5.0 Typical error patterns and tips & tricks to improve

1. keep your upper body in the direction of travel

When performing backside turns, make sure that you are facing in the direction of travel and that your upper body is slightly turned accordingly. Many people look directly down into the valley when doing backside turns, which causes the snowboard to skid too much and you fly over at the slightest bump.

For demonstration purposes, this is somewhat exaggerated in the video and you don't need to twist so much. Nevertheless, it makes sense to look up during backside turns to make sure you don't get knocked off by a skier. Looking in the direction of travel not only helps you to align your upper body correctly, but also to reduce the large blind spot that you unfortunately have when snowboarding

2. Avoid counter-rotations

It sometimes happens that you learn the skidded turn but execute it with an ultra-heavy swing. As a beginner or on steep terrain, this is okay from time to time. However, as soon as this results in a general riding style with extreme counter-rotation, you should change this.

Here, too, you typically look steadily towards the valley and not in the direction of travel. This type of snowboarding can be fun, but it prevents you from riding smoothly and learning to carve. If your turns look like this, it's worth practicing the 4.0 basic turn with a lot of patience to let the snowboard do the work. 

3. Know your range of motion and bring in dynamics

Basically, you should always have your knees slightly bent when snowboarding. However, it is important to first recognize how it feels to ride in a low and high positon. You can use the change between these two positions to snowboard more dynamically. Take a look here to find out more. 

Have yourself filmed to see what your full range of motion is, from a very high to a very low position. Thre is a tendency to have the feeling that you are riding in a low position, but you are actually riding with your legs relatively straight and only leaning your upper body towards the ground.

Once you know a little about your possible positions on the snowboard, it is advisable to look at the following topics to bring a little more dynamic into snowboarding. To do this, it is necessary to already be riding with your knees 6.1.2 Knee steering  6.1.1 Bend your knees 

4. Have the confidence to lean into the turns

Try leaning properly into the turns during backside turns. You can do this by leaning the snowboard up a little more and leaning on the inside of the turn, like in a deckchair. This is particularly recommended if you otherwise bend your upper body forwards a lot and have straight legs (video follows). Leaning more into the turns helps you to keep your center of gravity on the right side of the snowboard.

5. Avoid putting too much weight on the back foot

You will actively initiate turns with your front foot later on when carving. This only works if you put enough weight on the front foot. If you have too much weight on the back foot and it looks like the video below, try to distribute the weight evenly on both legs.

If you are riding in deep snow, the snow is very soft or there is fresh snow on the slope, you may have to put the weight, in other words the pressure, on the back foot. Normally, this is not the case.

Want to get even better?

If you can easily perform the skidded turns, it's time to get more dynamics into your turns. Learn more about your range of motion in module 6.1.2 Knee steering  6.1.1 Bend your knees 6.1.3 Release pressure  or try your hand at carving Carving Modules