BigBump

The biggest thing I take away from the video riding is all about technique and not so much about equipement and stances. These guys are making ripping heelside carves in softboots and a duckstance that alot of people in hardboots can't. It's easy to blame your equipement or lack there of(if only I hard that plate/custom Coiler/Sidewinder/BTS spring) and ignore improving technique. How often on here is the advice given to someone who has riding issues something like "you need more toelift and some inward cant" or "those issues are why I bought a plate"? That's the easy answer, the hard answer is to figure out how to make adjustments to your riding technique and style. And those equipement suggestions may help, but unless you adjust your riding technique, I bet they will keep making apearences.

I've always found that a piece of fine grit sandpaper on my workbench works great for sharpening a wax scraper. Not fancy, but cheap and effective

Going for your level III in hardboots is making an already very difficult exam harder. Not impossible by any stretch but you would need to be comfortable teaching a group composed mostly of high level softboot riders anything anywhere on the mountain. That could mean aggressive carving as easily as it could mean boardslides on a flat-down box. To be able to do that, you have to be a very versatile rider and teacher. To be successful, it helps to be on a very versatile setup which I think most people would agree isn't hardboots, forward angles, and freecarve board. Also, say you drew bumps for teaching. Now you have to figure out a move you do in the bumps in hardboots that applies to the softbooted riders in your group and teach to that. If you aren't interested in any of that, then don't go for certification. Getting Level III certified is kind of pointless unless you are trying to make a career out of instruction anyway.

Kingpa, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I had a similar one a few years ago. I finished the event, didn't get what I wanted out of it, and filled out the survey at the end and was completely honest and mentioned to the clinician that I wasn't happy and the reasons why. He said he appreciated the feedback and just wished I had taken a chair ride with him earlier. I can't speak for the other Divisions but I feel AASI-E is very open minded. I have had amazing experiences with them and some that made me want to break my board in half. But I will say I never got bad advice or disagreed with their comments on my riding or teaching. As an aside, I finally passed my Level III riding last season(on soft boots, I am now only on my hardboots a few times a season...by choice and not outside opinions/forces). I couldn't have, nor would want to, passed it on Hardboots. We pretty much rode rutted trees and (switch) bumps for 2/3's of the exam. The other part was spent on steeps and in the park. Also, they held a Level 1 event at my mountain 2 seasons ago and one of the candidates was in hardboots. His feedback was totally applicable to hardboots and wasn't told to ditch the gear. Some of the best advice I've gotten for hardbooting has come from an AASI examiner who had never even ridden hardboots. He just watched me ride and understood the sport well enough to adapt his knowledge of softboot riding to hardbooting.

Maybe those AASI peeps can carve?

Awesome! Hope you like them. They feel impossibly stiff if you try to flex them by hand but wearing them, my 225lb frame had no problem flexing them.

I am a big guy with a wide foot. I rode the 32 focus boa for a few seasons and loved them. I changed last season to the Ride Insano and I absolutely love the Insano. The fit is great and they are very stiff. The only issue I had with the 32 focus boa is they would break in too soft. The Insano's were great all of last season. Very stiff and supportive but as a big guy that is what you need! Also, I am a big fan of the Boa system, particularly the Focus Boa and would never go back to laces.

I gave up hard booting a few seasons ago. I started in softies, enjoyed carving in them and went to a full hardboot set up(Burton Factory Prime 163 and then a season later a Prior WCR 178). Then, I started drifting back to soft boots as my snowboarding world grew beyond just banging turns. These days I ride soft boots on a pure twin 100% of the time in a duck stance. I just enjoy the versatility of that setup. Being able to do trees, steeps, groomer, flatland tricks and park all in one run is really what I prefer now. I ride duck because I do ride/carve switch 50% of the time. I did once go back to my hardboot set up and felt so limited in what I could do. Yes, I could crank carved turns much harder than my sofies, but that was about it. Everything else on the mountain was harder/more awkward/caused foot pain.

I think most skiers you see aren't really much better than the snowboarders that you see. Both are generally somewhere on the intermediate curve. There are tons of reasons for this such as time on the hill, desire to improve...etc. Not everyone on the slopes want to get better. Some people are content cruising blues and greens. I think it's more a mindset than equipement problem. Not everyone cares about learning how to drag their hip in the snow just like not everyone cares about how to BS180 on to tail press tail tap FS180 off a box. As far as equipement, I know several shops in my are that used to carry high end boards by Burton, Palmer, and some others but stopped because they simply didn't sell. In addition, a good freeride board should be more "scarvy" than carvy as many if the things that make a board good for carving can be not so good in the bumps and trees. For me, I rode a Rossignol Decoy this season. It's a pure twin, all-mountain freestyle board and was one of the most versatile boards I've ever ridden. I could do a bump run, then carve some groomer, then hit the jumps and rails and then go do it all switch with no problem. For the record, I have a 23" stance with a duck stance. Could I carve better if my stance was a little narrower with more forward angles? Probably, but I don't want to kill my performance everywhere else on the mountain. So for me, I would say the current boards work great for me. Before that I was on a Rome Anthem SS which is their freeride board. It carved ok, but was a great board in anything ungroomed and for tricking off bumps.

The basic HD Gopro is fine as philw said. For snowboarding, I like the helmet mount that mounts it to the top of the helmet. For mountain biking I use the chest mount. For snowboarding, I generally find it more useful for shooting friends rather than first person shots(except for glade riding, then it looks pretty good). Generally my friends and I take turns wearing it and shooting each other. I've tried the pole thing with mixed success. I like it for some brief shots but don't really like it for a whole 2-3min clip. Windows Movie Maker has enough to get you started with making movies and throwing stuff on youtube for friends to see. Then you can move onto fancier, more expensive stuff if you feel the need.

This was shot with an HD POV cam attached to a remote controlled tricopter http://www.vimeo.com/10523575

I used to ride the RIDE Migs(very, very stiff binding) for carving but got tons of foot pain with these bindings so I switched to the Salomon Relay Pro's and love then for carving and just about anything else. They are soft in every direction except toe to heel. So if you don't ride super high angles, they offer great range of motion towards the tip and tail but are very responsive edge to edge(the toeside of the binding is connected to the highback with a steel cable). Also, best of all, absolutely zero foot pain with these bindings.

Personally, I would still ride duck stance. I find it to be a more versatile stance for all mountain riding(I'm talking softboots, for hardboots I don't see why you would ride them that way). I can move my weight around on the board easier than with when I rode a forward stance. Getting to the nose and tail faster and farther. Also, I feel like I have more range of motion to absorb terrain when duck. If you are talking about a generic snowboarder who is only interested in making turns, cruising around the mountain in their normal stance(ie not switch), with no desire for learning tricks or switch, then I would say that stance angles don't make much of a difference unless it's something that is inheritely a bad idea(like pigeon toed or something, physical reasons for the stance not withstanding). Is a forward stance better for carving? Probably. Do I think it really matters? Not really.

I think it's a shame what they are doing to you Boris. I've taught at 4 different mountains and they never had a problem with hardboot instructors. I really do think this is a case of the powers that be in your school not being well informed as to what hard booting is rather than some industry wide conspiracy theory. As far as duck stance, I already debated this in another thread and love riding like that in softies and any issues carving heelside can be overcome by technique. But I will add that it is your splay(difference between the binding angles) that is determined by your individual body. For example, if you are riding aligned well with your angles, then riding +30, +10 is really the same biomechanically as 10, -10. It's just a question of how you want to be oriented on the board. In softies, I prefer riding with my shoulders roughly lined up with my board to be my neutral stance, so I ride 15,-12.

Been running boas for around 6 seasons now. I've never had a problem with them. They so much more comfortable than laces, especially the "focus boa" system which has seperate upper and lower zones. To me it would be no brainer...

Well, if that is the case in PNW division that is too bad. Here in the east, you are judged on the tasks assigned, not your stance. You definitely have to be versatile, especially once you get to the Level III standards which would give duck footed riders an advantage as it is a much more versatile stance. But as a Level III certified instructor, you should be able to improve anyone's riding that walks up for a lesson be it carving, freeriding, or freestyle which means you have to be extremely versatile. If you aren't interested in being that versatile, then in my opinion, you shouldn't be going for higher levels of certification. I just read through the AASI-NW 2009 standards off the psia-nw website, and I didn't see anything you couldn't do in either stance. If examiners are finding fault with people showing up with a forward stance, that's definitely too bad. I do know that the freestyle standards at exams, which could be considered the most duck stance friendly, was very hotly debated this year by the examiners in AASI East.

I don't really see how a foward stance could keep you from these things(I passed my Level II with angles of +21, +12). Agreed, it's probably easier doing it duck, especially at the Level III level, because the level for switch riding(like switch bumps) and the level of the terrain that requires a solid dynamic skarved turn. However, that doesn't mean it's going impossible to do in a more forward stance, just a little more difficult. Just because riding switch is harder, doesn't mean it can't be done and it isn't signifigantly harder. Just like carving may be trickier duck but that doesn't mean it can't be done and that's required at Level II. Both stances have pro's and con's, but neither one limits you to the point where you can't do something.

Since when did skill level determine what angles you are allowed to ride? That's a pretty broad statement. Do I think everyone has done the research and struggled with figuring out what angles to run? No. Their friends who ride duck probably got them into riding and so that's how they set up their bindings. How many people here have set up a board to teach a friend? Did you tell them all the advantages/disadvantages of the different ways to set them up and let them decide or did you just set it up how you are used to riding? Also, who are you to say who sucks and who doesn't?

Sorry I missed this. I'll try setting my angles back to the way I used to ride(+21, +12) this weekend for a few runs and see how it feels and report back. I won't have any video or anything, so you'll have to take me at my word. I still feel, and this may change this weekend, that at the level we are at(ie people who snowboard for fun and aren't pros) any performance dings due to duck or forward angles can be made up by adapting your technique. For me, I love the symetrical feeling of going switch and then going back to regular and having both directions feel identical. Also, people on this board seem to think it's a rarity to see someone carve well duck. I would say it's a rarity to see someone carve well in softies regardless of set-up. We are pretty much talking about something that is total personal preference, so we can armwrestle all we want but at the end of the day some people like 15,-15 or 21, 12, or 30, -5.

jack you are 100% right. It's about duck, my appologies. Anyway, as far as I know it's not AASI's official opinion. As I said a few posts up I was at an a event a few weeks ago and discussed encouraging a forward stance for beginners so that the boards had a better feeling of directionality. The guy running the clinic was on AASI's Eastern Ed Staff and an Examiner. If I get a chance, I'll shoot him an email about this. But, it may be a difference in opinion between the different AASI regional divisions. Eastern has a tendency to do things differently, mainly because we have such different conditions that the other regions. I have discussed angles numberous times at AASI clinics(and exams) usually everyone has a reasonable reason for why they ride forward or duck. I will say that as you go to higher level clinics and exams, duck definitely does become more popular but I believe that's because at upper levels, almost everyone rides switch alot and at least dabbles in the park. I feel that duck is a more versatile stance set up than running forward angles which is why I ride that way. And alot of the apparent limitations of duck can be overcome with changes in your technique. I have no problem with running forward angles, and did for a long time before slowly going over to duck. What bothers me is that the tone of this thread is that people who run duck are only doing it to look cool or because there is some conspiracy that forces them to ride that way. Also, ever wonder if the reason skiers who try snowboarding find it uncomfortable are because they are going from heat fitted liners and possibly custom footbeds to rental equipement that is poor fitting to begin with?

What I meant by the turboleafer lesson are the people that only do heelside falling leaf(if they leaf, it's heelside 99% of the time). It's so easy to get them comfy on toeside and onto linking turns at that point since they typically have the balance and board control figured out at that point and just need the confidence to apply it to toeside and link turns. Sorry for the confusion. Emphasis on tried. Sounds like a teaching issue to me. I meant firguring out which direction to set the bindings. The forward stance gives them a sense of direction so I guess it doesn't matter since they may not have developed the ability to tell left from right yet(note by kids I'm talking 7year olds and younger). Jack, I don't doubt that you had hundreds of happy clients that you taught without using falling leaf. You are certainly knowledgable about carving and snowboarding in general. I just have a different approach, I don't have a "set" beginner lesson anymore. I pull from my bag of tricks as needed, and one of those tricks is certainly falling leaf. Used correctly, it can be a great teaching tool, even in upperlevel riding. Used incorrectly, and like so many other teaching excercises, and it's useless or detrimental to learning.

So if they use falling leaf they should give up on snowboarding? I'm glad to hear you don't teach anymore Jack. I love getting the turboleafer lesson, so easy to get them comfy on toeside. Though I suppose it's easier to tell them to just give up..... With rental boards set 15,-15 you could let them try skating and doing some one footed glides with either foot forward to see which one is natural then have them stick with that. I think for kids it's easier to set them forward, though even that gets tricky because they are still developing a sense of right and left. Also, nothing wrong with teaching falling leaf, it's great way to develop steering the board. I just wouldn't end a lesson with it.

I just did an AASI Eastern Division clinic and we talked about using forward angles on rental boards so the board has a bit of directionality for newbies. I guess it's a different in the divisions.... Duck foot carving is a different technique. I personally find that I have more range of motion duck. I also ride switch around 50% of the time because I enjoy the symmetry. I don't really see how duck stance inhibits you in any way. Obviously if it is causing knee pain you shouldn't use it. The reason alot of people think it hurts their heelside carve is because of their technique not their setup. For a solid heelside carve duck, you have to be almost completely collapsed as you change edges and then as you extend into the turn, focus on keeping your hips CLOSER to the snow than your knees. Do these two things and keep your weight forward through the turn and the board will hook up like crazy.

For what it's worth I ride the 32 focus boa with custom footbeds. Most comfortable soft boot I've ridden. My feet feel like they are in slippers all day. Plenty stiff enough for carving, but soft enough allow for absorbtion for trees/bumps. Also, all 32 boots come with heat moldable liners and I have to say heat molded liners + custom footbeds = very happy feet

Picking the tail up and swinging it to change edges, IMO, is really not a great method in bumps or steeps. First, keeping so much pressure on the nose means you lose the ability to unweight it to absorb bumps and on steeps you can't control your speed until the tail is back on the snow. For bumps, I agree with Mr. Cermak. Stay centered so you can move your weight around as necessary, keep your legs loose, and strive to keep the whole board in contact with the snow. Look for opportunities to slow down, like banked turns or the sides of larger bumps. Also, if you get going too fast, go into a traverse until you are back in control.