How to Turn on a Summerboard with Proper form

5 Steps To Turn like A Pro On A Summerboard/Snowboard
by Snowboard Addiction

To turn on a Summerboard, or a snowboard, you need to think about the following: your head, shoulders, hips, knees and feet. Each of the steps below, contain a specific technique of movements for that exact body part mentioned. 

Read through, find inspiration, practice each step, and once learned; combine them all and turn like a pro on your snowboard. To really get the most out of learning to snowboard, join our world famous Snowboard Tutorial Membership

1. Head

On a snowboard, people usually forget how important the head is. Typical mistakes are looking at the board or straight down the valley. To keep orientation and avoid surprises while riding your snowboard:

Keep your head up
Look in your riding direction
Spot and plan your next turn - use ya eyes!
When initiating turns on your snowboard, always start with turning your head first and look in the direction you want to go. Do this even before you start turning your snowboard.

2. Shoulders

The shoulders and the snowboard work closely together and follow each other when you are riding. When turning your head and shoulders, the snowboard will automatically follow your head and shoulder rotation. Essentially, your head and shoulders are the steering wheel. To improve your turns with correct movements of the shoulders, you should:

Turn your head and shoulders in the direction you want to ride, then...
Use your core muscles to turn the snowboard under you.
Control the speed of your turns, with the speed you turn your shoulders
Use some head and shoulders shampoo in the shower while dreaming about tomorrow

3. Hips

While rotating your head and shoulders in your turns, your hips will also start to turn, almost following your head and shoulders like a Mexican wave. To test this and practice the motions:

Place your hands on your hips
Make some smooth turns and feel how your hips are working
You don't want your hips to go back and forth, so
Keep the hips over the centre of the board, moving in rotational motions

4. Knees

When you start using your knees to turn on your snowboard, you can really start to advance your riding! Taking the motions from the head, shoulders and hips and moving them further down through the body, you can initiate your turn and get on your edge much earlier. This will help you control your speed and direction, which is especially good for riding steep slopes. 

The easiest way to get the knees turning is to:

While riding heelside, turn your knees towards the nose of the snowboard
When riding toeside, turn your knees towards the tail of the snowboard

5. Feet

The movement of the feet makes a huge impact on your riding, as the feet are directly mounted to the snowboard.

Practice paddling your feet while turning on your snowboard. Think about initiating the turn with pressure on the front foot and finishing with pressure on the back foot.

When you are turning toeside, start with pressure on your front foot toes, and end the turn on your back foot toes
When you are turning heelside, start with pressure on the front foot heels and end the turn on your back foot heels

Play around with 360's

Using these techniques will make sliding 360's so much easier on the snow, so try to throw a bunch of them in your riding to feel the progression you are getting along the way.

Keep your head up, looking over your shoulder
Rotate your shoulders and hips in the direction you want to go
Twist your feet, move your knees and paddle to keep the edge out of the snow
Experiment and Combine

Learn these technical steps to turning and you will gain a really good understanding of how your body works on a snowboard. Mastering the individual steps, will make you able to adapt to changing conditions on the mountain. Try to practice each of the steps individually, and then afterwards try to combine all of them to make very advanced and smooth turns.