Name: Snowboarding Tips - Improve Your Turns Using This ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUE
Uploaded: 2025-02-01T16:18:22.000Z
Duration: 10 min 38 s
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The most important piece of snowboarding technique that you're probably not even aware of is torsional twist.

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So stick with me and in this video I'm going to explain exactly what it is and how you can use it to really improve your  Torsional twist, what am I on about?

Torsional twist is where we use our ankles, our knees, our lower body to get the board to twist along its length.

This is something that helps you create short radius turns.

Now by that I simply mean small tight turns and these are going to be the kinds of turns that you want to use if you're riding the steeps, if you're in moguls or if you're riding through some tight trees.

So it's something that I teach a bit more to more high-end riders, riders looking to improve in these areas but this is probably something which you've actually touched upon on day one in your first time as a beginner without even realising it.

So called because you're coming down the slope a bit like a leaf falling from a tree.

Very poetic but it requires you to use torsional twist to get that board to go from a side slip to down the slope, to a side slip to back down the slope.

I find the simplest way to explain this movement is by using the lever analogy.

I want you to imagine you have two big levers coming up extending out of your shins.

Now in the falling leaf exercise that I just did there, to get the board to turn down the slope, imagine me right now, I'm in my heel edge position, both my levers are back.

Simply by pushing one lever forward like so, I'm going to release the pressure under my heel edge here and allow the board to turn on a side slip, but this lever stays back.

To bring the board back across the slope into a side slip, I simply pull this lever back again and the board will come back round into my heel edge side slip position.

To do it to the right, I would simply push this lever forward and hold this lever back.

The analogy works in exactly the same way, only here my levers are now both pushed forwards.

If I'm to pull this lever back here, the board will release the pressure under my toe edge, turn and point down the slope.

Push the lever back in, I come back into my toe edge side slip.

I can pull this lever back to allow the board to turn down the hill to the right.

Now what's great about that is the immediate response you get from the board.

You know when I see people really using their upper body to get the board to turn around, it's a delayed reaction.

It starts up here and then eventually works down towards the board.

But by using our knees, by using our lower body, the board responds immediately and it's a much more effective way of riding.

Now only using one lever at a time, that only gets you so far.

It only gets the board pointing down the slope.

What we're going to start doing now, we're going to go with the first lever and when the board is pointing down the slope, when it's in the full line, we're then going to copy that movement with the back leg, with the back lever.

Let me show you a couple of these and we'll give that a go.

Now that probably feels a little bit alien at first, but once we've got that knee movement dialed in, you can see even there already I'm doing these really small turns within a really narrow corridor.

By that I mean they're really quite skidded there.

So what we want to do now is add a little bit more edging into the turns to get the board to grip and go across the slope rather than just skidding down.

So all I'm going to do, I'm going to use a bit more width now, I'm going to traverse across the slope on my heel edge for about five meters or so.

Then I'm going to do this same knee movement, one, two, with my levers to get the board to change edge.

When I'm back on the toe edge, I'm going to hold that toe edge posture.

Again I'm traverse across about five meters or so.

Then I'm going to do the levers, boom, one, two, to bring me back round onto my heel edge.

Now that was exactly the same movement using my knees, my levers, my toes, and my levers, one, two, one, two.

That was simply by adding that direction, moving the board across the slope.

When I use my knees, when I use my levers, you notice the big difference there was that I didn't have to wait for the board to be pointing down the slope.

I didn't have to wait for the board to be in the full line for me to be able to change my edge.

By having that direction, that momentum going across the slope, getting the board riding along its edge, as soon as I did my levers, I could get that board on its new edge nice and early in the turn, even before the full line.

Now this is really good for high-performance turns.

It's really important because the sooner you can get your board on a new edge, the sooner you can start it turning and achieving grip throughout your turn, and you can manage that grip right through the turn.

So the sooner you're on your new edge, the better.

We're just going to start cutting that traverse down to the point where we're going back to these small turns.

We're still doing everything exactly the same, but we don't need to be sat on that edge for five meters.

So we'll just start bringing it down to four meters, three meters, two meters, to the point where as soon as you're on your new edge, you're then ready to start making your next turn.

Same movement, using those levers to get that board coming round in nice, short, quick turns.

So we've eliminated that traverse and we're now doing these short, tight, quick turns.

But what's really key here is the turns aren't skidded or washed out, but because we're getting on that edge nice and early, thanks to this knee movement where we're using our levers, we're achieving grip throughout the whole turn.

So give this a go, try and get it working within your riding, and like I said, you're going to feel it make improvements when you're riding on the steeps, when you're riding in moguls, where you're trying to be quick through the trees.

Now one of the keys though, to get this to work, it's important you have a solid foundation, that you have good posture on your snowboard.

So check out this video up here, I've made all about good posture because that's the key building block.

You have to get that right before you can start making these intricate knee movements.

 As always, please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you next time.