Heel side washout...why?

[Hotbeans]

BB.. yep, too true. and more to follow hopefully!

[Carp]

Ok, My brother finally got the video on you tube. I wasn't expecting the big production with intro and music, but here it is. Slam me as I already notice some things. This was the first day this season on the new board, different bindings, and the very last two runs so not super comfy with everything. I had never seen myself ride before and I can tell it will help to get more of the video thing.

I have the td3's on and the cant/lift different and no more wash out but curious about what I can do better as I'm sure I've got some bad habits... I always felt like I got lower on a more consistent basis, but hey something else to work on.

[Bobby Buggs]

You are far from a train wreck:biggthump

Get your left elbow out of your ribs. Its a classic closed front shoulder. Open that shoulder or point it in the direction of your turn and open that arm pit, watch what happens.

Jacks chest is facing the nose of his board his front side shoulder is open not facing the nose of the board.

Make sense??

[Hotbeans]

I thought the vid looked fine. MY opinion is that you're not over the edge at all times, ie: maintiaining angulation throughout the carve. I've been recently working on the "pinching the pencil" technique and found that an earlier and more consistent edge results. That "riding on rails" feeling.

[carvedog]

Carp - thank God you don't look like the guy in your avatar.

Couple of thoughts on the vid.

STOP reaching for the snow with your right hand on toe side. If you must reach for the snow use the left hand and raise the right. This will put you in a better position for your heel side; For an earlier, rounder and more effective edge set. This is another way to think about the pencil pitch in the ribs.

Seemed to be a little bit of edge set and park. Try to work towards movements and patterns of movements that keep you moving.

For my heelside I try to change the edge and then slowly and firmly keep driving my right hand down my thigh, to boot top and then keep pressing if you have the terrain for it.

Where the vid was looked a little flat for a full boot grab, deep laid out turn on heelside.

My thoughts FWIW.

[Carp]

You are far from a train wreck:biggthump

Get your left elbow out of your ribs. Its a classic closed front shoulder. Open that shoulder or point it in the direction of your turn and open that arm pit, watch what happens.

Jacks chest is facing the nose of his board his front side shoulder is open not facing the nose of the board.

Make sense??

I sit in front of a computer for long periods and have horrible posture. My left shoulder is pretty messed up. It sounds like arching my back would take care of the shoulder in the ribs as that's my main posture issue. I do try to keep that right hand following the carve by reaching forward but will try the boot trick too. I haven't heard the pinch the pencil trick but mom nature didn't give me a pencil to pinch.;). All seriousness thanks for the ideas and feed back.

[Carp]

You are far from a train wreck:biggthump

Get your left elbow out of your ribs. Its a classic closed front shoulder. Open that shoulder or point it in the direction of your turn and open that arm pit, watch what happens.

Jacks chest is facing the nose of his board his front side shoulder is open not facing the nose of the board.

Make sense??

It also looks like I'm sitting on the toliet. How to correct that? I'm definitely seeing the tucked shoulder. Guess I'm a little gun shy of catching the arm on a heel side again.

Thanks again guys

[NateW]

It also looks like I'm sitting on the toliet. How to correct that?

Reach forward with your trailing hand. It worked wonders for me.

[JJFluff]

It also looks like I'm sitting on the toliet. How to correct that? I'm definitely seeing the tucked shoulder. Guess I'm a little gun shy of catching the arm on a heel side again.

Thanks again guys

Its like Nate said, by moving your trailing hand, (right) forward, it will help to keep your body moving forward into the turn. You ultimately want to get your right shoulder (trailing shoulder) more forward, moving with the turn.

Stand in the living room, in a good stance, rotate your upper body so that you are facing forward while your feet remain in the postion that they would be in on your board. Now compress down and you will notice your butt is closer to the ground, "lower center of gravity" but at the same time your butt is not hanging out over the edge. It is 'stacked" above the board.

If you try the same thing and keep your shoulders more in line or parallel with the board or direction of travel, like how you are riding in the video you will notice that your butt now hangs outside of the board -toilet sitting-.

Your heelside wash out is occuring due to something I call "blocking". It is due to any form of counter rotation. That means that everything from the waist down is trying to move in one direction, like your edge,board,feet, shins, and so on up to the hips, while above the waist your body is moving in the opposite direction, or at least staying static.

I find when I ride, which is somewhat different to most on this site, everything works and moves together as one. On heelsides for instance, the board moves moves on the snow in an arc from right to left, ending at times facing uphill. I need to make sure that my body ends up there as well.

So to make a long story short, next time on the hill, I would isolate my heelside turn. Make a nice smooth large radius heelside, ending facing uphill. Making sure that your eyes are looking in the direction you are traveling and keeping your body opened up, chest facing the same direction that the nose of the snowboard is.

Let me know sometime when you guys are out at sunburst too, we can take some turns together. There are two of us hardbooters you are there pretty regularly

[KingCrimson]

Masking tape in the centerline of the board, from the nose to your front binding. Bamboo stick in hands. Make a plus sign. You get a lot of strange looks in the lift line, but it really helped me a lot.

I was riding my hardboots like softies, facing my toeside edge on heelside. Yuck.

[Bobby Buggs]

It also looks like I'm sitting on the toliet. How to correct that? I'm definitely seeing the tucked shoulder. Guess I'm a little gun shy of catching the arm on a heel side again.

Thanks again guys

The exaggerated version to correct that is to get your Right hand up by the nose of your board. It will square your chest and get your left shoulder more open to the turn, your hips should follow.

sorry for the poor quality but look at my hands and shoulders.

[trailertrash]

or put your hand on your toes:

[Bobby Buggs]

For those who are not flexibility challenged:o

[JJFluff]

Here are a few photos of heelsides. Notice how the body is opened up to the turn. Eyes are always looking in the direction of travel, not down the fall line.

A lot of times people say rotation is bad, but this is good rotation. The pressures created are passed down through the hip and unto the effective edge.

You can also notice how when opened into the turn on heelside, when compression occurs the body is in good alignment above the edge. A good athletic balanced position.

[Pat Donnelly]

This has been around but is still a valuable resource . . .

http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1999/04/01/the-core-four/

[Bobby Buggs]

Fashion police,

Bro you need some color:D

[kjl]

I agree with JJFluff - you're blocking+counterrotating. It's subtle, and it doesn't obviously break your toesides but it will blow up your heelsides. It's one of those things where the blocking/counterrotating you do at the end of your toeside turn will mess up your turn initiation and screw up your next heelside as well, ad nauseum.

So: what other people are telling you (reaching with the back hand, etc.) will "work" and they are right in that you are ending up twisted in the hips the wrong way on your heelside turn, but in my opinion it will be really hard to try to fix it in the heelside turn until you fix the end of the toeside turn FIRST. Just my opinion.

You see how over the course of your entire toeside turn, your upper body stays "blocked", so stays mostly facing downhill? It means that you start the toeside turn in an OK position but by the end of the toeside turn, your upper body is twisted all the way towards the nose. As a result, when you switch edges and initiate your heelside turn, you have nowhere to go but to immediately unwind back towards the toeside edge.

So I agree - you need to open up the upper body and face forwards, but I believe you will have a difficult time doing that because that unwinding motion I mentioned earlier as you initiate your turn is giving your upper body a lot of twisting momentum in the opposite, wrong direction. So I think you need to fix your toeside turn so you do not slowly wind up, so that you can begin your turn initiation with a solid rotation of the upper body to the left, towards the nose.

I feel when riding, that weighting starts from the ground up, while turn initiating starts from the top down.

That means that the upper body needs to be one step ahead, letting the body know when it is time to think about transfer.

I am in agreement with this - your upper body is currently one step behind - you need to fix the end of the toeside so that you can start the turn with the upper body, so that it is one step ahead instead.

[JJFluff]

So: what other people are telling you (reaching with the back hand, etc.) will "work" and they are right in that you are ending up twisted in the hips the wrong way on your heelside turn, but in my opinion it will be really hard to try to fix it in the heelside turn until you fix the end of the toeside turn FIRST. Just my opinion.

I am in agreement with this - your upper body is currently one step behind - you need to fix the end of the toeside so that you can start the turn with the upper body, so that it is one step ahead instead.

I agree with this as well, you need to have the correct body position, (opened up to the turn) as you set the heel edge for the turn. So once the toeside turn has run its course, and the board "pops" you off the edge make the transition, landing "open" to the turn and complete the heelside

[Carp]

Thanks everyone for the posts and explanations. Please continue if you have anything else. I may have to get to the massage therapist to open up a bit. I have serious inward shoulders due to years of poor posture, in addition my flexibility is horrible; always has been. I think I earned an 8 on the sit and reach when my friends were well in the 30's; if that gives you any clue. I did have some outward cant on the rear foot which did eliminate the wash out, but still didn't feel I was getting as low as I did in the past. I honestly do try hard to bring up the trailing hand, but agree after stopping and starting the video that it's late. I reduced the outward cant on the rear foot and went more with 6* lift only to try and get to facing the board more. I was thinking of taking out the 3* toe lift on the front foot and just going flat? I'll work on grabbing the front toe and opening up the shoulders so I'm more perpendicular with the boards edge during the turn.

Thanks again for all the advice...much appreciated!

[Bobby Buggs]

I did have some outward cant on the rear foot which did eliminate the wash out, but still didn't feel I was getting as low as I did in the past. I honestly do try hard to bring up the trailing hand, but agree after stopping and starting the video that it's late. I reduced the outward cant on the rear foot and went more with 6* lift only to try and get to facing the board more. I was thinking of taking out the 3* toe lift on the front foot and just going flat? Thanks again for all the advice...much appreciated!

Why cant you keep that right hand in front of your back side hip ALL the time:eek: I see no reason for it to ever get behind.

Stop worrying about all this lift and cant crap. it will make you Mental. Proper body mechanics to start and those cant and lift things wont really matter as much as people here make it out to.

I dont think there is a person that is less flexible than me with all the sports injuries and broken stuff I have. None of it works if you dont start with the proper position. Now dont get me wrong, Im no star, I suck some days just like the rest. But I realize now when I suck what part of the equation is missing

[Carp]

I'll work on mechanics and then see if I can get more video up for additional input. I only thought that getting rid of the outward cant would help me turn more toward the nose of the board by not fighting my hips. Agreed that I shouldn't worry about cant, but if it's working against natural body mechanics thought it should at least be considered. Maybe I should just go flat and call it a day?

[Bobby Buggs]

Every one is different but I ride with a flat slight toe lift and the fairly sizable flat heel lift(F2 stock Heel block) NO cants. I dont want to be thinking about inward, outward and all that.

I sent you an Email through the site.

[NateW]

I think of can't/lift as something I adjust for comfort. *I* control what my body does / where it bends / where I position myself... and I tweak the bindings and/or boots to make my lower legs more comfortable when I do what I do.

By the same token, if I need to shift my CG forward or backward, I do that without adjusting the bindings to see if I'm on the right track (just by adjusting my body during a run or three), and then I move the bindings if that's what it takes to get my weight in the right place with my body in a comfortable position.

YMMV, but that's my approach.

[SWriverstone]

I don't have half the experience of most folks here...but...I've been having a lot of trouble with my tail washing out too...and for me, it came down to one pretty simple fix: not "rushing" the turn.

My problem was that right after transitioning to my heelside edge (while still at the end of my toeside carve, so the heelside edge is downhill), I'd gotten into the habit of cranking my turn around too forcefully and too quickly (partly by rotating my torso way before the board even started to turn).

The solution? I began transitioning to my heelside edge...and just taking my time, letting the board track exactly where it wanted to, and taking my time entering the turn. I also worked more on keeping my shoulders squared to the board and (therefore) my body rotated with the board—not ahead of it.

I'm sure I have a few other things to work on in my technique, but this made a HUGE difference. Jack mentioned it too, I think, when he spoke of "feeding the board into the turn." I think the same idea (said differently) is "take your time and let the board track naturally."

Scott