Last Updated5 August 2023

Effective Rider Analysis explores how to effectively analyse a student’s riding. This chapter will provide useful information for what analysis is, why it’s useful and guidance on how best to develop analysis skills.

Within the world of instructing, the skill of analysing a student’s riding is essential to their future progression and achievements. The first step to providing the most effective feedback and formulating a suitable lesson plan that will bring out efficient changes in a student’s riding, is accurately analysing their riding.

The Domino Effect

The domino effect is a concept used in more advanced analysis, that helps to identify that an original or root inefficiency can go on to cause subsequent issues in a student’s riding.

Similar to a chain of dominoes falling, establish if the identified issue is the first domino in the chain, a domino in the middle, or the last domino to fall. Looking at what happened prior to and after the most obvious issue in the student’s riding, can develop a larger overall picture of where to prioritise correctional focuses.

Consider each domino to be an occurrence in a chain of events, each occurrence causing or resulting in the next. This chain of events could occur across different phases of a turn where a movement in the initiation of a turn results in another movement during the control phase, which then affects the board in the completion of the turn. The same concept can be applied from one turn to the next or even from decisions made earlier in the run.

Turn Phase Dominoes

In this application, each domino represents a different phase of the turn, working continually from one turn to the next:

One Domino - The root cause is found within the previous phase to the identified effect.

Two Dominoes - The root cause is found two phases prior to the effect.

Three Dominoes - The root cause is found three phases prior to the effect.

Example

While riding a black, off-piste run with packed powder the rider has trouble changing edges and steering through their heelside turn: As the rider flows through their heelside turn they’re making a large movement with their shoulder and hip to initiate and steer the board, causing them to have trouble managing their speed and the terrain.

Looking back at the initiation of their heelside turn, it’s clear the rider is in an aft and open position before they even begin their turn. There appears to be an inefficiency prior to their heelside turn. At the completion of their toeside turn the rider is becoming increasingly aft and open. This is due to an inefficient rotational movement through their upper body to try and steer their board to control speed. As they’re rotating their shoulders and hips to steer their board quickly across the hill they are left in a compromised and unbalanced stance. From this position it becomes difficult to initiate and steer their next heelside turn causing the initial inefficiency that was identified.

In the example above, without considering the domino effect, analysis of the rider may suggest that they would need to use a smooth, lower body lateral and rotational movement to progressively steer through their heelside turn. Through the domino effect it’s possible to identify that the original cause is in the completion of the turn prior. The inefficient steering movement the rider is using to complete the toeside turn caused an inefficient stance contributing to difficulty in creating a smooth heelside turn.

ATTL Dominoes

This dominoes concept can also be used effectively within freestyle when considering how a rider’s approach affected their takeoff, or perhaps how their takeoff subsequently affected their trick or landing. (See the ATTL Model in Terrain Park Riding.)

An easy way to apply the domino concept to ATTL is as follows:

One Domino - The root cause can be found in the Trick phase.

Two Dominoes - The root cause can be found in the Takeoff phase.

Three Dominoes - The root cause can be found in the Approach phase.

Within freestyle it is rare to find a root cause within the landing phase of ATTL. The landing is often a by-product of the overall efficiency through approach to takeoff to trick.

Example

A rider is landing tail first over a small park jump: The rider is flexing their back leg during the landing of the jump and landing on the tail causing them to be unstable as they ride away. Looking back to the takeoff of the jump it becomes clear that the rider is not extending through both legs and popping at the takeoff. They are simply coasting off the lip in an increasingly aft position. This is the first domino causing the heavy landing on the rider's tail.

Big Picture Dominoes

The same domino concept can be applied to multiple turns or a whole run. This is when it might be necessary to consider more than just two or three dominoes. When teaching advanced snowboarders, a large percentage of knowledge that is passed on from teacher to student is about decision making and tactics. Experienced snowboarders understand that decisions they make at the top of a precarious, off-trail situation, or when riding the first features in a full park lap, can affect their ability to maintain performance further down the face or on subsequent features in the park.

Although the domino effect can be essential in finding the root issue in many riding situations, remember that some issues can be improved with no consideration of the domino effect. This is where experience within analysis helps decide if the domino effect is needed and if so, how far back one should look to find the root issue. A great way to develop this aspect of decision making within analysis is to ask for another instructor’s analysis of the exact same riding situation. This is where the use of videos can help to share the analysis decisions in an objective environment.

Tags: