The blocking of a duck stance can clearly be seen in the demonstration. BUT what I figured out in the late 90s is: For carving in "variable terrain" it is necessary to have a "good big" window between front angle and back angle to operate with different positionings. A 42/33 is clearly a to small window (9 degrees). For someone able to balance on a slack line it's OK, but for most it's to small of a window, unless a small race board forces you to use it. My best solution ends up to be a 42/18. (24 degree window) For teaching I ride a 30/15 on a wide board (15 degree window). If I turn up the speed on my last run home in the evening, through shredded slopes, I clearly miss the 24 degree window to allow for the last bit of performance and optimal variable positioning. The reference to the longboard /downhill /skateboarding is good. His demonstration is perfect. My feet are around 75/30 on my longboard skateboard (operating at a 45 degree window) Greetings from Germany
Correct me if I’m wrong, but also the stance width comes into play. For wider stances, I like a bit more splay and vice versa. Imagine a triangle between your knee and ass, as you squat your knees stay over your feet and follow the triangle’s lines. I hope it makes sense. Btw James, your channel is such an eye opener!🏂🏂🏂
What if youre riding an assymetric board? Isnt anything too far from mirror duck 15 / -15 gonna throw off the weight distribution with the assymetric sidecuts? Riding a 2023 gnu riders choice (c3 version). Size 10 boots and its not a wide so pretty much everything you say not to do in your vids, except I started holding my hands. in front of me like im holding a tray and i gotta say its dramatically improved my carves.
@phorestpsy Cool. Keep those shoulders level! My asymmetrical boards are very different than yours, custom designed for my specific stance width and stance angles. Do it duck if it feels good to you but know that a twin shape with twin flex is not going to be the best carving board, even if it's asym.
@Metancity I don't see a war. But then again, I don't see any duck stance riders carving the steep runs in Revelstoke either, so maybe the war is over?
great video. It was nice to see how different stances could still get good results. This opens the door to people who were reluctant to going posi-posi. Dont forget back in the day Craig Kelly would win races and pipe competitions with a posi stance. In this video JJ carved very well in duck. Do what is comfortable for you and have fun. James... keep it coming, great content.
I ride 18+ -9 directional duck. I have found a couple of references for heel side euro. In place rotate your shoulders to face the nose. Now flex in your hips to bow to the front of your board. Flex the knees. I can put my trailing hand on my front toes. My trailing ribs should now be touching on my forward thigh. I should be able to touch the snow on toe and heel side. Take this into motion remembering the connection of rib and thigh. This is my ideal position for finishing the toe and initiating the heel euro. The toe touch helps keep the shoulders rotated directing pressure across the board into the heel. It also helps keep the torso up keeping your weight more on top of the board. Hope this is helpful. Would love to collaborate.
Hey! This is arguably the channel with the most valuable content for freecarver! You are right, there are no barriers, there are no rules! Riding an F2 Eliminator with Flux xf +45° +36° to avoid bootout and that feels good to me, despite many people say that is not "right"
0:16 Hi James. This is really interesting, but I think you three might all get injured with all that strange twisting you are doing. There is another approach to getting your hips over the board that relies totally on forward ankle flex, heal lift, and boot or highback forward lean to achieve that. This is favored by most racers and puts you in a natural position to absorb bumps. The flatter your binding angles, the more forward flex you need at the ankles to stay over the board, especially on your heel turn. I'm really enjoying your content by the way, its great to hear someone talk about snowboarding in this technical way.
But, after all, you can clearly see that JJ has the worse hip rotation. Young age, mobility, etc. didn't help him to achive clean, easy front rotation, right?
James, I've discovered your channel a few days ago and it's great! Please keep going, make more videos and prosper :) Could you please make more technique breakdown videos?
Love your videos found you via Lars. I ride duck and mesmerised by double positive. Thats what i love about snowboarding always another way to do things not just about going fast.
Try it. I tried it for the first time yesterday and found my back leg fatigued really fast on the outside of my quad, but I was definitely carving harder than I have any other time this year. I was running 27F 6R.
@@2dcutout Play with the stance a bit, maybe add some heel lift in the rear foot. It shouldn't hurt. Also possible you just need time to adapt or maybe more fitness.
@@cherrycarves going fast in reference to skiing , my kids just seem to want to go as fast as they can .Snowboarding is so much more fun becasue of the turning. I also ride an electric mountain board which you can carve on and my stance on that is double positive. I have only recently( age49 ) got into snowboarding and hope to progress to double postive for carving .
@@cherrycarves pretty sure it's just the unfamiliarity. I'm working a season in a resort, so I'm pretty board-fit. It just feels like the muscle is being used in a very slightly different way to normal, it won't take long.
The carvers look so cool and there's a definite art to riding that way but most average boarders will never reach that level and go for a much broader approach and stance when it comes to coming down the mountain . I ride +18 and -12 and can carve pretty well but no where near this level . possy possy is the first step of change I guess 👏to be a real carver
I dont know why the duck guy was not going full elbow on, bridge position,ass up, tyler chorlton style, maybe board width missing or fear or missing experience in bridge. But this is the way for duck heelside laydown. Bridge position eliminates the ass on ground impact, or it is not at ground at all. I managed always to avoid losing edge if the butt touching shortly and gentle, no weight on the butt, sometimes it does not even do a tiny touch, just applying arm /elbow and the bridge, butt having a air gap to snow.. So the secret is not the hip rotation in duck. The secret for heelside in duck lies in bridge, but for forward stance heelside turn it is hip rotation, that is correct. When I try next time forward stance I need to take more care of this hip rotation in the heelside turn. Also noticeable: full laydown it is a tipping over technique while the gentle touch with hand is a slight tipping over technique. No touch of any body part is riding on tipping point technique (the most easy one to get upright after turn) . For the full heelside laydown the most challenging part is getting up after heelside turn, particularely in duck. But this getting up can be challenging as well for forward stance guys when doing fully stretched heelside laydowns (alpine swoard EC technique)
try 18/+3 or even 0, then add until it feel like too much, then reduce till it feels 'most comfortable/powerful. Find the limits by testing them. You don't know until you know from trying. You know this already, thats why you question it.
I came across someone here on YT who does this thing, moving front binding a little bit back and rear binding to the front (if the board width allows it) in order to improve rotation in hips. Have you thought about it?
Ya, we call the "bias". Front binding toward heel edge and/or rear binding toward toe edge. Works great, but will be more likely to cause boot out than both feet centred. I mentioned this is The Secrets Part II. Who else talked about this? Lars?
Great video as always! Thank you. Why do all these carving videos on youtube always have perfectly groomed, untouched slopes? This brings me to my next question. How do you carve on badly groomed slopes late in the afternoon when it gets bumpy?
1. Because it's only on these days that we bring out the camera... 2. I don't. I ride first chair and go home for lunch. Technique is the same in poor conditions but it's twice the work for half the fun. I only do that when I'm desperate for a fix or if I need some extra fitness training early season.
James I'll be honest I don't see the hip shift in you guys' heel side turns. It looks more prominent on the toe side though. This is still exceptional riding though and something I aspire to master. Thanks for the video!!
@@brianp9268Thank you. I appreciate the time stamp. This is something that I've been working on, too, which is why I'm interested in seeing whether the heel-side hip rotation or twist movement is realistic beyond a static demonstration. If it's happening I think it is quite subtle.
@@ryanallen6092 I think the lean and camera angles makes it less noticeable just how open their hips are. But yes in demonstrations people rotate further than riding. Getting to the point where driving into that front hip is getting you heel side pressure seems important to the way I carve.
Can you adapt these techniques for powder? Not necessarily pencil lines but a smoother more efficient turn that is made with less effort. What kind of stances do you ride in powder?
My 27/12 stance and carving techniques work incredibly well in open powder bowls, but here in Revelstoke it's mostly pillows, trees and cliffs, so I ride 18/-6 for powder and freeride.
James, love what you are doing. Haters will hate. I am looking for a new board. Been back riding 2 years on a 156 gremlin. I enjoy it and will keep if for many conditions. I need a board that can handle some firm conditions, mostly carving. But I am older than I used to be and don't want to get to beat up. The Priors are retired. I ride in New Hamphire, 9.5 boots and 180 pounds. Any thoughts?
Duck stance rider is overriding his sidecut and forcing board to turn by crouching more. Thats why it chatters, looks messy, and he falls badly at the end but it would be the same regardless of stance. Jones boards are squirrely as hell (9M sidecut) and can really only actually carve on mild greens without overpowering. Has nothing to do with stance. You simply need a 12-14M sidecut (and therefore a custom board) to carve steeper terrain and not chatter/buckle your turns (and more waist width if you ride duck).
I mostly agree, except that my Hands-in-Pockets videos are on a 10m sidecut board. Mine has a lot more effective edge than the Jones, even though the overall lengths are similar.
I have ridden ultra wide Knapton twins with 10M and its too quick edge to edge for them imo but not surprised it works on a more narrow and stiff Coiler. Those Jones, Koruas, etc suck at carving anything more than greens - they all have 7-9M radius and are soft and so fast edge to edge. They buckle, track terribly, and have poor feel but since theyre soft and have poor camber profiles you can force them thru a turn overpowered. Every single person I see carving is usually on those overpowering them.
I was wondering about that for my own journey. Would love more input and explanation on this line of thought. I’ve been struggling to get good edge hold all season. Not winning all season on any run until last weekend. I usually average 38 kph and after consistently not holding an edge I decided to slow it down. I went down to 30kph and lo and behold I was getting really nice turn shapes and decent edge hold. Not pencil line, but very compact tracks that felt great for once and was popping out of each turn. I know I don’t ride an optimal board, and need to find one that works better for my purposes. Currently: 158cm, 6.3/7.3m and 1180mm EE
Maybe I'll try to make a video with me riding different boards showing this. Many ppl have been asking me this bc of James videos. I have a NS proto df with similar specs that is overpowered on anything more than easy greens - not good for carving but good for easy riding. I have no issue pencil line carving every groomer with duck stance on a board made for it tho. My wife filmed this video one day a couple yrs ago riding a 14M radius twin with duck stance. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O1a3IX2EdH0.html@@kamiofthejunglistsoulja
So with respect to overriding the flex, effective edge and sidecut. I had the opportunity to try the recommendation from Lars at Justaride; the Stranda Cheater. It is 170cm 8.0/8.5m and 1429EE. It was absolutely amazing compared to my shorter board! I couldn’t outrun anything on it. I couldn’t find the limit of the edge hold, apart from some occasional poor body position. Had so much more confidence and ability to focus on fine tuning my technique. Looking forward to applying the teachings from James.
@@cherrycarves thank you! This is helpful context as a long time duck stance rider (+18/-12) that likes to ride everything but has lately been putting more emphasis on improving carving skills, mainly heelside. I had a really awkward experience trying posi posi for the first time recently especially off groomers.
@@fl0ppers Try posi-posi again, it's the quickest way to smooth out those heelsides. You'll get used to it. Don't forget to bring your stance width in a little tighter when you go posi-posi. I ride 56cm stance posi-posi with a 79cm inseam, for example.
Probably get used to it. I can do Ollies, small side hits and small jumps with +21/+6. I can't ride switch for shit though that hurts my knees. So I just get air. Also Terje rides a modest posi posi.
@@cherrycarvesthanks James! A tutorial on how you do ollieing and jumps with posi posi would do very well im sure! I’ve switched to posi posi the last couple weeks but I am struggling with doing olling and jumps now, im unsure of if I should maintain that open shoulder position or keep my shoulders parallel like in a more duck stance. I’m sure I just need more practice doing it, but I wonder how many people don’t want to make the switch to this stance because they feel like they can no longer do basic tricks
I got inspired and thought I'd participate with my own entry: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ROKKN-NHXzQ.html This whole hip shift topic is the most important part for carving deep in my opinion. Thanks for opening this kind of discussions since I'm too lazy to do a complete tutorial series myself. It's much easier to participate like this.
Do you have a specific product you use for the heel and toe pads that you mentioned at 3:50? I like riding a really wide stance, and I just got a narrow board and want to try your recommendation out.
I use climbing shoe rubber. Any 1/4" rubber will do, or high density foam from your local bootfitter. There are some flooring underlay products that might work.
