As said before, you need have confidance in all separate parts of the
jump before putting it altogether. Skills you should have beforehand

1. You need to be comfortable riding fakie/switch at decently high for
more than 3-4 seconds. This is key for you to stick your landing,
because a lot of people try to switch back to regular riding
immediately (or even before) thy land and not only is that poor style,
but it can lead to a crash. Actually it's probably only 1-2 seconds,
but everyone's perspective of time, speed, and height is warped when
they are doing a jump (1 second seems like 5 seconds, 20 mph seems
liked mach 2, 2 feet seems like 10 feet). So let's just say you need
to be able to ride faster and straight (no panic skids or stops) for a
good 30-50 feet.

2. Also you need to be able to ride switch "blind" for a few seconds.
This means you are *not* looking downhill when you land (mentally
visualize the slope in your mind). From my perspective, this is key to
landing any off-number spin, because if you look down the hill while
landing fakie, you turn your shoulders, your shoulders a bit twist
pressure on your hips, and this will cause you to keep rotating (even
after you land) and you'll end up doing a 270 instead of a 180.

Any "twist" in your shoulders and hips will translate into a rotation,
if you want to keep rotating, keep them going, if not, let them relax
and untwist and you will stop rotating (so some people crash on 360s
because they stop twisting their shoulders around halfway through the
spin... and never complete the 360). Leading with your shoulders (keep
them turning) and spotting your landing is key for a 360, but is bad
for a 180.

So, no looking until you are on the ground, then you can turn you
shoulders around. The key thing is to land, ride... and *then* look
around. Once you are on the ground and riding away, you will be able
to turn your head and look forward without spinning your board around
involuntarily.

So that's general things you should be able to do. You should be able
to visualize yourself going the 180, if you can't mentally visual it,
you won't do it. Practice it on your feet, jogging, doing a backside
180 *while* mentally focusing on the terain and surrounding ahead of
you (even though you are facing away).

Because you are rotating so little, it is really hard to judge the
needed rotation speed to do a smooth 180 spin - you tend to under or
overestimate, and once you are in the spin, it's so short you can't
really adjust midair.

So instead of that, I do something that I'm not sure is "standard." I
like to cork my shoulder a little bit on the approach, 90 in the air,
and then uncork my shoulders to get the remaining 90 degree in. This
easily allows me to adjust my last few degrees... and it looks really
cool because your rotation stalls at 90 degrees when you do your grab,
and then you finsih you last 90 degree with a late rotation. So this
is what my friend Blake taught me a few years back, and I found it
effective.

You can practice this without jumping (actually I suggest you practice
it, because it will help train you to avoid catching your edges). Go
down a slope for like 5 feet and half twist you shoulders in the
direction of rotation while still riding straight. Then without
counter-rotating (i.e. twisting your hips and shoulders in opposite
direction) slowly spin 90 degree like a skidding toeside turn, then
untwist your shoulders and look up the hill (oppo and you should see
you hips will not "counter-rotate" and you board will swing the
remaining 90 degrees, ride for a full second (count to one one
thousand) this part is a little tough (riding blind) but it's key, and
then finally turn your head and shoulder to look down the hill without
turning your board.

Again... this is just what I do and what I recommend, it isn't the
final say on doing a 180. Despite my opinion, this may or may not be
the best way for a beginner to learn, but I think it is very helpful
and more importantly.. it is a method that works for bigger and more
advanced jumps (just watch more experience riders spin and see how
they land fakie... they always land blind) and so you don't pick up
any bad habits from "intro" techniques.

--Arvin


"copek" wrote in message ...
tips on backside 180s sound good please!!

"Arvin Chang" wrote in message
om...
"jaycb74" wrote in message
news:1075241634.373789@sj-nntpcache-5...
So I've been messing with these lately and just looking for some advice.

I use to always take-off fakie and land regular i.e. I would land in my
regular riding style. I got pretty comfortable with this but the only
problem is that it is tough to sometimes hit the transition right when
riding fakie. Now I'm trying to take-off regular and land fakie but for
some reason have this fear of my front knee buckling the wrong way when
landing, I guess because its just totally opposite on how I would
normally
land a jump. Everyone I've talked to says this really isn't an injury
they
are aware of for this move but wanted to see if anyone had any tricks to
pull these off?

Thanks.

If you did a 180 and landed fakie and leaned too far over your tail
(forward) you would risk injurying your ACL (eep!). That being said,
it basically never happens unless you really overshoot the landing and
land in the flat. However, since I already have a sprained ACL, I'm
avoiding it.

Which way are you spinning. I'm guessing frontside since backside
requires you to land blind (i.e. looking up the uphill and not where
you are going). I think the main important things a

1. Lean forward as you enter the air. Pretty much everyone
unconsciously leans back on a jump when they are nervous. By forcing
yourself to lean forward and shift more weight to the front foot, you
are actually compensating for this and will probably be more or less
centered. Not to take this to extremes, but you pretty much *can't*
lean too far forward, becaues you mind won't let you do it. To your
subconscious mind, the edge of the jump is like the edge of a cliff
and so you mentally aren't capable of realistically leaning too far
forward. So basically try to lean as far forward as you can... more
than you think is necessary. A side corollary, always go a little
faster than you think you need to. A little too far is a lot better
than a little too short on a jump.

2. *Bend* your knees. Similarly, people like stand up straight and
tall when they are out of their comfort zone. You will see novice
jumper straight leg they jumps and not absorb the the landing as the
shock jolts through their locked knees. Approach the jump with you
needs bent, you will feel like you want to stand up and look over the
jump, resist this urge. When you enter the air, pull your knees *up*
and THEN extend then halfway down again for the landing.

3. Go faster than you think you need to. Again like tip #1, someone is
going to take this too far and yell at me (use your common sense). My
observation whenever you try something new (at any level, whether it's
your first jump, first 180, 360, inverted air) you automatically feel
uncomfortable with speed and slow down (do an extra speed check or
two) too much. Ironically this *dramatically* increases your chances
of crashing as you will land short in the transition and that extra
jolt makes it much harder to land. Mentally force yourself to go
faster and do *not* change your mind at the last second and slow down,
that is just wrong and most likely will lead to you crashing. The
normal setup is to take 2-3 turns before the jump, *stop* turning and
just go straight the last 10-15 feet before the jump. This is last bit
is key for virtually all jumps... landing on the landing part of the
tabletop, while farther away, is *much* easier than going short and
landing in the flat transition. When you land on the landing, it's
like you never left the ground it's so smooth, when you land on the
transition, even if you were perfect on your takeoff, you might crash
due to the jolt of the landing.

If you are too afraid, or mentally unable to do this yet. Don't worry,
it's ok that's you natural sense of self-preservation acting. Try
starting on a smaller jump or put yourself on a steep blue/black and
try to get some air off a roller while going *fast* because that speed
is critical. Don't try to do a jump that's obviously beyond you skill
level (use common sense). If you can't do a black/blue run yet, don't
even bother going into the park, you will merely endanger yourself and
aggravate others.

If you want to do backside 180s, I can give you some tips on that (but
all the above still applies).

--Arvin