Critique my riding

This was a green run at Cypress, just practicing my carving. Sorry the video is a bit small, was using my phone and forgot to ask my friend to zoom. Near the end I felt the tip of my board catching, actually happened quite a few times. Not sure if it’s the bevel, the camber profile, or the burrs. Never happened with my other board.

You’re riding really well, Rico. Nice stance and early turn initiation. You look solid. Do you mean your edge is catching (digging into the snow) at the end of the turn? Toeside or heelside? Either way, you need to work on pressure control if that’s happening. You could be exerting too much pressure at the end of the turn. Relax your front foot a little to ease off the pressure. You need to adjust for different snow conditions as well.

I have also noticed you tip over quite a bit on your toeside carves (inclination). Try to increase the edge angle more from angulation, by flexing your ankles and knees, and really driving your knee down to the snow, rather than just using inclination. By using angulation, you will have more control over the pressure exerted through the edge. I think this could be one of the main causes of your problem.

To simplify this for anyone else reading:
Achieve edge angle for carving by bending your ankles and knees, rather than just tipping your whole body over.

@rider26: Thanks for the tips Jeremy. No, I meant the edge catches when I was about to initiate a toeside turn just after finishing my heelside (not when I want it too, almost feels like catching an edge). Yeah, I notice the angulation thing. I think that’s my main problem since like forever haha. I’ll try practicing more angulation next time.

EDIT: I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with the edges, I’m gonna take it to Yohan when I’m in whistler in a week or so.

So which edge is catching?

The toeside edge.

Which board are you riding and what’s the camber profile?

Never Summer Proto HD. It has rocker between the feet, and camber under the bindings to the tips. The board also has blunted tips. I believe Never Summer boards come with 0 degree bevel or 0.5 instead of the regular 1 degree bevel. Maybe I need to ride the board more centered instead of shifting the weight from front to back? I swear it’s the edge catching.

You have two choices: detune your edge or alter your riding style (or both) haha.

It sounds like a technique issue however. I don’t think detuning your edge will make much difference. It’s worth a shot though. Try easing the pressure on your front foot a bit, as I suggested earlier.

Ya I’ll try fixing the edges and try putting less pressure on the front foot. The thing is when I demoed the board last spring it’s not catchy like this, and I doubt my technique has changed since the last time I rode (the video was my 2nd day riding this season).

Have you had a good look at the board? Is there anything weird going on with the base or edge? Sounds odd.

I ran my finger on the edges and I can feel some burrs. Prolly from riding over small rocks at Whistler my 1st day riding. My 2nd guess would be the bevel.

Go see Yohan for sure. He will sort it out. Tell him you’re from Boardworld and he will look after you.

Yeap will do

Hey Skip,
Nice incline bud! I really love seeing friends evolve as riders!
You’re more aggressive than you used to be and I don’t want to change that at all. Having the confidence to incline that much is showing that the skills you’ve learnt are consolidating to the point where you have lots of confidence in what you’re doing. So you can get creative! Which is what you are doing. Nice euro

So no, don’t look to blame the board. You have a different board and you are asking more from it so you just have to adjust to allow your new carve style to work smoothly.

I’m going to talk to you instructor to instructor since you have your 1’s now. If you can diagnose someone else’s riding, then you can diagnose your own riding. Which is an awesome skill to have to help yourself out. But improving carving is a level 2/3/4 kinda thing so let me get you started in the right direction.
Walk through this with me and remember, you are your own student. I’m not teaching you as a student I’m training you as an instructor to help your student (You).

Are you angulating (bending the joint to create edge angle)? Yes.
Are you inclining (leaning to create edge angle)? Yes.
Is it carving? Yes.
What’s the problem then? It’s catching. Exploding off it’s edge. Why?
Like Jez Said. It’s a pressure control issue. Ok so now you are in a realm you know about.
Think about pressure control like squeezing a balloon. You can squeeze it carefully until it almost pops and then quickly release it without popping it. This is how you should control pressure from start to finish in your turns.
You could also just jump straight to squeezing to as hard as you can and hopefully not pop it, but even if you manage that, someone might bump you and you pop it anyway.
This is what’s happening with your new carve style. You are pushing the boundaries which is awesome. Now you just need to learn how to push them slowly so you can release that pressure before it throws you. You already know how to do this, but trying new things often makes us forget to do the old ones.
Before you read the next line, ask yourself how do I build and release pressure in a turn? Take a sec to see if you can diagnose your own riding.

Did you get it? Stand up, bend down, that’s all.
You used to do this so well last time you posted vids, so just add it back into your riding. You’re angulating and inclining well, but staying low and bent the whole time.
This DUMPS pressure on right at the start of the turn and one little bump with launch you or make the edge grab or chatter in short turns.
Stand up, release pressure, take the time to change edge smoothly, then bend and incline slowly so you increase the pressure until it’s at it’s max at the END of the turn. Then stand up and release the pressure again. If you get good at this, with the aggression you are riding with, you will be able to fire yourself into the next turn. Even air to the new edge.
Go forth and shred!

Thanks for the detailed advice Andy! Ya it makes sense now, the more I think about it it’s true that I didn’t build up the pressure slowly (sometimes I did, but most of the time I’m not). So what you’re saying is I need to be more aggressive in my up-unweighting (or down-unweighting) in order to control the pressure right?

And yes, when I think about it I tend to incline more because I like to be close to the ground when carving. But that euro is a fail though haha, I still can’t lay my whole body on the snow.

Yeah, basically your inclining is good and your angulating is good. You’ve just stopped moving vertically.
If you stay low and keep all your joints bent, you’re at full pressure all the time, so you lose the ability to add pressure slowly like you used to.

Add up-unweighting back into it and you will be able to add as much (or as little) pressure as you need to match the terrain and conditions.

Sorry about the extremely long reply btw haha. I wrote that when I just woke up this morning and just babbled it all out