Extreme Duck Carving! : - 60 Rear/ +60 Front

[Gabe T]

That's right, that was not a typo.  : )

A couple years back we were packing things up in the parking lot and I was chatting with Bruce and Henry.  Henry had run into one of his Apex/Kessler customers that day who was on a Gecko/Ride setup on softies.  He could carve turns pretty well but had a rather unorthodox style as his duck stance was quite extreme.  I would guess in the 40 degree range.   It was unique to say the least.

I jokingly told the guys after that I was going to try an extreme duck stance on a carving setup one day.  

And here it is!.... This was the one and only run I took.  Shot late last season in March.

For the setup, I had to bring in my stance width closer to where it felt comfortable.  Ideally I would have preferred to do it with no lift but I ride with both heel and toe lift and did not want to go through the trouble of taking out the lifts on the F2's.   In the end I decided to go heel lift on both which made edging on toe side a bit sketchy at times.  

Sorry that the vid is super shaky.  It was kind of a spur of the moment thing that day and I got my nephew to follow me on skis.

I guess the natural progression would be to try this on a skwal.   : )

 

 

[barryj]

That  looked impressive....but painful!   Glad you survived!    

[SunSurfer]

Best bindings to try this on would be TDs because of the ability to quickly adjust the lift/cant combo. Doing it on F2s made me wince just at the thought.

I thought the amount of time you actually managed to carve was pretty impressive. I'd have fallen flat on my face!!! 

Given that part of the benefit of "duck" is the ability to ride with either end of the board leading, and your toeside carves seemed more stable, did you have a preference for a goofy or regular toeside? Or was it all too overwhelmingly different and over quickly to tell?

[daveo]

As much as I love this video I must say I'm disappointed....... In myself because you carve better on 60/-60 than I do on my preferred stance.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Looked painful. Why the blurred face?

[Eboot]

ducky!

[Gabe T]

9 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

Given that part of the benefit of "duck" is the ability to ride with either end of the board leading, and your toeside carves seemed more stable, did you have a preference for a goofy or regular toeside? Or was it all too overwhelmingly different and over quickly to tell?

I’m a natural Goofy footer.   Even with a symmetrical duck stance my preference is to ride with right foot leading.   My intention was not to do any switch riding.   In some of the earlier heelside turns I ended up opening up my upper body and looking in the direction of travel;  similar to what I might do on a conventional setup.  However, what I discovered was that this would release too much pressure from the rear and resulted in the board spinning around.

You mentioned that my toe sides looked more stable but I actually felt my heelsides were a bit better toward the end once I got up to carving speed.  Part of that perception probably is related to the odd high movement with the arms;  this seemed like the required technique.   In retrospect, that’s the way to angulate with that stance; high outstretched hands allowing more pressure over the edge.   When I watched the video, I actually recognized that as a similar carving motion to what I had seen from the Duck rider.   

I think with some setup adjustments and more runs, I’d be pretty comfortable on a gentle slope.   Problem is I'd probably look like an oddball riding like that.  : )  The face blurring was kind of an inside joke after a preview of the video.   i.e. not wanting to be identified as the goofball!

As a comparison of difficulty, I have tried riding my mirrored stance on a carving board before (i.e. Regular for me) and I can say that is much, much more difficult for me.   I can ice skate/inline with legs spread and heels pointed towards each other so that experience definitely helped.

I agree that duck stance is preferred under some circumstances on a freestyle board  but with my experimental setup, the only benefit might be a good groin stretch!  Fun for an experiment and a couple of laughs.   : )  

[scottishsurfer]

And I thought that I was an oddball when I used to run 24/18

[philw]

I'm just trying to work out if this doesn't provide some perspective to the "euro-carves in soft boots" activity.

Given enough time, skill and application, it looks like people can do pretty much anything with any type of gear. Which is not a bad thing and which many have argued in favour of before. Clearly it makes the riding backwards business easier, although arguably takes the sport out of it. I would be minded to try rather mellower angles though!

[RobertAlexander]

Have seen newbies trying hardboots/alpine board set going duck.  It is probably what they are used to on softies, so why not...?

[b0ardski]

chimp style looks painful

[Gabe T]

1 hour ago, b0ardski said:

chimp style looks painful

Funny you mentioned chimp style.   That's what came to mind for me too when watching... reminded me of an Orangutan  from a show/movie I had seen where he lifts his arms up pretending to be robbed.  

There was an actual movie about a snowboarding chimp and he wasn't bad.  : )

Actually not that painful.  A bit of quad burn from not being totally relaxed but generally not bad.

[b0ardski]

duck stance is for switch, since the beginning,

 

 

I can go backwards just fine with an alpine stance which is waaaaaaay more comfortable,

my hip and knee won't allow me to ride duck soft or hard

 

Edited November 3, 2018 by b0ardski

[Beckmann AG]

Apologies to the late Frank Herbert. 

"You have steeze. You shall be known as G’abe, which is the steeze of the base of the Coiler. This is your secret name in our group, but you must choose the name of manhood, which we will call you openly."

"Could I be known as Brian Napkins?"

"You shall be known as Brian Napkins."