Experienced kiteboarder...Keep sliding sideways on snowboard. Can't go straight to save my life.

Any tips to overcome heelside pressure instinct?

When you're going dead flat on a snowboard it's probably when you're most unstable. Just edge (lightly) on your heel and toeside and do big drawn out S's to get to where you want.

Im constantly on my heel edge. I point the board downhill, try to go for a straight glide. Within 2m the heelside slides around.

I tried riding a poma, ended up as if I was kiting against it.

Got to be something in my binding setup (should I give it more toe, as I thought it was in the center..maybe not).
Or
Too much duck... or not enough?

..I'm doing something wrong

Let me guess, you're trying to learn on your own, thinking how hard could this be, I'm already great at other board sports ?

Do yourself a massive favor and book just a 2h private lesson to learn the correct basics and be safe for yourself and others.

You'll save yourself from a lot of headaches. Bad habits you develop from self-learning will take ages to break and will greatly slow your future progression down.

Australian ski slopes are where I've witnessed the most amount of out of control self-learners ever...each season forcing about a hand full of my instructor colleagues to fly back home from being hit and injured by them

Learn to control your speed by side-slipping, toe side and heel side. If you can't do that, no point trying to take the chairlift and going in a straight line...

Seriously get a lesson you won't regret it. Only very experienced and highly qualified instructors are handed the private lessons. Large group lessons are cheap but incredibly inefective and the main reason I stopped teaching this sport...

Equipment is the first thing an experienced instructor will look at before even starting the lesson, making sure everything is the right size and adjusted correctly

Christian

lean forward to turn .. sounds simple but takes practice... leaning forward allows you to move the back of the board around

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cbulota said..

Seriously get a lesson you won't regret it. Only very experienced and highly qualified instructors a handed the private lessons. Large group lessons are terrible.

Christian

I learnt to snowboard in 1993, there were about 2 snowboards on the whole mountain to hire so obviously not many instructors either

Yeah get lessons and invest heavily, snowboarding will send you broke $200 a day easy.

Learn to Ski..... Snowboarding is out like Windsurfing.

Carve, don't slide. You dont need lessons if you can follow good instructional vid (extreme carving) and have an idea about changing edges. I suspect if you can't ripped toeside the TT you'll struggle for a while...

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marco said...
Learn to Ski..... Snowboarding is out like Windsurfing.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Easy quick tip to try..

Angle the binding highbacks more forward.

That will naturally push more pressure onto your toes side edge. It should give u that better edge.

Will also help turning to toe side etc.


Turning is for girls! Go straight!!

why are aus skislopes/snowbord slopes so expensive anyway compared to nz?

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timmybuddhadude said..
why are aus skislopes/snowbord slopes so b#oody expensive anyway compared to nz?

Not exactly true. unless you go to remote club fields in NZ, the main ski resorts in NZ are now ALL over $100 NZD per day, where as in AUS it's about $120 on average, so yeah a little more expensive, but not by that much.

Most expensive resorts are actually in the US. check out these 2016 prices, all in US $ of course

10) Deer Valley- $126 9) Jackson Hole- $130 8) Keystone/Heavenly- $135 7) Squaw/Alpine- $139 6) Northstar at Tahoe- $140 5) Winter Park/Copper Mountain- $144 4) Aspen- $149 3) Steamboat- $159 2) Breckenridge- $164 1) Vail/Beaver Creek- $175

Just grab a kite and snow kite, it's free!!

Oh ok...i think that article was four years ago must have changed. Water seems safer ..

Lean forward! 90% front foot pressure.
Try to look sideways or even uphill for a moment (body follows your head, if you look downhill you tend to turn).
if your board is in bad shape it can get a bit twitchy.

Seriously just take a beginner group lesson for a day, snowboarding isn't hard but it's completely different from kiteboarding, unless you're in deep powder. A lot of your muscle memory needs to be adjusted, like weight on back foot, turning your hips "upwind", and so on.

I don't get why people are so afraid of having someone else just show them what to do. Too much testosterone, I guess

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kiteflo said...
Lean forward! 90% front foot pressure.
Try to look sideways or even uphill for a moment (body follows your head, if you look downhill you tend to turn).
if your board is in bad shape it can get a bit twitchy.

^^^ this is the key front foot pressure and look where you want to go. ( I successfully raced snowboards in the 90's and was an instructor for two years )
If you do as kiteflo said you will pretty much solve the problem.
Use the board edge under your front foot to initiate the turn and hold that pressure until you wish to change direction again.... Avoid trying to turn the board off the back foot. Use weight transfer instead of force .. It should be effortless.

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harry potter said..

kiteflo said...
Lean forward! 90% front foot pressure.
Try to look sideways or even uphill for a moment (body follows your head, if you look downhill you tend to turn).
if your board is in bad shape it can get a bit twitchy.

^^^ this is the key front foot pressure and look where you want to go. ( I successfully raced snowboards in the 90's and was an instructor for two years )
If you do as kiteflo said you will pretty much solve the problem.
Use the board edge under your front foot to initiate the turn and hold that pressure until you wish to change direction again.... Avoid trying to turn the board off the back foot. Use weight transfer instead of force .. It should be effortless.

Some good advice, however if you can't do this



AND this



With the same edge control, speed control and balance as the guy in the video, no point trying to do turns or anything else for that matter! Back to basics I'm afraid...

If you're good at other boardsports, a 2 hour one on one lesson will have you cranking in no time. Plus you get lots of little tips like how to get on a t-bar etc that you could probably work out yourself but not without a ego bruise or two.

As touched on above, snowboarding is weirdly almost the exact opposite of kiting, with the weight on the front foot for a turn. Your default instinct when you get out of control will be to put weight on the back foot = world of hurt!

Still $400 for a season ticket here, $40 for 11am to 5pm "half" day pass. So many reasons to stay here

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cbulota said...
Let me guess, you're trying to learn on your own, thinking how hard could this be, I'm already great at other board sports ?

Do yourself a massive favor and book just a 2h private lesson to learn the correct basics and be safe for yourself and others.

You'll save yourself from a lot of headaches. Bad habits you develop from self-learning will take ages to break and will greatly slow your future progression down.

Australian ski slopes are where I've witnessed the most amount of out of control self-learners ever...each season forcing about a hand full of my instructor colleagues to fly back home from being hit and injured by them

Learn to control your speed by side-slipping, toe side and heel side. If you can't do that, no point trying to take the chairlift and going in a straight line...

You think Australian slopes are bad, you should check out China... So much uncontrolled carnage, the amount of people who go there for a day and just head out onto the steepest run, point downhill and hope is ridiculous.

Dude, get lessons. So much cheaper than wasting your time and money/your lift passes bumbling around the slopes.

And forget NZ and Oz, if you want real powder, Japan is freaking awesome!

Just get a go pro on a selfie stick and slide sideways down the whole slope, seems to be the norm....

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Kamikuza said..
Still $400 for a season ticket here, $40 for 11am to 5pm "half" day pass. So many reasons to stay here

baw baw has $25 on wed, $50 other weekdays, $80 weekend I think

ok snow is sh&t, but if you are beginner does that matter

oh yes you need to be able to use a rope tow, I think that keeps most punters away.

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marco said..
Learn to Ski..... Snowboarding is out like Windsurfing.

um.. I think you got it the wrong way around. skiers are poleys doubled. get it? two poles? haha

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HighzaKite said...

Kamikuza said..
Still $400 for a season ticket here, $40 for 11am to 5pm "half" day pass. So many reasons to stay here

baw baw has $25 on wed, $50 other weekdays, $80 weekend I think

ok snow is sh&t, but if you are beginner does that matter

oh yes you need to be able to use a rope tow, I think that keeps most punters away.

I think that's the problem though- apart from a sometimes decent park, it's a beginners mountain but has t bars, which are not really beginner friendly.

A quick exercise for anyone that wants to learn snowboarding.

1. Stand up in snowboarding position (Without a board on)

2. Lift your arm to the side and point in the direction you want to go.

3. Put pressure through the leg on the same side you have your arm up. Your other leg should now feel light enough to slide forwards and backwards on the floor.

4. Lift your toes off the ground and slide your 'light' foot forward. Keep your arm up as it keeps your weight on your forward leg. This is your heel side brake.

5. Lift your heels off the ground and slide your 'light' foot backwards. This is your toe side brake.

When transferring this to the slopes do not try and go straight down, practice going sideways left and right always with your weight forward and just using your back foot as a brake.

Once you can do this on your heel side and toe side just going from side to side on the slope you should be able to start linking some turns.

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Kamikuza said..
Still $400 for a season ticket here, $40 for 11am to 5pm "half" day pass. So many reasons to stay here

Which location is this?

Thanks everyone. I moved the bindings one notch to the toeside and lent on and used front foot pressure for toe side carves (against kite instinct).

I borrowed a file and filed the steering edges.

Totally different experience. Felt totally in control and could go wherever I wanted. So either 1 or all 3 made the difference!

As for lessons I used the snowprofessor videos and am following the steps.

As for ski's, I happily ski blacks. Got a chuckle from the strap a go pro on and slide ways comment above.

As for lifts, I hired a Jucy Car for $21 a day which includes a whole mountain lift pass per day hired (up to 6 days) at Hotham. I was dubious, but no issue redeeming. The rental car is sitting at home in my driveway.

Last tips for anyone having a crack at snowboarding.

1. Get flow bindings. I'm doing twice as many runs as others stuffing around sitting in the snow with ratchets.

2. A bit of blue camping mat and or bubble wrap at the back between 2 pairs of jocks...mint!

Thanks again all for the tips.

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Freddofrog said..

Kamikuza said..
Still $400 for a season ticket here, $40 for 11am to 5pm "half" day pass. So many reasons to stay here

Which location is this?

Japan :D

Sorry, I should have been more specific, which ski field in Japan?

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Wisha said...
I borrowed a file and filed the steering edges.

Really? I hope you own the board and didn't do that to someone else's board.