When riding, a snowboarder always needs to put some kind of pressure on one of the edges. Snowboards can be quite unstable unless you are actively digging the edge into the hard pack, and creating grip. Otherwise, there is a bit of drift – which is uncomfortable until you are good enough to know how to deal with drift. When you are going straight downhill, you can choose whichever edge you want. You can also go back and forth, depending on the terrain. Otherwise, the uphill edge of the board always takes the pressure.

Most beginners don’t understand about how to pressure the uphill edge, and they just slide downhill wildly with flat feet, until they fall over. Why do they fall over? Because when you begin a turn, and the board starts going sideways – or perpendicular to the fall line in snowboard lingo – your board will create a wall of snow in front of it. When this wall gets built up enough, it stops the board and you go flying. The only way to avoid this is to pressure the uphill edge, which lifts up the downhill edge above the little ‘wall of snow’ you would otherwise make. If the boarder is on their heel edge, then lifting the toes will lift the downhill edge. If the boarder is on their toe edge, then lifting the heels will lift the downhill edge

What is the most common injury in snowboarding? I ask this question of my students all the time, and I hear a variety of answers…from your head, to your legs, to your ankles. But the right answer is the wrists. Why? Because it is natural to throw your hands out as you are about to fall. And the wrist bones are rather fragile – especially when the hands bend backwards – and are not made to handle such a powerful jolt. This is something that is not discussed enough, yet it is crucial to any beginning or advanced snowboarder. I always tell my students to ride with your hands in fists, so that when you impact the snow it will be with a strong fist strike instead of a weak, flat handed strike.

From my year of judo, I learned how to fall correctly and this is how I teach it.

The ideal way to fall forward (toe side) is to land on your knees and then allow your body to continue to fall prone – and then to strike the ground with your forearms and fists. In other words, there is constant motion until the impact is absorbed by a strike to the snow with the forearms. To fall backwards, you want to land on your rear and roll backwards. The roll keeps your tailbone from getting injured, and the roll lessens the impact. Since it is hard to fall backwards without using your hands, I tell my students to use their fists instead to lessen the impact on their rears.

Waxing a snowboard will make your board go faster and smoother, it is also good for the base of your snowboard as it keeps your base from drying out. Waxing a board is a simple process that  takes a few minutes of your time and in the long run will save you plenty of money. There are several techniques to waxing a snowboard…here is one way of doing it.

These items needed for how to wax a snowboard

Citrus or Base Cleaner
Snowboard Wax
Scraper
Snowboard Iron
Scour Pad/ Structure Brush

Step 1: Application of Base Cleaner

Apply the citrus/base cleaner to the entire base of your board. Let the citrus cleaner settle on your base for a couple of minutes allowing old wax and dirt to be extracted from your base.

Caution: base cleaner is toxic and is best applied in a well ventilated area or with a face mask.

Step 2: Clean Base
Scrape your board back with the scraper removing old wax and dirt. Remove the remaining residue using paper towels or a cloth.

Step 3: Loosen Up
It’s a good idea to loosen the bolts on your board. Reason is, the bolts conduct heat when you run the iron over them and then create small dimples in your base. You don’t have to remove them entirely, just loosen them a little so you’re waxing a nice level base.

Step 4: Application of Wax
Heat the iron to the recommended temperature, the iron does not need to be smoking. Apply the wax to the iron and drip randomly from the tip to the tail.

Step 5: Scrape It
After you’ve waxed your board, set it aside and let it cool for about a half hour or until it’s room temperature. Then get your scraper. Make sure you’re working with a sharp scraper, otherwise you’ll make the process harder on yourself. The most important thing when scraping is to make long smooth strokes. Short choppy scraping will hurt your cause. Keep it smooth, kid.

How to Wax a Snowboard

Let’s talk some more about the proper snowboarding stance, which is knees bent, torso straight, and head up. We have just discussed the importance of having bent knees, which is a part of the athletic stance, in the chapter on turning. I cannot say enough how important it is to have knees bent while making turns. Trying to snowboard with straight legs is not only painful, but it throws off the balance of the boarder. The snowboarder shifts their weight from toe to heel depending upon which way they are facing and turning. This is a much more difficult thing with knees locked. Not to mention having bent knees cushions the shock when you go over moguls and bumps.

How to Snowboard

Looking at your feet is bad also – you want to look straight ahead. The boarder should always have their head up and looking forward. If for no other reason, than you might crash into somebody if you are looking at your feet. Not to mention that having your head down shifts your weight away from where it should be. You wouldn’t look at the brakes as you are driving, right? You would look straight in front of you at the road.

Chest and head should be erect and balanced perfectly over bent legs. This gives the snowboarder maximum balance and makes you ready for anything.

Find your stance width
Play with the width of your stance until you find the comfortable feeling sweet spot. Your feet will more than likely end up being just barely wider than shoulder width apart. The average stance width was elbow to the tips of the fingers, plus 5 fingers of the other hand, plus 1-2 inches or approx 2.5cm – 5cm beyond that point.

Are you a gooofy or regular rider?
“Goofy” and “regular” are the words used to describe whether a snowboarder rides with their left or their right foot at the front of the snowboard.

A goofy rider snowboards with their right foot at the front of their snowboard. A goofy rider will usually have a stronger left (back) leg and are often left handed. A regular rider snowboards with their left foot at the front of their snowboard. A regular rider will usually have a stronger right (back) leg and are often right handed.

Binding Angles:

Stance angles refer to the angle the bindings are mounted at relative to the snowboard, and are always expressed as degrees, either positive or negative. Bindings mounted perpendicular to the board, therefore, would be mounted at 0/0 (0 degrees in front, 0 in back). Let’s look at some common setups for angles:
Forward Stance: A forward stance is ideal for carving, beginners, and all-mountain riding. Common angles are +20°/+6°.
Duck Stance: A duck stance is ideal for freestyle riding. Common angles are +15°/-15° (known as mirrored), or +18°/-6°.

How to make good turns

The key to learning how to snowboard is learning how to make good turns. Turns allow you to slow down, avoid obstacles – including trees and other people, and ride across the run so you’re not racing straight downhill. For the beginner, turning is the most difficult thing they will have to learn – and the most important.
Turning requires a series of small movements done in the proper sequence. The
most important is the front foot. The snowboarder pushes down on the front toe or front heel, which puts their weight into the turn. A snowboard’s shape is designed so that with the proper foot pressure, the board will automatically turn. (Skiers used to jump from turn to turn, until snowboarding was invented, and the classic hourglass shape began to be used. Skis quickly began to be manufactured in that same shape, and turning became much easier for skiers.)

How to Snowboard

Next is a small rotation in their hips, either toward the toe side or the heel side. I have found that making this twist helps to keep the weight forward. If the beginner’s weight is on the back foot, then they will have a harder time making a turn no matter how much pressure they try to put on the front toe or heel. If the legs are straight, the turn won’t happen as easily either. The snowboarder needs to keep their knees bent in order to make this type of turn.

Rule Three – Relax and Have Fun

I know it seems obvious, but why is this important?
1. Snowboarding is hard when you are a beginner. It involves a lot of perfect timing, like knowing when to put pressure on the board and when to shift your weight. If you are relaxed, then you are focused, and that makes timing easier to manage. If you are in the middle of a full tilt panic, you will surely blow the timing. Or you are worrying about doing it right, which makes you forget what you are doing.

2. Breathing and relaxing will keep you from hurting yourself. When you are not relaxed, then you are tense. Your body becomes stiff, and this causes problems. It causes you to have a harder time making the little movements to make your snowboard turn. This makes you fall more. And it makes you get hurt more. When you hit the ground – and you will fall – your body doesn’t flow with the fall and you can more easily twist something or sprain it or even break it. The more relaxed you are, the better you fall.
3. Having fun makes snowboarding a more pleasant experience, which helps you learn more and get better quickly. And then you want to do it again.

How To Snowboard

What is the beginning snowboarder dance, you ask? Good question. Imagine standing on a snowboard, bopping your arms, rolling back and forth, leaning over, as if you are doing the Pee Wee Herman dance or the freug. That’s what beginners do, believe it or not. They flap their arms like a bird sometimes, or act like they are swimming through the air. This doesn’t help you slow down or turn or even keep your balance. It’s all fear-based reactions that make you fall. Worse still, it makes you look like a beginner. Which you might be, but you might as well try to look like you can handle yourself.

So what should you be doing? Stand still, in your athletic pose. Knees bent, chest out, arms relaxed. You want to keep your center of balance over your feet. Every time you bend over or flap around you are changing your center of balance. And this is going to cause you to fall. And it will not help you control your board. Watch a good snowboarder, and notice how they barely move. They are not just trying to look cool. They are keeping their center of gravity over their feet and not doing any movements that cause their balance to change. (There are of course exceptions to this rule – like doing tricks -but we will cover those at another time)

How to snowboard :
Rule One – Weight Forward

Let’s start off by talking about the mistakes most beginners make when they first get on the snow and try to snowboard. In ten years of watching beginners struggle to learn snowboarding, I have observed there are three main things that cause beginners to fall. Rule one is simple. Keep your weight forward. That means on the front foot (whichever that is). This is true for all packed or groomed snow and ice conditions.

Turning is achieved through weight pressed upon the front foot (toe or heel). Most beginners will put their weight back, because they think that will slow them down. But nothing could be further from the truth. The board will go the same speed whether your weight is forward or in the rear, – you will simply lack control if your weight is behind you.

Surfers note: this is the opposite of surfing, which requires a back stance. However, there is one exception to this rule in which the boarder rides closer to a surfing stance. If you are boarding in soft powder, you want to put your weight on the back foot more, because if your weight is in the front your snowboard nose will dive right into the powder.

The snowboards used back then were nothing like they are now.

How to Snowboard

Today we have better wood, fiberglass, laminate, tighter edges and a better flex.