Terminal Toe Stander.

[No.2]

Help me O Bomber.

When ever I get freaked I stand up on my toes esp my front and out comes my arse and there goes my line. Is there any thing I can do to reprogram my self to flex into my boots more rather than go tippy toes when things get spooky. This will help me sooo much to control my speed on steeps.

Thoughts, inspired "think of poring water out of you cuffs" sentiments, Drills?

Cheers.

Jas

[carvedog]

Help me O Bomber.

When ever I get freaked I stand up on my toes esp my front and out comes my arse and there goes my line. Is there any thing I can do to reprogram my self to flex into my boots more rather than go tippy toes when things get spooky. This will help me sooo much to control my speed on steeps.

Thoughts, inspired "think of poring water out of you cuffs" sentiments, Drills?

Cheers.

Jas

Can you elaborate a bit. And a little profile info would go a long ways. Being able to imagine angles, cants helps sometimes. Self dianosis is not easy.

Not that I can really see the whole thing, but it sounds like you generate a lot of speed toe speed, get freaked a little reach for the snow and skid out, sometimes spinning 360 and or highside of some kind or the belly slide for life.

Three thoughts.

If you don't have com - center of mass, your chi, your sphincter - however you want to visualize it, over the edge you are on, it will be impossible or very hard to control.

Sinking down and/or flexing of the boots down, moving arms down the hill, moving knees downhill, even a subtle head movement will do the trick if the conditions and unweighting are done correctly. Any one of these movements will help keep your weight over the edge. Picking which one is the most efficient is next.

Almost everyone I have worked with who gets the tippy toesides, needs to work on turn shape and finishing turns on both edges. Especially on the steeps. If you don't have the shape and finish to the heel turn then you carry too much speed into the toe turn, which then escalates the cycle of OH Sh!T to the next level.

Might help. Late now. Wish I was riding instead of talking about it.

[Hans]

May be you are a little scary of the steeps and you move your center too much backwards. That's the common natural mistake with steeps. Just move centered or just a little more to the front, put your hands were you are going. And may be it helps to just traverse the steeps and make your turns bigger just to practice (you lower your speed, more control).

[Cuban Carving Gooding]

Good info Hans,{I see you ride a nice board} .And this might help- click that second buckle A couple of notches. That will keep your foot on the bottom of your boot and pressure on the down hill edge. And at the same time do what Hans says.

[No.2]

Thanks Guys.

Thanks for your thoughts carvedog, maybe you could be a starter for New Zealand in 09. We are have such an insane season here at the mo. BTW I think I need to get my front ankle working on steeps cause at the mo I'm over finishing my turns when I panic and loosing to much speed to effectively initiate the next turn. And getting on tippy toes and weight back sure is a great way to freek my self out for the next plunge downwards. What I'm trying to archive is a nice cross under turn that doesn't run away from me on the steeps. I need descent pace in to help me keep my balance and a really sound initiation that sticks hard and gets me around before I hit warp speed.

Looks like you found my Stance Q thread Cuban. The boots are 26 and my feet are 275mm long, very wide, and high volume so the toe box is rather tight ;) I will try that though, might give me some more proprioceptive feedback.

What I really talking about is when my ankle technique breaks down. When I'm not freaked out ie not tight, steeep, really bumpy or trying to dodge rocks / people etc I feel like I've got nice, ankle flexing, board angulation, steering input. Great for snappy cross under or cross through turns. Like counter steering on a motorbike. How ever when I'm in holy poo! mode I stand on my tippy toes and actually loose angulation. My instincts are trying to increase angulation and turn back up the hill to slow down or dodge something but that don't work on a snowboard hence I need to reprogram.

Same as what Hans said I also get back in arrrrgh mode but I'm working on this :) Nice tip to the fire your hands where you want to go especially when it's down.

So any tips, drills or some of that inspired vague but meaningful coaching talk on reprogramming a stand on tippy toes instinct. Or the get back instinct for that matter.

I might try to get some video tomorrow. I'll see if the GF is up for it.... NOT like that! :D

Thanks again.

Jas

[Seraph]

In almost every sport that requires balance, the natural fear reaction is to get as far away as you can from the thing that can hurt you most, the ground. As a result most people will drive their weight up and forward as part of our fight or flight reaction. Most people in an uncomfortable or panic situation also tend to hold their breath and tighten up their muscles too.

The opposite reaction, i.e., lowering your weight and your center of gravity (2 inches below your belly) and instead of standing up and putting weight on your toes, taking a deep breath, and relax will allow you to maintain your balanced position.

Now how do you practice teaching your body to relax instead of tense up? One way is to exaggerate your reaction in a controlled environment, i.e. on terrain that you can control your snowboarding on. As you riding, practice tensing up all the muscles and then relaxing them, erraticly standing up straight and weight forward. Now do the opposite, exaggerate lowering your center of gravity, relaxing all the muscles in your body, and maintaining your center of balance over your snowboard.

[spil]

Have you read this?

[No.2]

Thanks spil yeah read that. It was a great help esp when I combined the hip down and forward with Rob Stevens "Think about tipping water out over the front of both cuffs toe side" esp the front one.

Seraph you're right on the money thank you. The relaxing / breath link is gold. And recreating the situations on moderate terrain and then doing the instinctive and then the relaxing / balanced combined with muscle tension and breath is what I'll try to day for a warm up, should be funny to watch. Nice visualization for my COM position too thanks :)

Cheers guys.

Jas

[Silver Bullet]

Try increasing your angles. There is a point where the toes don't help much anymore. What is the board width and current angles? I have long feet that require 70 deg angles on a 19 cm wide board. At these angles all you can do is drive the knees.

As for the steeps stay in the carve longer, come across the hill and even up hill a smidge to bleed off a bit of speed. You'll find that unweighting your body at the apex of the carve will be exhilierating.

[BlueB]

Very good points Seraph and right down the alley of your avatar.

This is often a neglected part of amateur sports practice, while it's so important for every activity.

When I'm in the groove, I often find myself doing deap audible breth-out routine through the turn, with inhalation in the transition. Feels good.

[b0ardski]

:cool:zencarves:biggthump

I get that in the trees too

[Jack M]

try some of these practice drills.

[Rob Stevens]

In almost every sport that requires balance, the natural fear reaction is to get as far away as you can from the thing that can hurt you most, the ground. As a result most people will drive their weight up and forward as part of our fight or flight reaction. Most people in an uncomfortable or panic situation also tend to hold their breath and tighten up their muscles too.

The opposite reaction, i.e., lowering your weight and your center of gravity (2 inches below your belly) and instead of standing up and putting weight on your toes, taking a deep breath, and relax will allow you to maintain your balanced position.

Now how do you practice teaching your body to relax instead of tense up? One way is to exaggerate your reaction in a controlled environment, i.e. on terrain that you can control your snowboarding on. As you riding, practice tensing up all the muscles and then relaxing them, erraticly standing up straight and weight forward. Now do the opposite, exaggerate lowering your center of gravity, relaxing all the muscles in your body, and maintaining your center of balance over your snowboard.

That's good stuff right there.

Nervousness makes your body do all kinds of stupid things.

Sometimes a "Minimum terrain, maximum effort" philosophy can work. Go out and pin it on terrain that doesn't scare you. You could cruise, but don't. Activate yourself, seeing the movements you'll use in harder terrain working for you on easier slopes.

Do a couple of high energy runs on the blues, go to a black and back to the blues, focusing on smooth power. If you feel your shoulders come up and your head pull down, leaving you with no neck, relax... slow down and build up again, without the tension.

[No.2]

Wow thanks guys. Thats just great stuff. Good to have another look at those drills Jack. I use alot of them for my warm ups. Some of the more challenging ones would work great with Hammering the blues Rob thats great advice. :)))

I'm back up in Auckland now. But I'll give that a send the next time I'm down.

Sorry but GF wan't up for getting cold videoing me boarding who'd have thought...

Got these pics for you though.

:)

J

[Hans]

Hi, Jas

Are you the professional sailingguy?

That nice second pic whit that huge powderfield.......some hiking to do

[No.2]

Hey Hans. Yeah thats me. :)

It's about an hour and a bit to the summit and the guys that did got some great snow. Not bad for this time of year eh.

Maybe you could bring the family (boards and people) over for 09.. See if we can get you out for a sail on an Americas Cup yacht.

:)

Jas

[BlueB]

If I ever visited NZ, I would definitelly be in for AC yach sailing!

Ride-on, and may you always be on starboard,

Wild B of the sea

[No.2]

Just had a little break through with this so I'd thought I'd share it. I noticed that this has alot to do with rotation of my upper body lagging which is exasperated on the steeps where the rotation delta is higher. So what I did was held on to my knees and went riding. Awesome! Great in bumpy white out like to day. Found my self dragging my elbows and popping air in total 0 vis. Fun but where the hell am I? :)

Clean runs

Jas

[bigdyno]

When I started roadracing motorcycles I read a book by Keith Code that suggested walking in a field and suddenly going limp and falling to the ground. The idea is that if you are going to crash you will tend to tense up and possibly injure your self more than if you are relaxed. I have to admit it has helped me on the (ahem) few times I have managed not to defy the laws of physics. If you can condition yourself to relax on command, as suggested in the other fine posts here, you will probably do fine.