jumpin kickers – snowboarding

was off on the pistes yesterday. brilliant day. was on germany’s highest peak, Zugspitze, and had brilliant blue skies after a fresh dusting of snow on the weekend.

never been there before with such good weather and found loads of big long off-piste bits. wsa dropping of cliffs and blasting down silly steep off-piste stuff i wouldn’t have usually attempt without so much snow.

but anyways. drops of upto 3m i’m mostly ok with. but kickers i’m not. i can land a few but loose it somewhere in mid air. any tips?

J

Grab the board in the air, it steadys you a bit and stops you winding down the windows!

Plus it looks much cooler than failing arms. 🙂

How are you losing it? Are you rotating horizontally and landing sideways, nosediving or landing on your arse?

Usual fault – as with most snowboarding problems – is too much weight on the back fault, causing you to “loop out” with the board flying through underneath you and a landing on the derriere. You should be centred over the board at take-off. Actually being centred will probably feel like you’re WAAAAAAYYYYYYY over the front as you ride up the kicker.

Hard to say more than that without seeing you ride.

As SammyC says, a grab can help stabilise things. Best one to try is an Indy – back hand grabbing the toe edge between the bindings. Never, ever grab Tindy. 👿

a bit of horizontal rotation to the left (i ride left foot forward mostly) and then to arse.

Sound like you are taking off with your weight slightly on your heel edge rather than completely flat.

Just follow it through for a BS180. SWEET!

the rotation will be caused by opening up your shoulders across the front of the board, causing the rest of your body to turn.

If your feet start to come up then (as GrahamS has said) you’re also putting weight on the heel edge.

will give it another bash on thurs/friday.