Balance is Key
One of the most important aspects of snowboarding is having good balance. Balance is important for almost every
aspect of snowboarding including mobility, maneuverability, and safety. You don't want to be falling down and landing on your behind all the time.
Here are some tips to keep you on your feet:
- Knees bent. Keeping yourself lower to the ground gives your body more control over balance.
- Back straight. Good posture is always important when riding.
- Head up. Keeping your head up is key to having awareness of your balance and position.
- Hands out over the nose and tail of the board. Using your arms is a good trick to help keep yourself balanced.
Maneuverability
Being able to maneuver yourself efficiently on a snowboard is key to avoiding hazards, maintaining speed, slowing down. Here are a few tips to improve maneuverability.
- Heel-side turn. The easier direction to learn to turn towards would be your heel side. Lift your toes up and put your weight onto your heels. Keep your knees bent, and press your weight down onto your front foot while you simultaneously slightly push your back heel out towards the way you are facing.
- Toe-side turn. The more difficult way to turn, but still necessary to practice. Put your weight onto your toes, lifting your heels off the ground. Keep your weight on your front foot while simultaneously pushing your back foot backwards towards your backside.
- Carving. Carving is the utilization of both toe-side and heel-side turns in order to maintain a manageable speed while going down a hill. The trick is to turn back and forth, allowing your board to carve on each side of the turn. Each carve motion allows your board to slow down just slightly, thus allowing you to maintain speed.
- Stopping. Stopping can be done so that your end position is either facing uphill or downhill. In a downhill facing stop, you will be utilizing a sharp heel-side turn in order to get your body to face the bottom of the hill. It is important to not that you are not just sliding, but imagine yourself standing on your heels, lifting up the opposite end of the board to allow yourself to slow down and come to a stop.
Common Mistakes
Common mistakes new riders often make:
- Lack of commitment into moves. Not committing to turns and carves will often lead you to falling down or being unsuccessful. Use the help of a friend or instructor to assist you with other things and allow yourself to focus on one thing at a time.
- Putting your weight onto your back foot. This leads to maneuverability becoming inefficient and makes you work your legs much harder then you have to. The sudden speed increase can catch new riders off guard and will often when to lean backwards onto the back foot, usually resulting in falling on your behind. To fix this, over-exaggerate your forward lean. While for a new rider, it may seem like you are leaning too much, odds are is that you are centered just fine. This is something that takes time to get used to.
- Making your arms do all the work. Turning and shifting yourself by swinging your arms and upper-body around is a very inefficient way to practice. Instead, try grabbing your coat or pants and letting your legs and hips do all the work.