As a skier all I’ll say is snowboards seem to have been designed for offpiste where they seem to be a joy. All I observe on piste is that they are a world of pain for the riders and the other slope users !

There had to be one Andy. 🙄

sorry for straying op…

stevomcd – can can we discuss this some more? – not trolling here but just want to get your opinion as you are a sb instructor (which I’m not – just keen as hell)

Nice and fast heel/toe cross under turns are definitely more advanced – I agree.

Below is why I think, for a beginner, a toe side cross under is better to learn as their first turn.

What I see is that beginners tend to struggle going from heel to toe. Hence you see them scraping down the whole run on their heels… Where the slope is not that steep i.e. beginner area or in a dome, I think its actually harder to do a cross over toe side turn that a cross under toe side. You need a certain amount of angle or speed to not fall flat on your face for a cross over. The cross under position you can get to while standing still on the flat. Also to do a toe side cross under from a heel side position is very simplistic – stand up and thrust your hips forward – its a big gross movement.

Ok – a big drawn out cross under turn is not great to reacting to bumpy snow but blue runs and domes are usually pretty well groomed.

Have you ever tried it with one of your students?

Put me on a steeper, alpine piste with crowds and ice then my technique falls flat. It has been an eye-opener.

I highly recommend avoiding crowded, icy alpine pistes.

Japan is nice 🙂

Earl – sorry, not (also!) trying to be difficult, but it’s not possible to do a cross-under turn while “standing still on the flat”. By definition, the board has to move.

Imagine riding your bike and slaloming through a series of bollards. Your head moves more or less in a straight line (along the line of bollards) while your bike moves around a lot underneath you as it goes round alternate sides of the bollards. This is pretty similar to cross-under turns on a snowboard.

You can’t really talk about a “cross-under position” vs a “cross-over position”. The positions may well (in fact, with good posture, should be) more-or-less the same, it’s the movement that’s different.

The turn we teach to beginners is the basic turn. This involves going from sideslipping on one edge to pivotting the board around until it is pointing directly down the fall-line. At this point, you change edge. As you’re pointing straight down, no real speed or balance is required. You then pivot around until sideslipping on the other edge. This is a cross-over turn because the body moves across the board, although it can be quite a subtle movement.

There had to be one Andy

It felt like an open goal. I resisted for a while but couldn’t help myself in the end.

just an update. I’m now safely back home having had a great weeks boarding.

I’m not so hot on the differences between cross-over/cross-under positions. But, I really worked on getting a relaxed, neutral position (knees bent, low c.o.g.) on the board. I ended up feeling more confident and chilled on the slopes. The advice was helpful.

Next action is to book a couple of sessions with an instructor.

Have a look at snowboardcoach.co.uk and find out when he is running a performance day at one of the domes.
It’s about £100 including slope time and is worth every penny.
What Stevo is talking about is bang on.
I had to undo years of poor technique and take everything back to basics and it’s made my riding much better.
Cross over turns – as you’ve finished the turn your body crosses over the board as you start the next turn, in effect your leaning down the slope.
Cross under – your head follows a straight line and the legs/board do all the moving.
Neither one of those turns are generally used by the side slipping masses that haven’t had more than a day or 2’s worth of lessons.

I really worked on getting a relaxed, neutral position (knees bent, low c.o.g.)

Definitely one of the best things you can do, good work!