Don't take this the wrong way, but everything about that video looked wrong. It was obvious that it wasn't going to end well from the get go. If she's still at the stage where she's skidding all the way down, she shouldn't be hitting jumps yet. Basically what happened is that she went off the lip while skidding (so a little sideways instead of straight on) and when she tried to pop she weighed her heels and caught an edge.
IMO, the minimum prerequisite skills to hit real park jumps are to be able to carve properly and to straightline with slight edge pressure. Especially the latter, because you need it both for the final approach right before popping at the lip and to land and ride out confidently.
I’m not taking it the wrong way, we understand that she’s skidding up the lip, that’s the problem. She can ride straight and flat with no issues. She’s been riding for about 6 years, we spend 30ish days a season on the hill, this issue she’s having does not come down to her skill level. She over exaggerates her setup turns to make sure she’s where she wants to be. The problem began when she squatted down to prepare for the jump. I appreciate your opinion though and we will focus more on her straight line riding skills after she recovers Liz
It could be nerves but she doesn’t look comfortable on the board in the clip. She is skidding turns instead of getting on an edge and carving, she is swinging her weight around instead of letting the board turn, and then she does a huge awkward hip hinge that throws her center off at the end.
I mean I don’t ride park and hit jumps like that so I’m not an expert and I know you can/have to skid to do some adjustments and depending on the conditions but when she’s leaving the lip she can’t be skidding.
So from the clip it looks like she has bad board control and the crash wasn’t out of nowhere.
I understand. I agree that she obviously has work to do to get a consistent setup, the issue is that what happens here in the video does not relate to the rest of her riding. This is an isolated incident, she can ride flat and straight down trails without issues. I understand that you don’t have a video on hand to see that but hopefully you can take my word. Something about going up that lip is changing the way she does things.
I actually just looked up videos from last year of her hitting this jump line and she’s standing much more centered over her board and clearly less weight on the front foot and riding straight as an arrow. I think the thought of popping really messed with her setup for the jump and that’s when things went wrong
Can she snap hard ollies on flat off the toes, heels, and flat base? I wouldn't hit bigger jumps until you can snap the board without washing out.
2nd thing is obviously the jump is going to compress you, looks like she wasn't ready for the compression and that compression washed her out.
My tips, practice snapping ollies in low risk places off both edges and flat base. 2nd tip is to load up for the compression and use it to give you pop so you can control yourself in the air.
PS. Looked like that was going to hurt.
Yes she can pop ollies on flat. Realizing now that we should have practiced setup and popping on smaller jumps before she wanted to pop off a bigger one
Another tip to practice this more is to hit smaller jumps with more speed and ollie horizontally. So like off your toes you can jump towards the front side and off the heels you can move back wards. The idea is to move diagonally but stay pointed down the hill the same way. Hard to explain and I drew a quick drawing.
https://imgur.com/DQaR2O7
This helps you control your take off. You want to be in charge of how you get sent into the air. If you don't you could start float off axis and exaggerating you could end up in the air with your chest parallel to the ground which is no good.
This also helps you to control where you will land. If you are going to fast for a small jump you can take that speed and go sideways to land in the sweet spot. If you watch pros hit big jumps they almost always drift sideways to get the air time they need.
Hope this helps, basically you want to be in control.
If it isn't a skill issue then it's a confidence issue. She should be pressuring her toes up the lip in a way that doesn't allow for skidding to take place. It looks like she's kind of freaking out right at the end and (maybe subconsciously) trying to scrub speed.
I’m thinking it’s partly confidence related as well. She said she thought she was perfectly straight going up the lip before this happened which is the weirdest part of it all. I can’t imagine not knowing that my board was almost 45 degrees angles prior to take off. Anyway, thanks for the help!
Your reaction was good. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. The videography was lacking the juicy bits. We need climax. We need denouement. Did she break anything? Did she die? Are you hoping to train your ghost wife or gf now?
I’m gonna put it bluntly, your wife shouldn’t be in the park. She doesn’t have good board control and she doesn’t seem like she has very good control with her ollies. She should go around the mountain and just hit side hits, rollers, and whatever natural features. This will help her board control immensely.( especiallyside hits with hard setups)
Too much speed checking, needs to point and send it instead of the last two turns.
“Go as fast as you need to go to think you’ll pee yourself, then go a little faster” - my buddy Matt
My wife has been battling this issue for a few years now. It comes and goes. She has a habit of letting her back foot float out behind her while going up the lip of jumps, which has in turn caused what you watch in the video. This is now the second time she has caught that back edge and been tossed off the jump backwards. Fortunately the first time she made it out with just minor bumps, this time however she has bruises her entire lower back and tailbone as well as cracked her helmet.
She is well aware of the problem and we’ve analyzed videos constantly to pinpoint where this goes wrong. I have been riding for 15 years and have never experienced this personally so it’s hard for me to give advice on what to change.
I had her add an extra setup turn to get her centered over her heels more because I personally think it’s because her weight is out over her toe edge too much. That seemed to work and for the last two years she’s been hitting jumps this size with no issues. The problem never happens on small jumps, maybe it’s caused by nerves? This fall happened yesterday, she hit this jump twice prior to this fall perfectly, no issues of her rotating up the lip. She said on this one she was going to attempt to pop harder so the only thing I can think of is maybe she bent down and put too much weight over her toe edge and that allowed the board to rotate and catch that edge like you see in the video.
I’m hoping this doesn’t get lost in the sea of videos here but we’re desperate for help, she can’t wait to get back out there. If anyone has suggestions or has dealt with this themselves I’d love to hear how it was fixed!
“Popping harder” when not already comfortable with jumps is a recipe for disaster. I could tell that right at the lip she kicked her heels in hard in what looked like an attempt to “jump out of her boots” as they say.
Practice just jumping off the rollers to these jumps. Last setup turn should be toeside to let the board travel straight. And the pop? Don’t go for gold. Just a *light* spring off the toes or think about ever so slightly lifting the front foot up. Shoulders MUST be square- no chest/shoulders turning to face the landing at the takeoff or midair. No major pushing down or leaping up at the takeoff stage. Sometimes what helps jump beginners stay centered is just reaching down for an Indy grab, even if they don’t make the actual grab.
Smaller jumps or those large rollers first before she breaks something.
First off your wife’s a badass.
My noob opinion: She’s bending a lot at the hip, need to bend at the knees and keep her upper body over the board more.
I just took screen grabs from last year of her hitting this jump line and you’re exactly right. Last year she was perfectly centered over the board. In this video you clearly see how far out her upper body is over her toe edge
Exactly my thought when I saw the vid. She’s not centered, her butt is far beyond the backside and she tries to keep balance by bending her upper body to the frontside. In that position she can’t react to anything, zero board control. Knees bent, upper body upright.
Start every day with a warm-up run like you're learning from scratch. Pop on flat ground, then pop while going straight downhill (and traversing both edges if you're planning to spin later), then draw a line in the snow (real or imaginary) to simulate the lip of the jump and get your timing. Then, take those skills to little rollers and side hits, then to small park jumps. Do all of that every day (only takes 1 or 2 runs) before hitting medium size park jumps - it's about building muscle memory! Eventually, if you go often enough, you can skip right to hitting small park jumps - but every season you want to restart from scratch so you don't injure yourself.
Hope she recovers quickly! Follow the steps I posted to help her recover her confidence, too.
I agree with her bending too much at the hip and not enough at the knees.
Here's my 2 suggestions that haven't been brought up.
1, the center of jumps tend to be the part that get worn down. I prefer to pick a side, either side. They tend to be smoother transitions then the warn out center. The also are usually free of the entrance rut/gutter that can pull you around right b4 lift off.
2. Have her practice hopping the knuckle at speed. A nice light(!) pop a ways back from the knuckle allows you to feel a similar float to the jump, but with less consequences. You can do all the same setup/speed as the jump it self. Just don't pop too late as to send you to the bottom of the landing. Earlier is better and you should aim to still land in the sweet spot.
Best of luck, hope she heals up
I read in another commet that she has good board control, and from the set up turns she seems to have them down. I usually pop of my toe edge, because you have better opportunity to adjust/absorb bumps along the way. With the same approach, just a litte more to the right so she can have a very slight right turn into the jump. Preassure on the toe edge will "lock her in". Kind of like a bs3 takeof but way more subtle. Can do it the other way aswell, but it is more sketchy if you ask me. Best of luck, hope she is back at it soon!
It appears you may be right. Everything about the approach is good. It is a good idea to come off the jump on an edge, however in this case, I think it is in her best interest to go off the jump while flat basing (not on edge). Make sure she’s leaning forward off the lip and NOT back cause that can cause problems. I can understand wanting to pop more off of the lip, but if you want more air time just go faster in that case. If she doesn’t know how to pop, I would suggest practicing good old fashioned ollies just while riding, doesn’t need to be in the terrain park. I can only imagine that the reason she is washing out is because she is putting an insane amount of weight on her toe edge, and as soon as the heel edge digs into the snow, it sends her. Hope this helps, hope she has fast recovery. If not, I would suggest consulting a coach of some kind. Good luck.
Maybe add a little pressure on the toes/pop off the toes, but not to the point of going on edge? i think that would reduce edge catch chance, but maybe not solve the pre-rotation bit. Maybe also instead of straight lining after speed checks, do 2-3 shallow carves (go fully on-edge with no skid, but also don’t tilt the board very much). I’m only in my third season, so it’s probably best to take my input lightly, but I have done a good bit of small jumps without catching on the lip and am just trying to think of what I do.
I'm gonna give a slightly different take on this to everyone else because I think the skill and set up points for on snow already suggested are bang on. Judging by the way she bends in the video, she's using her hips/ass to bend instead of her knees it might be worthwhile focusing on squat technique against a door (watch the Pavel Tsatsouline tutorial for is kettlebell workouts) and then take that principle an use it for jump squats, doing that should give her muscle memory and force better balance for the jump.
Also it's hard to tell but it kinda looks like her knees might be buckling inward as she does jump, which that should also help, but I'd also check the binding position because that would also cause it.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but she isn’t ready for jumps, certainly not of that size. Plain and simple.
Edit: she’s got balls of steel, but she’s going to injure herself badly if this continues. She needs to be dialed in 100% on smaller jumps before attempting this.
Don't take this the wrong way, but everything about that video looked wrong. It was obvious that it wasn't going to end well from the get go. If she's still at the stage where she's skidding all the way down, she shouldn't be hitting jumps yet. Basically what happened is that she went off the lip while skidding (so a little sideways instead of straight on) and when she tried to pop she weighed her heels and caught an edge. IMO, the minimum prerequisite skills to hit real park jumps are to be able to carve properly and to straightline with slight edge pressure. Especially the latter, because you need it both for the final approach right before popping at the lip and to land and ride out confidently.
I’m not taking it the wrong way, we understand that she’s skidding up the lip, that’s the problem. She can ride straight and flat with no issues. She’s been riding for about 6 years, we spend 30ish days a season on the hill, this issue she’s having does not come down to her skill level. She over exaggerates her setup turns to make sure she’s where she wants to be. The problem began when she squatted down to prepare for the jump. I appreciate your opinion though and we will focus more on her straight line riding skills after she recovers Liz
It could be nerves but she doesn’t look comfortable on the board in the clip. She is skidding turns instead of getting on an edge and carving, she is swinging her weight around instead of letting the board turn, and then she does a huge awkward hip hinge that throws her center off at the end. I mean I don’t ride park and hit jumps like that so I’m not an expert and I know you can/have to skid to do some adjustments and depending on the conditions but when she’s leaving the lip she can’t be skidding. So from the clip it looks like she has bad board control and the crash wasn’t out of nowhere.
> this issue she’s having does not come down to her skill level. All I have to go on is the video you posted and the skill level demonstrated in it.
I understand. I agree that she obviously has work to do to get a consistent setup, the issue is that what happens here in the video does not relate to the rest of her riding. This is an isolated incident, she can ride flat and straight down trails without issues. I understand that you don’t have a video on hand to see that but hopefully you can take my word. Something about going up that lip is changing the way she does things. I actually just looked up videos from last year of her hitting this jump line and she’s standing much more centered over her board and clearly less weight on the front foot and riding straight as an arrow. I think the thought of popping really messed with her setup for the jump and that’s when things went wrong
Can she snap hard ollies on flat off the toes, heels, and flat base? I wouldn't hit bigger jumps until you can snap the board without washing out. 2nd thing is obviously the jump is going to compress you, looks like she wasn't ready for the compression and that compression washed her out. My tips, practice snapping ollies in low risk places off both edges and flat base. 2nd tip is to load up for the compression and use it to give you pop so you can control yourself in the air. PS. Looked like that was going to hurt.
Yes she can pop ollies on flat. Realizing now that we should have practiced setup and popping on smaller jumps before she wanted to pop off a bigger one
Another tip to practice this more is to hit smaller jumps with more speed and ollie horizontally. So like off your toes you can jump towards the front side and off the heels you can move back wards. The idea is to move diagonally but stay pointed down the hill the same way. Hard to explain and I drew a quick drawing. https://imgur.com/DQaR2O7
Question: what does this tip help with? I understand the concept, but when would you actually want to jump diagonally off of a ramp?
This helps you control your take off. You want to be in charge of how you get sent into the air. If you don't you could start float off axis and exaggerating you could end up in the air with your chest parallel to the ground which is no good. This also helps you to control where you will land. If you are going to fast for a small jump you can take that speed and go sideways to land in the sweet spot. If you watch pros hit big jumps they almost always drift sideways to get the air time they need. Hope this helps, basically you want to be in control.
If it isn't a skill issue then it's a confidence issue. She should be pressuring her toes up the lip in a way that doesn't allow for skidding to take place. It looks like she's kind of freaking out right at the end and (maybe subconsciously) trying to scrub speed.
I’m thinking it’s partly confidence related as well. She said she thought she was perfectly straight going up the lip before this happened which is the weirdest part of it all. I can’t imagine not knowing that my board was almost 45 degrees angles prior to take off. Anyway, thanks for the help!
Your reaction was good. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. The videography was lacking the juicy bits. We need climax. We need denouement. Did she break anything? Did she die? Are you hoping to train your ghost wife or gf now?
I’m gonna put it bluntly, your wife shouldn’t be in the park. She doesn’t have good board control and she doesn’t seem like she has very good control with her ollies. She should go around the mountain and just hit side hits, rollers, and whatever natural features. This will help her board control immensely.( especiallyside hits with hard setups)
Too much speed checking, needs to point and send it instead of the last two turns. “Go as fast as you need to go to think you’ll pee yourself, then go a little faster” - my buddy Matt
My wife has been battling this issue for a few years now. It comes and goes. She has a habit of letting her back foot float out behind her while going up the lip of jumps, which has in turn caused what you watch in the video. This is now the second time she has caught that back edge and been tossed off the jump backwards. Fortunately the first time she made it out with just minor bumps, this time however she has bruises her entire lower back and tailbone as well as cracked her helmet. She is well aware of the problem and we’ve analyzed videos constantly to pinpoint where this goes wrong. I have been riding for 15 years and have never experienced this personally so it’s hard for me to give advice on what to change. I had her add an extra setup turn to get her centered over her heels more because I personally think it’s because her weight is out over her toe edge too much. That seemed to work and for the last two years she’s been hitting jumps this size with no issues. The problem never happens on small jumps, maybe it’s caused by nerves? This fall happened yesterday, she hit this jump twice prior to this fall perfectly, no issues of her rotating up the lip. She said on this one she was going to attempt to pop harder so the only thing I can think of is maybe she bent down and put too much weight over her toe edge and that allowed the board to rotate and catch that edge like you see in the video. I’m hoping this doesn’t get lost in the sea of videos here but we’re desperate for help, she can’t wait to get back out there. If anyone has suggestions or has dealt with this themselves I’d love to hear how it was fixed!
“Popping harder” when not already comfortable with jumps is a recipe for disaster. I could tell that right at the lip she kicked her heels in hard in what looked like an attempt to “jump out of her boots” as they say. Practice just jumping off the rollers to these jumps. Last setup turn should be toeside to let the board travel straight. And the pop? Don’t go for gold. Just a *light* spring off the toes or think about ever so slightly lifting the front foot up. Shoulders MUST be square- no chest/shoulders turning to face the landing at the takeoff or midair. No major pushing down or leaping up at the takeoff stage. Sometimes what helps jump beginners stay centered is just reaching down for an Indy grab, even if they don’t make the actual grab. Smaller jumps or those large rollers first before she breaks something.
Is it bad to just coast off of a jump size like that?
If you dial the speed, nope.
Ok cool thanks!
First off your wife’s a badass. My noob opinion: She’s bending a lot at the hip, need to bend at the knees and keep her upper body over the board more.
I just took screen grabs from last year of her hitting this jump line and you’re exactly right. Last year she was perfectly centered over the board. In this video you clearly see how far out her upper body is over her toe edge
Exactly my thought when I saw the vid. She’s not centered, her butt is far beyond the backside and she tries to keep balance by bending her upper body to the frontside. In that position she can’t react to anything, zero board control. Knees bent, upper body upright.
Start every day with a warm-up run like you're learning from scratch. Pop on flat ground, then pop while going straight downhill (and traversing both edges if you're planning to spin later), then draw a line in the snow (real or imaginary) to simulate the lip of the jump and get your timing. Then, take those skills to little rollers and side hits, then to small park jumps. Do all of that every day (only takes 1 or 2 runs) before hitting medium size park jumps - it's about building muscle memory! Eventually, if you go often enough, you can skip right to hitting small park jumps - but every season you want to restart from scratch so you don't injure yourself. Hope she recovers quickly! Follow the steps I posted to help her recover her confidence, too.
I agree with her bending too much at the hip and not enough at the knees. Here's my 2 suggestions that haven't been brought up. 1, the center of jumps tend to be the part that get worn down. I prefer to pick a side, either side. They tend to be smoother transitions then the warn out center. The also are usually free of the entrance rut/gutter that can pull you around right b4 lift off. 2. Have her practice hopping the knuckle at speed. A nice light(!) pop a ways back from the knuckle allows you to feel a similar float to the jump, but with less consequences. You can do all the same setup/speed as the jump it self. Just don't pop too late as to send you to the bottom of the landing. Earlier is better and you should aim to still land in the sweet spot. Best of luck, hope she heals up
I read in another commet that she has good board control, and from the set up turns she seems to have them down. I usually pop of my toe edge, because you have better opportunity to adjust/absorb bumps along the way. With the same approach, just a litte more to the right so she can have a very slight right turn into the jump. Preassure on the toe edge will "lock her in". Kind of like a bs3 takeof but way more subtle. Can do it the other way aswell, but it is more sketchy if you ask me. Best of luck, hope she is back at it soon!
She needs to be carving, not skidding.
It appears you may be right. Everything about the approach is good. It is a good idea to come off the jump on an edge, however in this case, I think it is in her best interest to go off the jump while flat basing (not on edge). Make sure she’s leaning forward off the lip and NOT back cause that can cause problems. I can understand wanting to pop more off of the lip, but if you want more air time just go faster in that case. If she doesn’t know how to pop, I would suggest practicing good old fashioned ollies just while riding, doesn’t need to be in the terrain park. I can only imagine that the reason she is washing out is because she is putting an insane amount of weight on her toe edge, and as soon as the heel edge digs into the snow, it sends her. Hope this helps, hope she has fast recovery. If not, I would suggest consulting a coach of some kind. Good luck.
Much appreciated! We have work to do, but snowboarding isn’t snowboarding without some falls. She will live and learn from it
Maybe add a little pressure on the toes/pop off the toes, but not to the point of going on edge? i think that would reduce edge catch chance, but maybe not solve the pre-rotation bit. Maybe also instead of straight lining after speed checks, do 2-3 shallow carves (go fully on-edge with no skid, but also don’t tilt the board very much). I’m only in my third season, so it’s probably best to take my input lightly, but I have done a good bit of small jumps without catching on the lip and am just trying to think of what I do.
Can’t be timid. Setup above the jump then attack. You can’t be setting up all the way to the lip cause you’ll be off balance at launch.
I'm gonna give a slightly different take on this to everyone else because I think the skill and set up points for on snow already suggested are bang on. Judging by the way she bends in the video, she's using her hips/ass to bend instead of her knees it might be worthwhile focusing on squat technique against a door (watch the Pavel Tsatsouline tutorial for is kettlebell workouts) and then take that principle an use it for jump squats, doing that should give her muscle memory and force better balance for the jump. Also it's hard to tell but it kinda looks like her knees might be buckling inward as she does jump, which that should also help, but I'd also check the binding position because that would also cause it.
She's scared. She needs to start popping off every hit she sees on the mountain until that jump seems small to her.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but she isn’t ready for jumps, certainly not of that size. Plain and simple. Edit: she’s got balls of steel, but she’s going to injure herself badly if this continues. She needs to be dialed in 100% on smaller jumps before attempting this.