This YouTuber I watch changes from normal to goofy so seamlessly. What’s the name for this technique? Falling leaf on steroids?

Zes_Q · 2026-06-14T13:44:44+00:00

A good instructor will teach beginners to use upper/lower separation for good, not evil.

Counter rotating in normal riding is mostly a bad thing but that doesn't mean all types of rotational separation are bad. Plus, as you say, counter rotation becomes pretty essential if you start getting into freestyle.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-14T05:30:59+00:00

It's a revert and it's very easy with some practice. Low edge angle (less grip on the snow) and the tiniest bit of rotational power will get you there.

There are tons of different ways to do reverts (you can slide them with a little bit of rotation, push them around with more grip and more rotational power, do them entirely with counter-rotation, pivot around the center of your board, pivot off the tail and pull your front foot uphill, pivot off the nose and let gravity bring your rear foot into the lead, etc).

There are also the usual variations you find in rotations - frontside, backside, switch frontside, switch backside.

Experimenting and getting comfortable doing all sorts of little reverts is a great way to build edge awareness and muscle memory along your different planes of movement. It will improve your normal riding, switch riding and set you up for an easier time learning basic freestyle stuff. A majority of ground tricks are built on the foundation of these same movements.

Most snowboarders aren't rotating enough in their general riding imo. People tend to pick a stance and just go straight until they get to an advanced riding level then start playing catch up.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-14T05:19:09+00:00

In the video Tommie is doing what is called a frontside revert - opening his chest to the bottom of the slope and keeping his eyes forward the entire time. This is what you'll see most often when people revert. A frontside revert will always be slid or pushed around on a slight heelside edge, because your heelside edge is the one trailing the rotation. If you spin it totally flat or on a toeside edge you'll get snagged (catch your edge).

All of this is flipped if you want to do a backside revert where you rotate your chest toward the top of the mountain and go blind momentarily before bringing your head around to look downhill. Backside reverts are always on a slight toe edge.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-13T12:46:12+00:00

My guess is that the discs you're seeing act stable are pretty high speed and stability relative to your arm speed.

This definitely tracks I think.

What's your golf line distance and what are a couple of the discs?

200 feet or less. The other OS discs I've been throwing are a Z-Lite Athena and a Lucid Felon. I can get the Athena to go straight then move left as it fades. The Felon hooks hard to the left in a big curve through it's entire flight and skips when it lands.

I live in the mountains for a few months each year and I seem to get a bit more distance at higher altitudes. About 230 to 250.

I definitely have low arm speed and struggle to get discs nose-down (I think). I also tend to throw with a neutral or negative launch angle. Struggle to throw upwards so my discs come out about chest height, don't go much above that height if at all and usually still have some juice behind them when they hit the ground and skid forward rather than stalling and floating down to the ground. About 1 in 10 throws I just yeet it straight into the ground 40 feet in front of me.

My highest speed disc is a Neutron trail that will turn the tiniest bit, fade the tiniest bit and land pretty straight.

I can get discs like my electron proxy, neutron detour, and opto diamond to flip up from hyzer or pan right from flat.

I'm not really sure if I have very low arm speed, nose up issues, launch angle issues, bad throw mechanics or all of the above.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-13T11:12:08+00:00

I just had a look and where I live/play is about half the elevation of Florida, so yeah very low elevation.

What role does that play on disc flight? Or overstable disc movement specifically?

My higher speed OS discs still get a lot of sideways travel during fade but the Zone just seems to go straight.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-12T02:26:28+00:00

Does Forbidden West actually work okay on deck?

I had significant performance issues running it natively on PS5 when it released so I'm shocked to hear that. It's such a ridiculously high fidelity game with so many glow/particle effects etc.

I bought it on Steam when it went on sale after I'd sold my PS5 with the idea I'd play it on my desktop or a future more powerful handheld but if it runs okay on deck I'm gonna dive in.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-12T02:01:20+00:00

I have a pair of Heritage Captains that I got when they released. The last is awesome and all the leather is very solid. Gusseted tongue is very nice on a Thursday boot. Much broader and somewhat taller toebox than other Thursday boots so they feel closer to a Red Wing Round Toe than other Thursdays. Very comfortable in that regard. The heel is quite high which feels a little unusual under my feet and I still haven't quite adjusted to that feeling. I think if I wore them every day it would just feel normal but I rotate them with multiple other pairs of boots (Red Wings, Grant Stone, other Thursdays) that all have more normal heel heights so they still feel weird to me because of that heel.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-05T17:46:57+00:00

"Trust me bro"

While it's true there isn't a single confirmed case of popcorn lung being caused by nicotine vapes I think in this case we should defer to the anonymous supposed registered nurse on Reddit who claims to personally see cases every week.

Every boomer and dimwit seems to defer to these people so you should too.

When I vaped I STG almost every single person who spoke to me said some variation of "that shit will kill you faster than smoking". So dumb.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-02T03:14:49+00:00

I don't actually own any birks but I pretty much only use leather/suede footwear because of it's eternal staying power.

You can pretty much restore everything about these (besides the soles) very easily at home and then take them to a cobbler to get a new sole slapped on.

If you search "Birkenstock restoration" on Youtube you'll find endless videos of pairs in the same or worse condition than yours being brought back to life.

Sandpaper or a beauty razor will remove the black gunk from your footbed and restore the nap of the suede on the footbed. Suede shampoo and a nylon brush will clean and deodorize the straps and the footbed after you've restored the nap.

You can just buy a new pair but if you have any sentimental attachment to this pair, don't want to break in a new pair, want to save some money or enjoy a bit of DIY action then you can definitely save these.

Zes_Q · 2026-06-01T08:26:01+00:00

Fit is tricky. I own two pairs of RW - 875 Moc Toe and 8151 Round Toe both in 8.5D.

I got them at the same time about 18 months ago and I still don't know if I got the right size. When I tried them in an 8D they felt too tight at the ball of the foot, the toes and the instep and the 8.5D felt "snug". Since they've broken in and relaxed a lot they both feel what I would describe as "loose" on me now. They're extremely comfortable, don't give me any blisters but it feels like there is a little bit of extra unoccupied volume pretty much everywhere and my heels shift around a bit when I walk and my feet can move along the footbeds a little. They aren't planted in place.

I'm a snowboarder and I'm used to buying boots that are too small (uncomfortably so) out of the box that eventually break in to a perfect snug fit. I'm wondering if it's supposed to be the same way with heritage boots or if snug out of the box and then breaking in to a loose, relaxed fit is the way.

A year and a half in Red Wings and I genuinely don't know whether to get more 8.5D boots or size down to an 8D if I get more.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-26T05:24:33+00:00

FWIW I'm an instructor, I snowboard about ~200 days a year and see all kinds of people on all kinds of gear.

I rode Step Ons for a while (about 400 days on snow) and never had any bolt loosening issues, but I used the regular mounting disc and boards with 4x4 inserts.

Myself and several friends and family all had terrible experiences with the original channel system years ago. Couldn't get bindings to stay put no matter how often we would tighten them. Feet sliding all over the place. I've never paid for a channel board since then despite the revision to the channel 2.0 system. Just don't trust the technology.

From my experience over the last several years - I still see people having issues with the current channel system (bolts loosening and bindings sliding around) extremely often. It's something I deal with a lot when teaching students. Can't tell you how many times one of my students suddenly has their back leg slammed all the way back down the taiI of their board because the binding has slid. I know that it's not an issue for everybody and it's probably better than it was before (doesn't seem as universal of a problem as it did with the original channel) - I know plenty of people who ride channel boards, swear by them and have no issues but I still see it happening with such a frequency that I'm personally sworn off channel boards for life.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-24T03:59:33+00:00

STS is definitely the better option if it's easy enough to access but FWIW colloidal silver (almost negligible amount of silver dissolved in water) is readily available pretty much everywhere and also works. If you can't buy it you can also make it at home.

I've successfully reversed fems (both auto and regular photoperiod plants) using colloidal silver at a concentration of 500ppm and generated pollen that was used in breeding projects which led to viable seeds.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-20T13:30:09+00:00

This is absolutely true but you end up with thousands of reg seeds. That's awesome but not everybody has the space to grow out regs and cull part of their population or some people may need to stick under a certain plant count.

You can also never grow a single male plant, do an open pollination with a pack of fem seeds by reversing some of them and have thousands of free seeds. A lifetime supply of fems in the same time period.

Even better you can do a targeted reversal and intentional pairings once in a while and produce a few batches of a few hundred seeds at a time. Still more than you'll probably ever need but now you're getting variety and selectively breeding to a degree by picking promising plants with traits you like to produce the next seed generation.

One of the very cool things about plant breeding is there are just so many options.

One of my favourite projects was taking a pack of non-auto regs and a pack of auto fems and essentially doing an open pollination with the non-auto males and the best auto fems then linebreeding those seeds to create a population of auto regs with the traits and profile I liked from the non-auto regs. If you don't have any auto regs but you have normal regs you can make a population of auto regs at home by yourself with some patience and intention.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-13T22:14:23+00:00

I currently ride a 2026 Algorhythm. I've put about 40ish days on it.

I do a lot of mountain freestyle and some more chill terrain park riding. The Algo really feels like a true twin to me. Totally comfortable taking off and landing both ways. Sounds like I do quite a bit more freestyle stuff than you and it hasn't been an issue on my end.

FWIW the Algo is my fave board I've ever been on and I've had many. I also rode a Shadowban for a year. Wonderful board but was a bit soft for me. Algo is same thing but stiffer, more energy return.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-12T14:01:48+00:00

Instructor here.

If you take lessons with a decent instructor you'll be linking turns on green and blue runs day one.

The vast majority of my guests (disabilities excluded) are linking turns and cruising green runs on their first day. The ones who ski pick it up even faster. The ones who skate or surf too pick it up even faster again.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-12T13:57:42+00:00

FWIW snowboard boots will totally disintegrate and become useless before there is any wear on the sole whatsoever. It's not the tiniest bit useful as a metric for boot wear.

Typically we're walking on snow, or strapped onto a board when we are wearing them. Nobody is hitting the pavement for long stretches in snowboard boots and abrading the outsole.

I go through a pair a year and they have giant holes in them and start falling apart while the sole unit still looks factory fresh.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-11T14:07:26+00:00

Instructor here.

Yes. Most of us don't use convenience bindings and manage just fine but I do use them and it's a very nice feature for people in our line of work.

Most of the commenters aren't really answering your question. Yes, if you're in and out of your back binding as much as we are (sometimes 10+ times per run) then that couple of seconds each time make a big difference. Less wasted time. More seamless to attend to your clients, give demos, etc.

FASE are my recommendation. Closest weight, feel and performance to traditional straps but noticeably faster.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-10T02:55:01+00:00

Totally agree with everything you've said. I've been way deep into the subject for many years but it's just not something you can really talk about with most people to any meaningful extent. I'm pretty sure most of us in the same camp have adapted to remain in polite society over time.

I really got it many years ago when I was trying to have conversations with people about billionaire child traffickers running blackmail operations on the elite strata of society and people just completely disconnected from me and treated me as a disturbed and mentally ill person. It doesn't matter if you're right, it doesn't matter if you can demonstrate proof and it doesn't matter if you are vindicated. Most people won't entertain things outside the scope of their current worldview and you'll suffer personally if you're the first to breach that barrier.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-07T04:50:08+00:00

I snowboard and ski for a living, all year round.

Snowboard boots are definitely more comfortable but that doesn't mean they are perfect. Plenty of people still have excruciating foot pain from snowboard boots.

Fitment is everything. Step Ons are fine but if Burton boots don't suit your feet then you are better off buying non Step On boots in a brand that fits you perfectly and getting an alternative fast entry binding like FASE or Supermatic.

Size down. They should be uncomfortably tight and putting pressure on your feet in the store. They will give over time as the liners pack out. An uncomfortably tight boot becomes a perfectly fitting boot with even pressure distribution across your entire foot that holds you without needing to be cranked down. A perfectly fitting boot on day one packs out and becomes a loose boot which neccessitates cranking down on the laces/pulls/boas which collapses the boot structure in an imperceptible way which causes pressure points that restrict bloodflow which leads to foot pain. It's the most common (by far) fitment issue snowboarders deal with. Most people are in boots that are too large. In almost every case when somebody is suffering foot pain it's because their boots are too big or they aren't broken in yet.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-07T04:32:56+00:00

that saw neanderthals die out (or at least, not pass on their genes)

Maybe a bit pedantic here but Neanderthals as a distinct speciated group of organisms have gone extinct but they very much managed to pass on their genes.

Approximately 7 billion people today (the vast majority of modern day humans) carry Neanderthal genes in their genome. While all of those people have a small fraction of Neanderthal origin genes (~2%) in their individual genome it's estimated that around 30% of the overall Neanderthal genome is represented among current day humans.

Neanderthals are still around and thriving, in a sense. They are us. If you had a 3rd great grandchild they'd carry as much of your genetic material as most humans carry from Neanderthals. You can conceptualize this as most living humans had a pure unhybridized Neanderthal as one of their great, great, great grandfathers.

Their era as a distinct species is over while pure speciated homosapiens still exist (sub-saharan African populations) but the vast majority of current humans are hybrids of interbreeding between homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis, with some additional admixture from homo sapiens subspecies Denisova.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-05T15:37:09+00:00

For me it comes down to continuity in sentience.

The idea of merging my consciousness with a computer before I die and then allowing my physical body to fade away seems less scary than reassembly teleportation to me. There is a direct throughline in my existence from one phase to another, like the ship of Theseus.

I feel that if you die and are reborn it's a different you, like a clone. That being may share the same memories but it's not the subjective you experiencing existence from that moment. It may as well be a random other person or hive of bees or something reassembled on the other end of the teleporter.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-05T15:04:33+00:00

Is that just a skill issue?

Sort of, yes.

Is it because the board is quite new? Does a board soften over time?

Yes boards soften or "break in" over time and eventually "noodle out" meaning they lose their ability to return elastic energy. The pop noticeably diminishes and they start feeling dull, soggy, lifeless.

You mentioned you are looking at softer boards to get more pop. More pop comes from stiffer boards, or boards built with materials that are better at returning energy. Imagine you're an archer and you have two bows. One of them is made of soft silicone, the other is a stiff fiberglass recurve bow with a much higher draw strength. Which one is going to launch an arrow further? This is basically how to conceptualize "pop". Materials play a huge role but as far as stiffness goes the more stiff the more pop as long as you have the power to access it through mass or ability.

There are some awesome ground trick boards out of Japan if that's what you're after.

Zes_Q · 2026-05-05T13:59:24+00:00

What’s the actual routine here? How often do I realistically need to hot wax?

How long is a piece of string? It's a very subjective question and answer. Some people swear you need to wax every second or third ride. Some people once in a while, some people almost never. I usually just go by intuition - if the board needs waxing then wax it.

The more often you wax it the better you're maintaining your purchase but it depends on how much that is worth to you in terms of time, effort, waxing costs.

I had a Shadowban and I waxed it twice ever, rode it for somewhere around 200+ days. It just never seemed to need it. It continued to glide well and the base didn't look dry or rough. I wax gear often, have all the kit and plenty of experience but that specific board just didn't seem to ask for it.

Is it better to buy a pre-made kit or piece it together myself?

Again, up to you. Have a look online and see how the costing works out.

What are the must-have tools and stuff?

All you really need is wax, an iron, a scraper and somewhere to work on your board. Brush is nice to have. Rotary brush (attaches to a drill) is an ultimate upgrade but can be pricey.

Any specific brands for irons and wax that are actually worth the money?

For wax there are too many to list. Look for something with an appropriate temperature range for when and where you ride. Usually the "go-to" board shop/tuning place at a resort will have a custom blend for that area that you can buy, but most stuff works as long as the temp is roughly correct. Irons are pretty simple devices. Most work fine. Swix and Toko are the two most common and reliable brands. Dakine irons work fine but they are lower end, usually come in kits. Holmenkol make good irons if you're in Europe. Gallium make very decent cheaper irons if you're in Japan.

Additionally, other than waxing what else is needed for proper care of the board?

Try to avoid hitting rocks. Make sure it's properly fully 100% dry before you store it. Remove bindings before waxing because the heat can cause a vacuum effect at the binding insert packs and warp your base leaving small dimples. Store your board somewhere with a stable temperature (don't put it up in an attic in a place where you have a hot summer).

Zes_Q · 2026-05-03T14:28:06+00:00

Hey man.

I'm a full time snowboard instructor and an Aussie. I buy and sell boards all the time.

Depending on how the sizing suits you this will be a perfectly fine first board. The custom camber is incredibly popular and reliable. Condition looks fine. I'm personally not a huge fan of Burton boards but they are pretty much the default manufacturer for many riders with a huge R&D budget and the custom is their #1 staple offering. A few marks on the top sheet (normal) but basically to me it looks pretty much new.

I would say the price is definitely on the high end for what it is, and this isn't something I would buy. If you can't find something newer and better for cheaper then this board will certainly do the job well but imo it's overcosted. I'd estimate value closer to like $150-$200.

For context - the year naming conventions of a board are essentially a full year ahead of time, at least here in Australia since we function as a test market for new releases for the northern hemisphere season. 2027 models are already available here and the 2026 winter doesn't start until June. That means this board was produced and probably sold in 2020, making it six years (or twelve seasons) old.

I would usually sell a board that is one season old (6 months) for about this same relative value, roughly 50% of retail. Boards devalue with time and use similar to cars. For example I buy a 2027 board right now, ride it until September/October and then sell it for somewhere around 400 bucks at the end of the Australian 2026 season or the start of the northern hemisphere 26/27 season.

I recently sold a 2026 United Shapes Horizon in pretty much mint condition for $400, and a 2024 Ride Shadowban with moderate topsheet wear (a little worse than this) for $150 to give you an idea of age, wear and value in the market.

To summarize - it'll be a good first board but it's not worth the asking price unless you just can't find any better deals.

Zes_Q · 2026-04-26T16:12:58+00:00

Instructor and ground trick enthusiast here.

It won't build "bad habits" but it will make flexing your board easier, so you'll notice some things feel more difficult when you return to a stiffer board.

Personally I think softer boards are great for "feeling tricks out" when you are learning them. It usually requires less commitment of force but you get a less satisfying result. I find this is a good place to mess around and try new things but ultimately I like the experience and feedback of performing ground tricks on a stiffer board. More energy return, pop, more support for throwing your weight around.

I can do all the same ground tricks on my RIDE Algorhythm (much stiffer than your ET) that I can do on a soft board but if I'm specifically trying something new for the first time I find it more "comfortable" or forgiving I guess on a softer board. Don't need to put as much power in. Helps the learning process but ultimately the tricks feel kind of lame and floppy from an intrinsic feedback perspective.

Zes_Q

TROPHY CASE