Toe side and Heel side snowboard turns

Toe side and Heelside Snowboard turns come down to one thing…’We call it’, Anticipation into the turn.

When I talk about Anticipation, essentially what I mean is opening your leading shoulder more into the new turn! (Both toe side and heel side turn)

This is just a random image of a dog snowboarding….

This is a vital part of becoming a competent advanced snowboarder who is able to adapt their riding style to all snow conditions and terrain features.

Without learning correct anticipation techniques, it becomes extremely easy to create bad habits that slow your snowboarding progression down by at least 2-3yrs.

One bad habit in particular is what we call, counter rotation…

This is a super bad habit to develop and is something you should always try to consciously avoid.

SEE COUNTER ROTATION ARTICLE HERE:

Counter rotation will make turning 100 times harder, will offset your basic stance and in general, it will make your snowboarding style ugly and uncoordinated…

What does Anticipation look Like when performing  a Toeside or heelside Snowboard Turn?

Step 1:

When Traversing in your basic snowboard stance across the hill, your entire body should be aligned with your snowboard in the direction of travel….

This is the first step, and this is exactly where most people go wrong, more than likely they have a twist in the upper and lower body, and won’t even notice it.

This is a result from NOT having  snowboard lessons as they progressed into intermediate levels.

Step 2:

As you are traversing across the hill and about to come into the new turn (toe side or heel side turn), release edge pressure and turn your leading shoulder into the new turn.

This is counter intuitive and you must overcome this obstacle to rid counter rotation once and for all.

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Toe side turn snowboarding:

For most riders, turning down the hill from the heel side edge feels easy compared to turning down the hill from the toe side edge turn, and this is where most people develop the bad habit of counter rotation.

You can get away with some counter rotation on blue and green trails but if you ever want to ride steeps with the confidence and good control,, then you must become more conscious of what your body movements are doing!

Step 3:

Once you have opened your leading shoulder into the new turn and have changed onto the new edge, it’s time to close the turn off.

Keep leading yourself back across the hill with that leading shoulder and start to wash away any excess speed you are not comfortable with.

Make sure to realign your lower and upper body before entering into the next turn (this is very important).

I think the hardest part about anticipation that most intermediate snowboarders struggle with, is turning from the toe edge to the heel edge snowboard turn.

It feels unnatural and for a split second, just at that point of being blind into the turn. The trick is to embrace the turn with confidence and submit to downhill pressure that is needed to perform the technique correctly.

By learning how to do this, it will help you develop smaller and faster turns on steeper terrain as well, learning to trust the body movements and your ability is the key to snowboarding success!

Make sure you go and check out our OSC LAB snowboard training…Join today and get Free personal VIDEO Analysis sessions, this way, you’ll always have something to keep working on!

NOTE: Want to learn how to stay balanced and controlled when Riding steeps on a snowboard? Simply download this bad habits cheat sheet to gain an unfair advantage on the hill. Learn what bad habits snowboarders make so you can AVOID them to progress faster and maintain balance and control easier…check it out now

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