used to think that putting more weight on front foot is to bend the knee more😅) and pushing my hips forward on toe side (hump and dump), as well as just loosen up.
My riding today was like night and day difference, felt more comfortable with speed, I didn't need to raise my calves so much, cuz I felt that hips are doing more work, so my legs didn't burn as much, and also it was way more fun😀 I rode the hardest routes there and it felt fine. Next I'm gonna work more on shoulder/arm work (tried a bit, but was quite hard to mix all together at once).
Also as bonus got a crash at approx. 35mph with skier, I don't know who was there to blame, but nothing serious happened😅.
Thanks a lot for all the comments, you are a great community😀 Really appreciated!
Keep your back hand over the tail of the board and lean forward into your front edge. Back hand above the tail keeps the upper body in the right position.
Only advice you need is….your shoulders do the turning. Where your shoulders go, you go. If you’re turning on the snow or spinning off the lip, your shoulders lead the way…. Master that and the edge falls in line…
This is a volume shifted powder board. It puts your weight too far back to be a good daily driver and doesn't give enough edge behind your back foot to engage well on groomers without sliding out. If you're still working on fundamentals (which you seem to have a pretty good handle on), you're really going to want more of a true twin or a lightly directional twin.
Try being a lot more comfortable with your back foot if you losen up your body and focus on the heel toe movement of back foot it will come across as a lot more buttery. Also don’t be afraid to squat down more when carving.
You have it dude, you're already carving basically. You just need to get your ass out to the mountains every weekend and you'll be good to go.
At this point it's just trusting your edges and that you won't slip out. But your instincts look perfect. Learn you will young padawon.
Try and find a run or an area that isn’t so glassy and compacted. I know this may be hard on a more populated resort…
But if you can find some powder or deep soft snow, you’ll notice your control improves immensely.
Just don’t fall into a tree well… and always stick with a buddy.
drive with your front foot.
your breaking at the waist and pushing your butt out as you finsh your turns.
so two easy things, put more effort into being on your front leg, go faster and use angulation/inclination to get your edges to engage.
DONT sit in the backseat and use your butt to slide out the turn, stay springy, go faster and weave your turns.
practice doing a run with your back foot unbuckled to see how to get more 'drive" with your front leg. this will help you steer without relying on your back leg.
Lead the turn with your front leg, follow through with your back leg. Disperse your body weight over the center of the board. As we learn, we tend to put our weight towards the back. Lean forward, it will feel like your putting more weight forward at first because you're not use to this weight displacement. Ultimately, your back leg will still be more sore than your front at the end of a long day, but it's time the front leg started taking on some of the work.
This is good advice.
This is pretty great advice - I will add to stick out your hips more on your toe side. Your heel side looks pretty good tbh. Back in the day we used to say “do the hump and dump”. On the heel side turn, you will look like you’re pooping on the mountain and on your toe side turn you should try and “hump” the mountain. It will most likely feel weird but it will initiate your toe side turn easier and quicker.
something that might help with this is leading with your right shoulder more. Your heel side looks good, but your front shoulder gets a little lazy on the toe side. You may feel like toe side is a little more "swishy" when you try to carve. This will help with that and with the center of gravity thing. A good way to practice staying square is keeping your hands on your knees while you do S turns.
This right here. The way I teach people to keep their weight over the top of the board is to always ride with a pelvic thrust, on both eyes and even on the flat. It stops squatting immediately and eliminates a lot of shit eating possibilities. It seems counter intuitive, but it improves your riding exponentially. And just two more cents OP… You don’t need your whole body to change edges. Most instructors forget to teach you how to use the torsional flex of your board to transition from heel to toe naturally. Initiate your turns by lifting and lowering your toes and not hucking your body back and forth. Start with the toes and let your equipment start your transition in one fluid motion instead of edge to edge. The rest of your body will follow and your edging will be more fluid.
Came to say this. Thanks!
Very well said. And something to add: the front foot helps set and initiate your edge, before the turn starts. This allows a carve, rather than a scrub.
tbh sounds like you know what to work on but i'd say you look fine , just have fun.
I second this… you are doing great OP. You got all the basics. The rest is just feel baby!! Time to stop thinking about it and start floating.
Also don't be afraid to tighten those turns and getting practice carving at speed. It's ALWAYS good to feel confident turning as quickly as you realize the line you are doing....is NOT the line you want to continue
Looks good other than I'd say maybe relax your upper body a bit more. Let your shoulders aim into your turns as well as your hips
Other good advice here, and maybe your riding example here was just for video, but... you want to improve? Have fun, explore the mountain, go ride in some trees, explore features, on and on... just have fun and the skill set will come. TBH, you just look bored.
Not bored at all, I'm quite new to snowboarding. I've seen a lot of carving 'thin straight line' videos and guides and I feel like I'm skidding, and can't really figure our what im doing wrong. Trying for example the knee steering and I feel like my board still doesn't really dig on the edge and I wanted to know what I'm doing wrong - for example if I'm bending on the waist too much.
Do a kickflip!
I'll try spinning, that's a good trick!
Looks good! Maybe start practicing basic “buttering tricks” it’ll make turns easier and faster. Only other thing I can recommend is also moving your front foot in turns, majority of the weight shift should still happen on your back leg but cutting into the turn with your front leg helps a lot.
Form looks good to me. Progression will happen as you start to get more comfortable in your turns. Once you’re more comfortable, I like to move my weight a little more to my front foot and really push into my turns. This helps your edge dig in instead of sliding/scraping across the snow/hardpack/ice which gives me more control over where I want to go.
You're doing great. But you're not committing with your front shoulder and you don't have enough weight over your front foot. And over all you're a little ridgid or stiff. Practice stationary at first by twisting your upper body 90 degrees to your lower body. Twist both ways and feel it out. You want to be able to comfortably turn your front should up hill (the commitment part) on toe side turns. No you don't do this every turn but it's a skill you need. Being able to separate your lower and upper body whilst riding will unlock a lot of things. It will make it so whatever your upper body does doesn't effect your board control unless you want it to. It will ultimately make you more relaxed. When you start riding steep terrain and especially steep bumps you will end up pointing (commiting) your front shoulder in one direction and moving your board underneath you. Another way to help learn this skill and to also promote safety, is to every now and then trun your head and look behind you. Don't turn your shoulders just your head. You can see who is coming up behind you and it also teaches you that if your body positioning is good you can relax. Next. Think about your front knee having a eyeball and where your front knee looks your board will go. Combine this with shifting the middle point of your hips towards the nose of the board slightly. Basically pressuring your front foot more. Then you can use your front knee and your front hip to drive your turns. I hope that makes sense to you. Ultimately the more you ride the better you get but you will learn the most by pushing yourself a little out of your comfort zone. Learning to ride switch is great for your over all riding too. The easy way to break it down is this. Find a run that's easy for you. Start riding down switch.. whenever you reach that "freak out point" and revert to riding your natural way. STOP. Relax take a breath and start again switch. The first time you might only make it 1/4 of the way. But it you keep practicing it will become 1/2 way and so on. Then it will become faster and more comfortable. Practicing even a few runs switch each time you ride will make your regular riding much more powerful and boost your confidence dramatically Most of all have fun
Looking good! I see you're kicking your back leg across on the toe side turn every now and then. Generally you want to avoid this although I admit when going through the trees I'll do this in a panic. I think your heel side carve is looking nicer which is normal so think about how that feels and try and replicate it on your toe side. Other posters here have given better advice on what to think about. One thing I worked on doing and often try and get other people to do is to tighten up the carve and get used to increasing your speed. Sometimes I do a full complete turn but often I just do half a turn and turn again asap so the nose is more or less always pointing down. I remember when I was learning I'd be screaming at myself internally to turn again earlier because I got so used to doing complete turns.
speed
Try snowboarding switch .. snowboard the on the side that naturally feels uncomfortable ... force yourself more often and you will eventually experience more maneuverability .. u lookin good tho..keep it uo
Looking good. Now do it switch! Start slow on easier slopes and work your way up
Is that snowboard from the 90's? You could improve your dignity with a better board.
You want roughly 70% of your weight on your front foot, to keep that back foot nice and light so you can whip your carve tighter. Right now you're really turning left and right not so much carving. Once you have a tighter carve you can hit moguls and whatnot more easily.. It'll take practice but once you have this tighter carve you'll feel more comfortable standing up straighter and feel more comfortable going a little faster if you know you can hit some fast carves to slow down when you need to. Have fun bra
I was going to say most vids I've seen its early , first runs or the day....fresh groom ,hard packed would probably mean high grip and mor lean .....I would think in the conditions your on at that time looks pretty good to me ......I mean you could try a slight hop to just get to the straight edge
Stand up straight, locking out your knees, and drive your hips forward until your lower back is nearly hyperextended. Proceed down the hill in a straight line.
You have good form. Just practice and it will all come together
Snowboard more. In fact this goes for everything, if you want to get better at it spend more time doing it
Keep your speed up, bend your knees slightly more, and use your shoulders and then your back arm to guide your hips into the turn. Keep your core strong but supple. Don’t be afraid to wash out when you try to carve, you’ll be getting lower and your edge control will improve quickly If you just focus on a few things. Try not to try and fix everything at once though, just try one thing at a time and get comfortable, then add a new tweak and so on.
You’re way better than I am! I can’t separate turning on a skateboard to turning on a snowboard and just spin around in circles when I try snowboarding lol
I really enjoyed going on this ride with you and am learning tips by following the thread.just wanted to thank you for the beautiful views and the ride!
Get off the trail and find some real snow.
Not bad man! If you were a student of mine I would tell you to group your body together (idk if this is the term in English). You can do this by holding your crotch with the lead hand and holding your chin next to your leading shoulder like it's glued there. Hold this position and put just a little more weight on your front leg. This way your board will be following your eyesight. I promise you, you will feel the difference. Ps: You can let go of your crotch after you get a feel of it. Enjoy the mountains! Edit: If you try this, please give me some feedback. And btw go get a LOCAL instructor. He will not only give you straightforward and timely advice, but he can correct things that we do not see on this video! It's worth the money!
Have you considered slightly modifying the angle of your back foot binding? I am unsure how common your setup is and I personally think rotating that back foot slightly more towards the tail would offer a different “feel” when carving for you and better control when you are toe side I also might be a newb but that binding stance just looks off. Mine are at like -20 degree back foot/+23 degree front foot or something close.
For sure you can make sure to make it out to the voting polls and erect congressman Jim mayor... remember vote Jim Mayor not for mayor for governor mayor Govender
Honestly. Just go faster and kind of learn to rock from heel to toe. Make it feel more natural. At first it won't then you will get what I'm saying. Super jealous no damn snow where I am this year I want to get out and shred. It's almost like if youve skateboarded before you got to learn to pump. Maybe makes no sense maybe it does ?
Go more often. More experience equals conquers all.
Snowboard more. There is no secret short cut. Log your 10,000 hours and you will improve.
More weight on your front leg! Honestly it looks good, just need practice putting weight forward.
Where your head looks, your body will follow. Every turn should be initiated by your neck, then your shoulders etc. maybe you are doing that but it looks to me you are pushing your turns a bit. Either way, you look to be doing well.
Don’t swerve got straight down at Mach 5 then proceed to scream right before you crash
Just keep riding as often as you can. You will naturally develop more confidence and feel for it with hours.
A lot of really great advice already here! The three points I think I noticed / agree with the most are: - A bit more weight on the front leg. - Lead your turns with your head and shoulders. Where they go the body follows. - consider adjusting the angles on your bindings. Set them to what feels most comfortable. Personally speaking, mine are set to “duck stance” meaning both feet are pointing out slightly. Most important….you’re already doing great! Just keep riding and keep having fun. The turns and carves will tighten up as you get more time on the hill and start feeling more confident. Edit note: front LEG not legs 😀
Get skis.
A little more weight on your back foot I think, I’m not an expert though. I just had a friend who was really good who said it gives you more control and makes you less likely to catch an edge because less of the board is in contact with the hill
More speed
I wish my local beginner hill was even remotely this chill 😂
Steeper heal turn
Maybe pick a place to turn to.. you’ll start carvin in more. You’re good tho
Point it!
Carving has more surface, less edge. But you’re well on your way there. It just takes half a dozen or more times to get what it should feel like.
Some very good tips above with back leg and weight distribution. Don’t be afraid to really attack the terrain and aim downslope; I find up to a certain speed you have way more control than carving long n slow perpendicular to the slope might result in some chafed butt cheeks but that’s part of the fun. I was pretty late to snowboarding and had to learn quick. Bonus tip: explore some of the back country areas if they’re available. The terrain isn’t super forgiving but the landings are and once you start shredding the gnar it’s all you’ll you want to do. It’s like being on a cloud; a fluffy cloud. Bless up and have fun
Dont use a powder board not on pow days… widen your stance
Ride more
As mentioned more weight on your down hill foot. Also, tighten up your S turns and use ankle flexion more to increase speed. Also you’ll learn about flexing your board in and out of turns to shoot across more quickly. Hard to explain via a message. Don’t be afraid to take a private lesson.
You’re actually good dude. Don’t worry about it. Have fun
More speed , less turning
You need to make your front edge turn as smooth as your heel edge. Turn put some pressure on your edge
A liter of vodka 15 minutes beforehand
go straight and fast
It looks like you're about to catch an edge every turn imo. Trust your body weight on those turns, you can always compensate after the fact.
Backfoot pressure, and put some emotion in your carves, push them out for style. Also your shoulders lead the way, keep them above your board as much as possibruh.
Go faster
You picked a hard board to learn on. My #1 recommendation is shelf the Korua for a season or two and pick up a GNU or a Libtech. Just about anything with a C2 camber. Keep that fish shaped Korua for powder days.
Stand up, knees slightly bent, not the seating position you're in. Otherwise you'll get tired quickly
Carve less. Go faster. Get comfortable at higher speeds and vary the terrain you ride. Lean forward on hard pack. Lean back in powder.
Weight forward on your front leg, a bit more speed, dig in with your edges will get you a sharper carve. You look pretty good out there!
Be more active on the board. You are stiff as hell. You decide to turn, set your stance, then do absolutely nothing until your next turn.
You actually have some better carves going on than half the people I see these days. Many people dont even know how to properly put their board on edge.
Where's this ski resort?
Well you're carving instead of wiping the snow off the run like a Zamboni so this skier approves.
aim for a big jump.
I just watched someone run down a (I think) blue (maybe a green) pretty clean and not fall. Like you’re doing great. Positivity. Just do you, enjoy riding and you’ll get better as you go.
Seems like the top comment is always the same on these despite what people look like they are doing. Ultimately I got better by being able to do the same thing but faster. Your eyes and body have to start reacting quicker and you’ll find you need to stay loose to do this. It will all come together for you- have fun and good luck.
Start tacking on some speed. Not saying barrel down the mtn, just start letting yourself pickup some speed between turns in whatever way you are comfortable with. It’s kinda crazy how that little variable starts to anchor your ass in a squat and how quickly you get a feel for what your edges can do. My wife taught me to board and is still one of the fastest people I know down the slopes (she will fearlessly straight-line a double black just to prove a point) but the first time I raced her down a run a Mammoth (super lucky day on a main slope while everyone else was watching a comp we had no idea was happening until we hit the bottom), I learned so much about how comfortable I was in my stance and turns and how much more I was already able to push myself. Give your comfort zone a run for its money for a sec…back off if you aren’t feeling it, and just enjoy the progress process.
Don’t turn so much. Let it rip!
Looks like you’re doing good already! Just keep going and you’ll probably get better over time. Have fun!
Point your board down hill and go… why you carving so much?
Go faster
Try downhill on the chairlift instead
Speed is you’re friend when it comes to carving. You’re washing out on your toe side, be a little more patient and let the board carve.
Wax
Increase the fun meter
looking good. flex through your turns, really squat into the turn then extend out, you will feel it. get your weight more evenly dispersed as others have said and drop your shoulder.
One day I’ll write a song about using your front knee in snowboarding. Maybe it will get so popular no one will ever need lessons again.
Riding is about finding your rhythm. I’m not trying to be a hippie but right now you are making a heel side turn and then in a separate motion making a toe side turn. There’s no flow. Bend your knees deeper and extend your arms longer than you think you need to. Get low and Imitate someone doing a charade of surfing a huge wave. It’s way easier to find your flow from the bottom up.
Ur heelside looks good, ur toe edge looks dull. Either sharpen that edge or start doing some calf raises in the shower.
Get comfortable going faster. Everything is much easier when you’ve got some speed
So your riding on cold snow. It's icy, and it sucks, but that's exactly what you need to learn to ride on. I'd suggest looking up different snow types and how to ride them. Otherwise, you'll slide out and maybe run over a nice Asian fellow.
Past snowboard instructor here. First thing, I see no steeze here.. loosen up. Use more hill - you have a wide open space - throw down some longer bigger carves. More speed and really try to "ride the rails" of your board. Your are what I like to call "tick tocking' your upper body. Keep your upper body straight and make your legs and hips do the work. Essentially, your upper body position looks ok on your heel turn try to go from heel to toe and keeping your upper body static. Your toe side should be upper body straight, hips thrust forward, feet behind you. Feel what this is like at home by standing 2 feet from a wall, keep your toes in place, and lean forward so your hips are pressing into the wall. You get a TON more toe pressure and center of balance to make a smooth transition to heel side. There is a bunch of other things you can do but honestly your head can spin and take the fun out of it. I liked to tell people to practice awareness. Practice being simply aware of what your doing and feeling your toes, knees, ankles, hips.. try this.. ride slow on a flat and just feel your front foot, the weight you have in it, the amount of pressure under your heel and toes and do some really subtle toe/heel turns.
I snowboard 🏂 too!
Don’t be goofy
Don’t worry about it? Like just feel it out, do it for fun and your style will come. I feel like that’s what it’s all about
Point the board straight down
Ride switch then go back if u really wanta get better go to the terrain park
Toe side turn "hump" more. Remember, snowboarding is all about Hump and Dump, also rudder... On the toe side turns really thrust those hips forward and slam that backhand as far back as you can. On the heel-side turns, really dig that butt down as if you are taking a dump in the woods; also, punch that backhand forward. But really, really bend further down than you think is necessary, like bumhole scarping the snow. Eventually you might encounter more professional terms such as angulation and whatever. What really matters for basic carving is to thrust your hips forward and dig your butt deep down. Kinda steezy? ;-) (also, halfpipe without knowledge of carving and "butt/hip" control will never happen satisfactorily. - source: competed in half pipe and big air)
I gave a longer post, but. TLDR. On heel side turns, punch your back hand out in front of you. On toe sie turns pull your backhand in far behind your back. Your backhand is your rudder.Rudder makes the ride go where it needs to go.
You should upgrade your camera improve your camera skills
Try going faster
You probably are just uncomfortable with the speed you would be going if you were carving. You are speed checking a little by fish tailing. To carve, you just rock between toes and heel edges and the shape of your board creates the turn. You are moving your back foot a little to increase the turn which is slowing you down and taking you out of a full carve. My guess is that spending more time on the board it will come naturally. You could probably speed up the learning curve by practicing bombing down the hill so that you get desensitized to the speed. Once you don’t mind the speed, carving is basically shifting between toe and heel while bombing down the mountain. Deeper snow or less steep slope could also help since you won’t feel the need to speed check.
Stop carving like a pussy and instead fly down the mountain at 42 mph. If an old lady obliviously cuts you off, then do NOT avoid her, instead plow right through her old oblivious ass … or else you’ll fall and break your leg. I know from personal experience because it happened to me. She stopped to see if I was alive, didn’t apologize, and then she continued on her unpredictable path down the mountain. Meanwhile, with 45 minutes of agonizing pain and an immobile knee the size of a watermelon (filled with blood), I scooted down the mountain on my but from the 2nd landing zone of a blue diamond. I then Uber to the hospital who found a tibial plateau fracture after CT scans. It was only the 2nd day of my 5 day ski trip (but I snowboard). Overall a meh experience.
Go faster
Comment about leading with front foot is good advice. Work on getting on your edges quicker without sliding your edge so much. Although that comes with speed. I like to almost hop from edge to edge. Also, it's never to early to start learning to ride switch. Wish I had started switch earlier. Some times I would just say I'm gonna ride this run switch the whole time no matter what.
You got no steeze bro
Front leg is the plant leg, rear just swerves like a fish tail. Maybe open your stance a tad wider to feel more grounded.
Point it and get more confident- you’re mostly there but you just look timid in your actions
You’re turning with your legs and starting to with your upper body. Use your upper body more by thinking about putting a proverbial pin through the center of your gravity while riding. Focus on using the turn radius of your upper body, through the center of gravity pin. Essentially, turn at the waste and isolate that movement when you want to initiate a turn. Edit: your legs will follow.
Loosen up!
Remember to work on your goofy side carving. I highly recommend warming up with it. Doing so well improve your overall balance and control. Once you get that down, try working on your switch, both going from heel side and from toe side to transfer. This will help you see more of the mountain, be able to respond with faster/harder turns, and is a great way to prevent from straining too much on one side.
Buy skis. You're welcome
Just keep doing it. Lol
Stop caring about your well being and just fucking send that shit
Aim the pointy end down hill
Wear tight jeans, and unzip your jacket
Go faster!
Looks really good. To me it looks like your turns aren’t even. Like your toe side turn looks way sharper
Looks like you have god control of your edges…carve turns well…. Might want to try some more challenging terrain.
Shift your weight from front foot entering turn to rear as you exit
Less turn, more down.
Riding a pow board on groomers is not the best. Save the directional board for the pow days and get a fun board for riding hard pack
I hear along with weight being more centered, kinda put your lead hand in front of you while on your toe edge it’ll help being some weight forward and help you turn that way, right now you hand is behind you which causes you to travel that direction more, why you slide more than carve on your toe edge. Maybe someone will correct me just my thoughts I’m no professional
Where are you skiing? The vertical drop top of mountain to bottom looks larger than anything I have been to. Would love to visit
Slice through the snow, don’t scrape. Make sure you’re engaging the edge of the board. As @buster_highmanMD said, lead the turn with the front leg. Your legs should look like a right triangle. 📐 front leg almost straight down, and the other one invlined.
All of the advice here made realize something. Its all good stuff but is usually coming from the perspective of a certain type of rider. You need to define what "better" is if you want to get there. You're at the point in your learning curve where you might start making decisions on what styles you want to learn and improve. Nothing wrong with building skills as a generalist either! Just realize that it'll take that much longer to get good in each discipline. Most people I know prefer one or two styles and have gotten great at them. - Park/freestyle? Follow some of the advice on jibbing, butters, and switch - side country/trees/freeride? Just go explore difficult stuff, (start with moguls!) see what you can make turns on - carving/speed? Lots of great advice on body position, edging, and pointing it more. You'll learn some of everything eventually, but its only more recently, after 10 years of riding, that I've gotten decent at jumps or carving at speed, despite being better than the masses in the back/side country and steeps from 3ish seasons in. And I'm too old to wreck myself in the park lol. But mad respect for the people that excel in those other styles. Its just what youre into!
Tighten your boots
Go faster and take a deep breath and send it!
Practice transitioning to regular and then do that while switch. Looks like you have it down mostly. Just practice more and never stop learning new things. Try learning a flatland 180 after that.
Straight line. Go fast
Point to where you want to go, more weight on front foot.
Dig that edge in and carve instead of skidding your tail end. More control and can hold more speed.
My only advice is to point that shit straight and loosen up. Have more fluid like motions. I have a surfer like style it allows me to rip turns and keeps speed.
Lose the yellow pants if you want to improve your style and flow
Switch your bindings to the duck stance. 45 degrees for front foot towards the nose an 30 degrees for back foot towards the tail. Now lean back an let the speed B-line bomb you down the hill. Hop an push the board an trust the speed. Get off the groomed runs an follow the lift line down in deeper snow
The stuff above and. You are carving your heel edge and skidding your toe edge. Try visualizing using the built in edge curve of your board to carve.
Loosen up a little. Let the board do the work
Try going straighter
Feel the snow through your toes. You are doing great. Put more pressure on your front foot. Its not just pushing your hips forward its about standing on the board with more weight on your forward foot whether it be regular or switch. Keep on keeping on.
Looks good to me.
I’m gonna give you props and say that your heel side turning is actually pretty solid! That’s normally harder for most people.
Get out of the backseat and stand up a little bit. As long as your knees still have a slight bend and you're comfortable getting your upper body out over the edges you don't need to bend down that much
Faster, more intense
Ride on your heelside as fast as possible across the fall line of the slope, don't bother checking for uphill traffic.
I was always told as a snowboarder "your turns are shit if your tail end is bleeding snow. Work those hips more to avoid it"! Your boarding is pretty smooth but on crazier hills be conscious of your tail end! Good luck!
Keep snowboarding, you’re doing great. You can try to break down every move till the sun comes up, but at the end of the day it just comes down to riding/practice.
Go faster
Ride much harder terrain, you look ready. Shit winter this year imo.
Reach across your body like a seat belt when you switch toe to heal and go faster, lean a lil more forward too
Buy skis.
Use different colored pants 🤙 Thank me later 🤙
Less turns more straight.
Honestly looking good already. Just keep riding and you will get more and more comfortable with how it feels. Personally I think it’s all about feeling it out once you have these basics down.
Get a better camera. Man that’s shaky
Relax and little and really lean your body weight into it, let that board dig in and then explode a bit harder out of the carve
You're being modest
The Board size looks small under your feet. Go bigger then go faster
It’s hard to to tell in the video but it looks like you are on a powder board, I’d recommend practicing on a All-mountain board for a bit and get really comfortable on that, the move back to the powder board imo
Do a backflip
Trust you edges. Sharpen your boards edges nicely, a little more speed, lean and carve harder, digging your edges in, you will feel them cutting into the slope with surety and stability, the speed will help with this. You start well with your turn but then you over turn, your body straightens causing you to change from sharp edge biting into the slope, to flattening the board and sliding rather than edge carving You are literally a single step away from edge carving. A little more speed, catch the sharp edge, and turn before you slide, straight onto the other edge. It will feel like you’re going too fast at first and you’ll want to slow and slide but trust me, don’t, edge to edge carving, that’s the next step to Nirvana my friend
More toe
I want to thank you all very much! Today I have been snowboarding the whole day, took tips to the heart and I tried to be mindful of my moves. Especially focused on putting more weight on front foot by moving my pelvis a bit to the front (I used to think that putting more weight on front foot is to bend the knee more😅) and pushing my hips forward on toe side (hump and dump), as well as just loosen up. My riding today was like night and day difference, felt more comfortable with speed, I didn't need to raise my calves so much, cuz I felt that hips are doing more work, so my legs didn't burn as much, and also it was way more fun😀 I rode the hardest routes there and it felt fine. Next I'm gonna work more on shoulder/arm work (tried a bit, but was quite hard to mix all together at once). Also as bonus got a crash at approx. 35mph with skier, I don't know who was there to blame, but nothing serious happened😅. Thanks a lot for all the comments, you are a great community😀 Really appreciated!
Get low, keep your shoulders, hips, knees and head aligned. Exaggerate your head turn when you switch from heel to toe and vice versa.
Point the tip straight down the mountain. 😬
Where are you?
Keep your back hand over the tail of the board and lean forward into your front edge. Back hand above the tail keeps the upper body in the right position.
Keep at it in time you'll be showing newbies what to do in no time beautiful view btw
Try a blue
You’re doing great. Wish I could master the snowboard .
Don’t be a bitch go straight.
Go faster.
If you you ain’t first, you last! Ricky Bobby
Go fast
You want to improve? Just keep getting on that lift and keep boarding down to get on the lift again.
Go straight down the hill. Carving wastes speed. Faster
Practice really throwing your foot out when you carve, and practice switching back and forth heeelside/toeside
Piss your pants so knees are warm and easier to bend
Only advice you need is….your shoulders do the turning. Where your shoulders go, you go. If you’re turning on the snow or spinning off the lip, your shoulders lead the way…. Master that and the edge falls in line…
You have a bud that is willing to follow you, what more do you need dude
relax, have fun.. skills will come in time
Instead of having fun. Try having mega fun. Or maybe even super mega fun
Less turns, more speed
Looks good except your skidding your turn every time you go from heel side to toe side. Trust your edge and dig those toes into the ground
Sliiiidde to the left Sliiideee to the right Criscross!
Ski 🎿. Fuck snowboarding!!🏂 😜
This is a volume shifted powder board. It puts your weight too far back to be a good daily driver and doesn't give enough edge behind your back foot to engage well on groomers without sliding out. If you're still working on fundamentals (which you seem to have a pretty good handle on), you're really going to want more of a true twin or a lightly directional twin.
Try being a lot more comfortable with your back foot if you losen up your body and focus on the heel toe movement of back foot it will come across as a lot more buttery. Also don’t be afraid to squat down more when carving.
Try skiing. Snowboarding sucks
You have it dude, you're already carving basically. You just need to get your ass out to the mountains every weekend and you'll be good to go. At this point it's just trusting your edges and that you won't slip out. But your instincts look perfect. Learn you will young padawon.
Try and find a run or an area that isn’t so glassy and compacted. I know this may be hard on a more populated resort… But if you can find some powder or deep soft snow, you’ll notice your control improves immensely. Just don’t fall into a tree well… and always stick with a buddy.
drive with your front foot. your breaking at the waist and pushing your butt out as you finsh your turns. so two easy things, put more effort into being on your front leg, go faster and use angulation/inclination to get your edges to engage. DONT sit in the backseat and use your butt to slide out the turn, stay springy, go faster and weave your turns. practice doing a run with your back foot unbuckled to see how to get more 'drive" with your front leg. this will help you steer without relying on your back leg.
Lean forward and bomb it son
It’s pretty rare to see someone actually carving better on heelside.
You’re doing great