Archive for the ‘snowboarding’ Category
Riding Fakie
One of the first tricks that you might have learned (or maybe it will be one of the first tricks you will try) is riding fakie. Another term for it is riding switch and it means to ride the board tail first instead of nose first. For many people, riding fakie was the only way in which they could traverse down the mountain because they hadn’t learned to switch edges yet.
You will probably find it very awkward the first time you actually intentionally try to ride fakie. You will probably find that your lead leg, which is usually your trailing leg, is not applying enough weight and vice versa with the trailing leg. This will make it difficult to get the tail of the board around to make a turn.
As with other tricks it will take persistence as you have to devote entire runs to the switch manoeuver. It’s only natural that your mind will take some time to get around the fact that everything you’ve learned has to be reversed. The stance is opposite, the procedure for making a turn is backward and it won’t feel comfortable.
Once you have mastered the art of fiding your snowboard switch you will have opened the door to a lot of freestyle snowboarding tricks. So many of the landings and completions of freestyle tricks will depend on a comfortable switch style as the spins and tricks on the half-pipe will become easier.
When you start to learn to turn the board to ride fakie, do so on the flat sections of the mountain so that you can go through the steps slowly. You don’t need the snowboard to get away from you while you’re out of your comfort zone.
To go into your fakie move, ease up on the pressure on the edge to allow the board to pivot. As you go into a turn, over-rotate and then stay on that edge until the board’s nose is pointing uphill slightly. All you need to do then is to turn your gaze downhill followed by your weight. You want to have your front foot centered while riding fakie so that your back foot will be able to steer.
Although you don’t necessarily need a certain type of snowboard to make riding fakie easier, I tend to lean towards my Burn, a freestyle Palmer snowboard, to get me through.