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Mar. 21st, 2006 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenThe key skills of snowboarding
Before you can move, the preliminaries:
1. standing up
2. balancing
These aren't as simple as they look, sadly. For example, there's
1. standing up – facing upslope
2. standing up – facing downslope
and
1. balancing on the flat
2. balancing on the toe edge
3. balancing on the heel edge
4. balancing on a slope
5. balancing at speed
There's no secret to balance. You just have to learn it, and the only way is to do it, repeatedly. You are going to fall over a lot. Wear padding, wrist braces and a helmet. Be prepared to hurt. You will. If you can be bothered, train up your leg muscles, especially calves and quadriceps, and do some sit-ups, because you're going to be picking yourself up off the ground a lot.
As for standing up, different ways work for different folks, but for most, especially the less-than-super-fit, the easiest is to hoik your legs in the air, flip the board and then yourself over onto your face, and then stand up facing uphill with your back to the drop. This way you can stand on tip-toe, keeping the uphill edge dug into the snow, and you won't slip. If you're clever or fit enough to flip from lying on your back on the floor onto your feet, then you can jump upright from lying on the ground, landing on your feet on the board. Some people can do this. I can't. Yet.
3 types of skill:
1. moving
2. stopping
3. turning
3 skills to moving:
1. side-slipping
2. edge-riding
3. sliding on the flat
Some of these subdivide:
1. side-slipping
1. standing on your toes
2. standing on your heels
2. edge-riding
1. riding on your toes
2. riding on your heels
3. sliding on the flat
1. forwards (leading foot first)
2. backwards (trailing foot first)
2 core skills:
1. controlling your speed
2. stopping
Subsidiary but very handy skills
1. Getting on a chair lift
2. Getting off a chair lift without falling over
3. Using a button lift or tow lift
If you're fortunate enough to have a convenient cablecar, you might not need these. Alternatively, for the determined, the fit, or those who either don't have a lift or won't use one, you can always walk up the hill.
Getting your priorities right
Once you can progress down a slope at the speed of your choice, and stop when you want to, then worry about where you're going.
The gentle controlled way of descending a slope is to zig-zag down it, riding on the edge. To do this, you need 3 skills: riding the toe edge, riding the heel edge, and changing direction. The reason is that when riding the edge, by just changing the angle of the board with respect to the gradient, you have fine control over your speed. The closer you are to heading straight, the faster you will go; the more nearly perpendicular you are to it, the slower. To speed up or slow down, all you have to do is pivot the board around your vertical axis. Imagine a line dropping from your head straight down through your body to the ground; that's the line the board turns around. Point the tip downhill, you speed up; point it along the contour line, 90 degrees to the slope, you'll slow down. Dig the edge in more, you'll stop.
If the slope is scarily steep, don't try to be clever, just side-slip straight down it on your edge – whichever edge you feel happiest on.
Important points
You're going to need to learn to side-slip, to ride the edge and to steer. Stopping is a matter of swivelling around and digging in the uphill edge of the board – it comes from steering. At first, pick somewhere with a gentle slope that ends in a flat bit, then you don't have stop yourself, gravity will do it for you. Then you can practice stopping before the flat bit at your own pace.
Start with side-slipping. This is the slowest way to descend a slope; if all else fails, if you can't cope, you can side-slip down slowly. This will give you confidence to try the faster stuff.
Practice whichever way you feel comfortable. You have two choices: standing on your toes, facing uphill, your back to the drop – preferable for the nervous – or on your heels, facing the drop. If you have natural talent, you may find both easy. Good for you. If you don't, try to work out which is less hard work or less scary and start with that.
Until you learn to relax, it will be really really hard work, punishing your leg muscles. This doesn't last. Firstly, your leg muscles get used to it and get stronger, and secondly, as you get better, your stance relaxes and you stop tensing up.
Next, learn to edge ride. This is like side slipping but you point the nose of the board just a little bit downhill & travel in a diagonal. Ride whichever way you prefer, on toes or heels.
The next bit is the scary bit. You have to turn the board around and ride the other edge. This means going through a point at which you're pointing straight downhill and the board will accelerate.
At first, you will panic and fall. Get over it, get up and try again. The key thing is to keep turning. If you can get around onto the other edge, it all slows down again.
Some things aren't obvious but are key to realise. Not understanding them won't stop you succeeding but might make things slower.
Firstly, you do rather need to master all the sections: controlling your speed, turning and riding. You can always stop by throwing yourself at the ground, but it might hurt, you might hit someone and on a really steep bit you'll keep sliding.
However, you don't need to master all the skills in a section and there's no particular order. If you can side-slip on one edge, that's good enough; you don't need both. If you can get up facing one way, and stand there stationary, that's good enough – you don't need to be able to do it facing both ways.
If you can edge-ride facing both ways and switch between them, you can traverse down a slope – you don't need to be able to go straight down at full speed. Indeed if you can control your zig-zags well, you don't really need to be able to steer very accurately – you can zigzag your way around obstacles.
There's no harm in spending the time trying to master both ways of side-slipping, say, or anything else, but it's hard work and not much fun. The fun begins when you can traverse a slope, so aim for the fun stage, don't sweat the additional skills once you've assembled the core set you need.
You also don't need to be able to get on and off chairlifts, but it really helps. It's much easier to get a lift to the top of the slope than to slog up there on foot, even if you're scared of heights.
For a 'boarder, chairlifts and button lifts are a pain – often a literal pain in the arse. They're designed for skiers, not for us, and they're tricky, but they're worth it. We'll look at them later.
Before you can move, the preliminaries:
1. standing up
2. balancing
These aren't as simple as they look, sadly. For example, there's
1. standing up – facing upslope
2. standing up – facing downslope
and
1. balancing on the flat
2. balancing on the toe edge
3. balancing on the heel edge
4. balancing on a slope
5. balancing at speed
There's no secret to balance. You just have to learn it, and the only way is to do it, repeatedly. You are going to fall over a lot. Wear padding, wrist braces and a helmet. Be prepared to hurt. You will. If you can be bothered, train up your leg muscles, especially calves and quadriceps, and do some sit-ups, because you're going to be picking yourself up off the ground a lot.
As for standing up, different ways work for different folks, but for most, especially the less-than-super-fit, the easiest is to hoik your legs in the air, flip the board and then yourself over onto your face, and then stand up facing uphill with your back to the drop. This way you can stand on tip-toe, keeping the uphill edge dug into the snow, and you won't slip. If you're clever or fit enough to flip from lying on your back on the floor onto your feet, then you can jump upright from lying on the ground, landing on your feet on the board. Some people can do this. I can't. Yet.
3 types of skill:
1. moving
2. stopping
3. turning
3 skills to moving:
1. side-slipping
2. edge-riding
3. sliding on the flat
Some of these subdivide:
1. side-slipping
1. standing on your toes
2. standing on your heels
2. edge-riding
1. riding on your toes
2. riding on your heels
3. sliding on the flat
1. forwards (leading foot first)
2. backwards (trailing foot first)
2 core skills:
1. controlling your speed
2. stopping
Subsidiary but very handy skills
1. Getting on a chair lift
2. Getting off a chair lift without falling over
3. Using a button lift or tow lift
If you're fortunate enough to have a convenient cablecar, you might not need these. Alternatively, for the determined, the fit, or those who either don't have a lift or won't use one, you can always walk up the hill.
Getting your priorities right
Once you can progress down a slope at the speed of your choice, and stop when you want to, then worry about where you're going.
The gentle controlled way of descending a slope is to zig-zag down it, riding on the edge. To do this, you need 3 skills: riding the toe edge, riding the heel edge, and changing direction. The reason is that when riding the edge, by just changing the angle of the board with respect to the gradient, you have fine control over your speed. The closer you are to heading straight, the faster you will go; the more nearly perpendicular you are to it, the slower. To speed up or slow down, all you have to do is pivot the board around your vertical axis. Imagine a line dropping from your head straight down through your body to the ground; that's the line the board turns around. Point the tip downhill, you speed up; point it along the contour line, 90 degrees to the slope, you'll slow down. Dig the edge in more, you'll stop.
If the slope is scarily steep, don't try to be clever, just side-slip straight down it on your edge – whichever edge you feel happiest on.
Important points
You're going to need to learn to side-slip, to ride the edge and to steer. Stopping is a matter of swivelling around and digging in the uphill edge of the board – it comes from steering. At first, pick somewhere with a gentle slope that ends in a flat bit, then you don't have stop yourself, gravity will do it for you. Then you can practice stopping before the flat bit at your own pace.
Start with side-slipping. This is the slowest way to descend a slope; if all else fails, if you can't cope, you can side-slip down slowly. This will give you confidence to try the faster stuff.
Practice whichever way you feel comfortable. You have two choices: standing on your toes, facing uphill, your back to the drop – preferable for the nervous – or on your heels, facing the drop. If you have natural talent, you may find both easy. Good for you. If you don't, try to work out which is less hard work or less scary and start with that.
Until you learn to relax, it will be really really hard work, punishing your leg muscles. This doesn't last. Firstly, your leg muscles get used to it and get stronger, and secondly, as you get better, your stance relaxes and you stop tensing up.
Next, learn to edge ride. This is like side slipping but you point the nose of the board just a little bit downhill & travel in a diagonal. Ride whichever way you prefer, on toes or heels.
The next bit is the scary bit. You have to turn the board around and ride the other edge. This means going through a point at which you're pointing straight downhill and the board will accelerate.
At first, you will panic and fall. Get over it, get up and try again. The key thing is to keep turning. If you can get around onto the other edge, it all slows down again.
Some things aren't obvious but are key to realise. Not understanding them won't stop you succeeding but might make things slower.
Firstly, you do rather need to master all the sections: controlling your speed, turning and riding. You can always stop by throwing yourself at the ground, but it might hurt, you might hit someone and on a really steep bit you'll keep sliding.
However, you don't need to master all the skills in a section and there's no particular order. If you can side-slip on one edge, that's good enough; you don't need both. If you can get up facing one way, and stand there stationary, that's good enough – you don't need to be able to do it facing both ways.
If you can edge-ride facing both ways and switch between them, you can traverse down a slope – you don't need to be able to go straight down at full speed. Indeed if you can control your zig-zags well, you don't really need to be able to steer very accurately – you can zigzag your way around obstacles.
There's no harm in spending the time trying to master both ways of side-slipping, say, or anything else, but it's hard work and not much fun. The fun begins when you can traverse a slope, so aim for the fun stage, don't sweat the additional skills once you've assembled the core set you need.
You also don't need to be able to get on and off chairlifts, but it really helps. It's much easier to get a lift to the top of the slope than to slog up there on foot, even if you're scared of heights.
For a 'boarder, chairlifts and button lifts are a pain – often a literal pain in the arse. They're designed for skiers, not for us, and they're tricky, but they're worth it. We'll look at them later.
