Softie angles

[Neil Gendzwill]

Was lurking over in the AASI forums and it seems like they're all drinking the same koolaid over there - the assumption is that everyone should be riding duck and it's only a matter of figuring out which angles are comfy. Can anyone clue me in? Why on earth would you want duck for general purpose riding?

[jdgang]

you wouldnt want to ride duck for general purpose riding....but the kids believe on what the pro's do. check it out

http://www.cs.uu.nl/~daan/snow/stance.html

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

No one should ride any stance they don't feel comfortable with. Some stances are better for some things, other for others. That statement is like saying everyone should be mounting their plates above 60 degrees. If my foot was a size 8.... :D

Keeping in mind that AASIs primary focus is park, because that's what the majority of the industry is focused on, duck makes a lot of sense. Apparently, nothing you do on a snowboard is any good unless you can do it both ways. (Seriously though, riding both ways keeps you from having to do everything in multiples of 360.)

On the other hand, I've been riding dead center, 3/3 duck for a few years now. All conditions, all terrain. I personally find it liberating. The duck advantages are skeletal symetry in all maneuvers, equal power distribution, and increased balance due to alignment.

Dead center advantages are about the same with the addition of learning to use the board from the snow up. The focus is no longer on shifting upper body weight to combat surface integrity, but to use the legs under the upper body to allow the snowboard to glide in the most efficient way over any variety of terrain. I have become more supple, more aligned, more proactive, and have a new reactive weapon in that I am more often in or near reference alignment.

Steeps, trees, pow, bumps, carving, skidding, spinning, grabbing, goofing off, having fun, going fast, going slow, silence, motion, and tranquility.

Center mounted duck is certainly working for me.

So is 18/35, 30/45, 63/72, 70/70, and everything in between.

[edit] It should be mentioned that I am using huge risers and intended to go higher still. That is one of the keys to succesful duck management.

Also, just looked at that link. It's insane, it's dangerous, it is not clear and some of the descriptions could lead to incorrect ideas about how to set up a snowboard.

[Miguel]

I'm glad this topic was brought up. At the end of last year I bought some soft boots and a Prior Khyber for riding bumps, pow and trees. It's similar to the Burton Fish. For someone who will just be cruising around and comes from a long time alpine background, stick to the old tried and true "toes and heels to the edge of the board" method of determining stance angle? I was thinking of something like 45/35. Should I be going lower and if so, why?

Miguel

[Galen]

Dang, you edited that typo. It was hilarious!

[Phil]

I am on that board every day - what are you talking about?The only mention is when M.S. says that he puts 1st time students on a duck stance so that they can go both ways before they figure out if they are goofy or regular.

[Neil Gendzwill]

If you read any of the threads about stance, every single person rides duck it seems. There's even comments like "I used to ride old school 15/9 but now I ride 12/-12".

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

I was thinking of something like 45/35. Should I be going lower and if so, why?

Mount the back foot toes and heels to the edge. Drop your front foot where it is comfortable. Might be the same, might be greater angle. Go ride. Any stress on any joints? Toeside or heelside initiation latency? Turn finish goofyness? Edge transfer bobbling? Diving? Booting out? For each problem, usually a very simple adjustment. Like, if it feels like you are snapping over to your toeside, but it takes a long time to roll over to the heel, perhaps the bindings are mounted too far toward the toeside and need to be skootched back. Experimentation is key.

The only thing I can think of that doesn't work well with soft boots is very steep angles. Like above 45 or 50. It's hard to direct pressure to the edge, and when driving forward (flexing) the ankle has a tendacy to collapse under G load.

Flatter stances in soft boots helps manage edge pressure more quickly and accurately simply because of how our skeleton and musculature is arranged. Lift the toe, push down the toe...

Whatever stance, make sure that both legs are comfortable going through a wide range of up and down motion. From squat to boned, it should be easy and smooth. That's one of the beauties of soft boots. Range of motion.

[Guest jschal01]

Miguel,

Unless you have incredibly stiff softboots, i.e. likely heavily modfied to be laterally stiff, those angles are too high for effective edge pressure in softboots. (Some people ride very successfully with them, but I think would be happier backing off too.) You could try BXish angles of say 30/18, but I would say try going lower to maybe 18/6 or something like that. Try a few different ways.

Duck for general purpose riding: it depends on how you define general purpose.Big-mountain Jeremy Jones rides duck now and generally does not ride switch. I would say he's pretty general purpose? It really can help with compression and stability.

I think the AASI thread related to among other things teaching beginners, though, and having them start out symmetrically ducked and then finding for themselves whether they're regular or goofy. There was discussion back and forth, so I'm not sure there was KoolAid involved. I'm not sure I would've wanted to learn that way myself, but I could bewrong too.

Re: comfy angles, I think the point is we all have different frames, hip and ankle joints, stance widths, etc. and all of those impact what will be a comfortable and effective stance. Again, where's the KoolAid?

If they were just aping the pros, they would be talking about needing to go superwide, because the pros are virtually all going to around 23-25" for the men this year again. But again, a lot of those pros are pretty good all-around riders, I wouldn't discount their stance choices as meaningless either.

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

I am on that board every day - what are you talking about?The only mention is when M.S. says that he puts 1st time students on a duck stance so that they can go both ways before they figure out if they are goofy or regular.

Yeah, maybe I should edit that. But the author has juxtaposed "more angle" and "less angle" here and there. Juxtaposed toeside, heelside, frontside, and backside. Toe and heel are all that is necessary to describe snowboarding, front and back just confuse the issue. Says steep stances slow down edge transfer in hard boots.

Maybe it's just me.

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

Miguel,

Re: comfy angles, I think the point is we all have different frames, hip and ankle joints, stance widths, etc. and all of those impact what will be a comfortable and effective stance. Again, where's the KoolAid?

Yeah, I was just about to leave when I realized the importance of that statement. Effective first. Comfy second. Comfy certainly adds to effective in the way I meant it, but words on the internet are not so effective without mind reading and standing side by side. I do have a lot of faith in the community here in understanding certain things implicitly.

So I am guilty of everything.

[Miguel]

Thanks for the advice from all. One of the reasons I'd like to run a little higher angle, especially in the front is for when I'm skating along with my rear foot out....it's so freaking awkward with lower angles! The other thing I failed to mention is that I'm blind in my left eye which means for a regular footer (left foot forward) the lower the angles the more difficult it is to see what's ahead because my body is more to the side. I've contemplated trying a goofy stance but I'm not sure I'm willing to re-learn everything. On the other hand...I've heard it argued that your dominant foot SHOULD be your front foot. Now there's another can of worms! I think I'll just plan on going out with my trusty screwdriver in hand and have some fun experimenting. Who knows what I might discover.

Miguel

[Phil]

If you read any of the threads about stance, every single person rides duck it seems. There's even comments like "I used to ride old school 15/9 but now I ride 12/-12".

Riding the angles and recommending them are two different things. I ride 65/65 but would not recommend that to anyone but a hardbooter that showed the need to ride such a stance.

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

Thanks for the advice from all. I think I'll just plan on going out with my trusty screwdriver in hand and have some fun experimenting. Who knows what I might discover.

Miguel

The skating thing comes with practice. Has a lot to do with where you drop your butt. The blind in leading eye thing is certainly a concern. If you find that your front ankle has a tendancy to over flex in the first half of your turns, perhaps a fixed highback with top strap will be the key. Not as soft as soft, but softer than plates and hards. I used this back in the day, it is a nice compromise between the two. More direct control and support, still able to tweak to some extent.

Riding the other way comes easy for some people. You should mount up switch one day when you are bored to see what happens. I ride backwards every day and am getting absolutely nowhere with it. But I've seen a decent percentage of people for whom is simply doesn't seem to matter.

[Miguel]

Mark...thanks for the advice...I'm going to try goofy. I've always been tempted to try it on the hard boots. This'll be a good excuse. BTW...you have a nice way of putting things...always enjoy your posts.

Miguel

[mnovak]

Miguel,

if you don't go goofy, I find that you can generally go much higher on the front foot than the rear. I can't go much higher than 20 on the rear, but have ridden softies at 45 front, using the rear to power the board around and the front more for steering. I use really stiff flow bindings and stiff boots -- I couldn't get past 35 degrees with typical rachet bindings.

[Guest Mark Jeangerard]

Miguel, sure! And thanks.

[Bordy]

There is a point when you can not work a soft binding well at higher angles. This is important. When you do not have the high back for support you lose pressure when you cant use the lever that your foot is on the toe side you lose pressure also. thats why at higher angles a stiff plastic boot is so important. To help amplify the forces from inputs laterilly.

My stance changes almost every year becuase I always play with it to make it work best for me! last year I ended up at about 18, -9 at 22 inches and rode every where(including hiking over the past few days this year) I'm 5,8 and have a 30 inch inseam. I ride 19 7/8 to 20 inches on my alpine boards ant let the board width set my angles most of the time.

Also for those riders who have a hard time pushing around with lower soft boot angles try pushing on the heel side. Its like anything else in riding. If you put in the time you will be rewarded.

O-yea I used to ride 21-9 for years in till about 5 years ago.

[alpinegirl]

on the bright side, if you do a search for duck stance, you will find one member who comments that "if there is a split, then isn't it essentially duck?"

much of the reasoning behind riding duck only really supports riding with a split. it is looking for stability. i'll ride what works best for me and my own uniquely screwed up physiology. duck's resurgence is more of a "new" direction of exploration. this is where things are in the scheme of evolution (it's a circle). some people play with it and then return to positive angles for both. others like it and use it. personally i didn't gain anything when riding duck (for a season that was my softy stance), so i simply do not.

besides, ducks are more likely to walk with their feet parallel or even a bit pigeon toed.

[Bordy]

Look at the foot prints you leave when you walk in the snow are your feet always straight?

What about when you walk up hill VS. down? Side ways on a traverse?

Point being everyones different.

Except me.. I'm insane and thats o-kay! Because in a room at least I know who the crazy guy is!

[Guest jschal01]

Regarding stability and compression: also, look at powerlifters doing a deadlift or squat, some go wider than than others, some deadlift "sumo," some only a little duck, but they are all shoulder width or wider and all at least a bit duck. (It may also be that those whose natural stance is pigeon toed have a disadvantage and don't pursue lifting sports?) This stability is different from edge pressure: I feel I get my best "carving" edge pressure in my current softboot KJs at about 18/12, to 24/18. But, I get knocked around a lot more when riding at those angles...I feel committed to riding on one edge, or the other. Riding switch is more fatiguing.

That's only me, and in part it's my shortcomings as a rider. For solely carving in softboots I'd still go with a more forward stance and less of a split.

There's also a general technique issue involved. Many of the photos on this site still show people facing the nose of the board, dropping the inside shoulder, etc. Those riding approaches, while they may work perfectly well for those people in hardboots, will in general cause duck to be very ineffective in terms of edge pressure, and likely lead to knee or back pain with a duck stance. Duck used to be considered something to avoid if you wanted to be able to walk up and don stairs painfree in a few years, now it's often recommended as way to avoid knee stress and pain, I think the difference is in what the upp body is doing.

Not that long ago alpine riding meant a super narrow stance, alpine stances evlolved a lot too. Discussing as opposed to prescribing duck as one legitimate and effective option I think is a very healthy thing.

[Miguel]

All this talk about stances got me to thinking about my younger days of surfing on the Jersey coast. If memory seves me I would say my front foot was in the 45 degree range and the rear close to straight across or perhaps just a tad forward. No one told me to stand that way....it just came natural. Perhaps that's the approach I/we should take with snowboard stances, especially with regards to a softboot setup. It's kind of the best of both worlds. We can be facing more forward while still maintaing some direct edge to edge, heel to toe pressure with the rear foot. I have a friend that rides hard boots that way and really rides well. I don't know his exact mount but I believe it's about 70ish/45ish.

Damn! All this talk is getting me jazzed to go ride! Excuse me while I go fondle my equipment!

[Scotty Pumpkins]

i ride 39 front 27 rear in softies. i find it to be very comfortable. i tried duck briefly when i first learned how to ride, and it was REALLY uncomfortable for me.

[RDY_2_Carve]

Wierd. I think I ran 40/35 all last season in my softies. Honestly can't say I had any problems whatsoever. Don't think my setup is very stiff either but I don't have much to compare it to.

Think I'll try some duck this season and work on my fakie. That is if I ever get out of my hardboots....

[alpinegirl]

There's also a general technique issue involved. Many of the photos on this site still show people facing the nose of the board, dropping the inside shoulder, etc. Those riding approaches, while they may work perfectly well for those people in hardboots, will in general cause duck to be very ineffective in terms of edge pressure, and likely lead to knee or back pain with a duck stance. Duck used to be considered something to avoid if you wanted to be able to walk up and don stairs painfree in a few years, now it's often recommended as way to avoid knee stress and pain, I think the difference is in what the upp body is doing.

yeah man!!!

ok, the rest of my response is just what i've observed in my own riding since i started.

early/mid 90's the technique for learning to ride involved rotating the upper body in the desired direction of travel, and a lot of rear knee tucking. hmm, the power triangle. much of this looked at how the body related to the terrain and desired direction of travel. fewer conscious lower body movements

1998ish board instruction changed (too bad AASI's manual photos were taken at this time and not everyone had removed some movement patterns from their riding). instruction became based on the body's relationship to the board, with the reference alignments being related to the edges. blah blah blah, my brain is toast for some odd reason.... so shoulders run parallel to the board and the board is supposed to be controlled by the lower body, while minimizing upper body rotation, which in turn saves the knee.

AASI adopted this sort of approach because it was believed to be the most effective manner to convey info to people and give them a solid foundation for riding. and for the most part, it has been very effective.

granted there are other bodies of board instruction out there. notably from holland??? their current instructional technique relies on upper body rotation, remarkably similarly to the abandoned methodology of snowboard instruction in this country. however i don't know what sorts of angles they were rocking on their gear.

and babble (please check for clarity, i'll probably read it tomorrow and wonder what i was thinking).... duck stance was not the most effective stance available when much of teaching was done via rotation. i ride regular. if i crank my upper body counter clockwise, my right knee follows (consequently travelling over the toeside edge) and my foot everts. minimal pressure gets applied to my highbacks and i experience difficulty pressuring the heelside edge by my rear foot. with a positive rear foot, the foot still everts, however the resulting direction of travel that the knee takes is towards the heelside edge. well, at least in my world it is. the teaching methods being currently encouraged have changed that.