How to Carve on a Snowboard

With winter around the corner, it is mandatory to learn a new annual trick on the snow. Enhance your snowboarding skills by committing yourself to learn new tricks so that winter fun increases every year. Once you’re done learning the basics of snowboarding, the real fun starts when you learn how to carve on a snowboard.

How to Carve on a Snowboard

A great way to prep yourself would be to start watching YouTube videos to understand how to snowboard carve. Snowboard carving is fun, gives you a complete sense of freedom on the board, and popular. Having said all this, let’s get into the step-by-step process of how to carve on a snowboard.

Learning the Right Positions

Snowboarding is all about keeping the right balance and maintaining the right position. You start to have fun once you get through these basics. The first and foremost thing to do while snowboard carving is to learn to stand and maintain the right position at all times.

Maintain the Correct Posture on Flat Land

Place your snowboard on flat, snow-covered land and stand firmly. It is important to keep your knees slightly bent on the snowboard straight back and place your hands by your side.

Put Into Practice Inclining Forward

To get the hang of it, start by leaning forward and try to maintain your balance on your toe edge while standing motionless. It is key to focus on keeping your knees ahead and putting equal weight on both knees. Try to remain in this position for as long as you can with falling. You can do this with breaks in between. Keep practicing and repeat it till you can.

Practice Backward Inclining

To learn this, you need to start by leaning backward on your heel edge. To maintain balance:

1. Focus on bending your knees while sticking out your backside.
2. Try to bring in this position for as long as you can and take a break when tired.
3. Keep practicing till you are positive about your prep.

Practicing the Basic Positions

Now that you know the positions, you need to learn how to carve on a snowboard; the key is to keep practicing and perfect these positions.

Learn How to Speed Up On a Controlled Run

Once you’ve done some intense practice on your stationary leaning, it’s time to lean forward and move onto movable leaning. You can start by doing a reasonable run and picking up some speed while inclining forward. Remember, you will need some build-up before you can start carving down the slopes.

It is advised to take into consideration the amount of space you have when working on your carving. Be sure not to do it on a terrain where there are already many snowboarders.

Frame Your Snowboard into Position by Driving Your Knees

Once you drive into the hill and start picking up speed, bend your knees and ankles to tilt your snowboard forward. The key is to bend into the hill with your knees so that you can easily slice into the soft snow with your snowboard.

Frame Your Snowboard toward the back by sticking out your backside

Here you need to move your weight to the back and continue to keep moving down the hill. Maintain equal weight on the board and slide through the snow with the help of your heel edge. It will be easier to cut into the snow when your body is fully centered with your backside out behind you and facing the hill.

Fine-Tune Your Force to Even Out Slipping

Since there is a lot of moving back and forth while leaning backward and forward, it is important to keep your weight and the force you apply into consideration. If there’s less pressure, it can result in wild speed, and if there is too much pressure, then there are high chances you will slip.

Key tips:

– If you need to apply more weight to your heel edge, you need to bend your knees backward. And when you need to put more force to your toe edge, bend your toes ahead.

– Once you get successful in completing a run, look back at the trail and see the smoothness of your carve. If it’s uneven and you’ve left bumps all over the trail, then it’s best to practice some more.

Achieving Control

It is important to keep and maintain control to have a great snowboard carving experience. There are a few points to keep in mind to gain good control over your snowboard.

Utilize the Knee and Shoulder In Front

To steer around the snow efficiently, you need to make movements that are prompt and forceful. The thing about the front knee and shoulder is that they have immense power and help a great deal in carving. Position the front shoulder and knee when you need to toe carve and out for when you need to heel carve.

Curve Your Knees While Turning to Take in Weight

Bend your knees when you make a turn to carve. It allows to take in the pressure and helps in turning. The trick is to bend your back knee more than your front knee at each turn to absorb pressure properly.

Our Final Thoughts

Once you start making those carves, there is no going back. It is fun and addicting. You’ll experience a completely different sense of freedom, and it will be like flying on a snowboard. Remember to keep a good command on your snowboard and don’t force or put pressure on anything. Snowboard craving is a great skill to learn, so make the most of it.