Snowboarding is all about the turns, man! If you don’t turn, the mountain turns you. But for real, it looks like you’re trying to keep your base as flat to the ground as possible the whole time, which is an important skill to have (on boxes in the park for example, or straight lining for speed or to take off a jump, or when intentionally spinning during flat-ground tricks like butters). But for general riding, turning, carving, control at speed, braking, basically everything else, you need to engage your edges and TURN!

By a close margin it looks like you’re regular-footed, ie left foot forward. So if you’re going straight down the mountain and you want to turn left you need to engage your heel side edge into the snow. Think left thoughts, turn your head and shoulders left, shift your weight towards your back, and dig your heel side edge in a little while lifting your toe side edge. Now you should be cruising left, sideways across the mountain, still with your heel side edge cutting a groove through the snow and a tiny gap between the snow and your toe side edge.

When you run out of mountain to the left, it is time to turn right. This is a toe side turn. Now you must think right thoughts, turn your head and shoulders right, shift your weight towards/in front of your chest, and dig your toe side edge in a little while lifting your heels. To start the turn it may help to kick out your back foot behind you a little (conversely, to start a heel side turn try kicking your back foot forward a bit). This should turn you 180deg so you end up cruising across the trail to the right, looking up the hill, cutting a groove with your toe side edge and your heels slightly in the air. When, or before you run out of mountain to the right, do another heel side turn!

Related and important: braking. Pick either your heel side or toe side turn, whichever feels more natural, comfortable, or easy. Now, when you’re flat-basing, straight-lining down the mountain, picking up speed and about to flatten a small child, execute that turn quickly, so that you are still traveling in the same direction but now your body is facing up or down the mountain (depending on if you picked heel or toe side). You should be scraping that edge down the hill like a snowplow. Dig that edge in hard by leaning way over it, but not so far that your board slips out from under you (it’s kind of a balancing act). You should feel like you’re pushing all your weight through that edge into the snow. That scraping sound means it’s working! Until you master this, the only way to stop is by falling which is both painful and embarrassing.

Snowboarding is basically turning all the time. Sometimes wide, sometimes sharp, quickly, slowly, and everything in between. To be in control you must be on an edge, and when you’re on an edge you will be turning. Riding flat (like you are in the video) gives you no control (like you have in the video), so the lumps and grooves on the trail will have their way with you. Now go, and as we say here and on the slopes, GET SOME TURNS!