Last Updated25 October 2024

Competitive Snowboarding explores the main competitive disciplines and some techniques to help young riders when preparing to take part in their first contests. The sample progressions used in this chapter are less skill based and more tactic focused. They build on the skills established in the previous three chapters: Advanced Freeriding, Advanced Carving and Advanced Freestyle.

Halfpipe & Transition

What, Why, How

Halfpipe is the original freestyle competitive discipline; however, these days there are very few halfpipes to be found. In New Zealand, only one resort builds a halfpipe each year, yet it is still a staple at the NZ Junior Nationals.

If no halfpipe is available, building skills for riding halfpipe can be done riding transition features in the park and natural features on the mountain like gullies. The fundamentals here include carving well on both toeside and heelside, managing pressure through a transition and being able to flat base to hold speed. Refer to Intro to Halfpipe & Transition in Advanced Freestyle.

Frontside & Backside Airs

Once the rider has an appropriate line through the halfpipe, start encouraging them to look further up the pipe’s wall and pump the transition gently. Have the rider aim to reach a certain point on the wall each run, e.g. top third or nose at the lip.

Focus attention on leaving the wall with a flat base. This will help the rider to maintain their line and hold speed up and out of the pipe. Use the eyes to draw a smooth arc in the air ahead of the board. Putting more emphasis on using the back eye will encourage a smoother rotation.

Encourage retraction of the legs in the air (rather than popping off the lip) to help maintain balance and allow the rider to adjust the direction of the snowboard back into the pipe on landing.

Landing on the uphill edge should be encouraged as riders progress. This will provide more stability and help to maintain speed.

Once riding consistently above the lip, work on including a variety of grabs. Traditionally, a backside air is with a melon grab and a frontside air is with an indy grab. Other grabs that can easily be learned in the pipe include mute, lean air, nose, tail and stalefish. Encourage patience with any grabs to ensure the rider doesn’t begin to pop off the wall.

Spins & Alley-Oops

Spending time with similar spins away from the pipe is a good way to begin. Toe-to-toe turns and 360s on banks are easy starting points.

Back in the halfpipe, discuss which spins feel least daunting. Try to include these spins in their run on the last or second to last hit, keeping it below the lip initially.

For frontside (or switch frontside) 360s, focus on timing the rotation to match their forward momentum. Wind-up should be encouraged, followed by a rotation that is perpendicular to the transition. Using a slight two-footed pop, with even weight on both feet, will be necessary if below the lip, but put more focus on the retraction of the legs during the spin, than on popping off the wall. This will be important as confidence grows and spins start happening above the lip. To help get the full rotation, focus on the back hand coming all the way around and pointing back across the pipe, whilst landing on the toe edge.

In alley-oops, the rotation is fairly easy at first. As the trick moves above the lip, more patience will be necessary. Using the front hand as a guide for this will help. With all alley-oops, try to maintain a flatter board through the transition as the tendency here is to edge harder. With alley-oops on the backside wall, encourage a scissoring of the legs to rotate the board past the upper body in the air and maintain a toe edge landing.

Once any of the above spins are comfortable, perform them earlier in the run and consider how you can link them up. Air-to-fakies and switch air-to-fakies are a great way to tie these tricks together with frontside and backside airs. Eventually, backside 3s and frontside 5s can be introduced.

Planning a Run

Pipe runs are about amplitude first and foremost. When planning a pipe run, focus the rider’s attention on maintaining as much amplitude and speed as possible throughout their run, rather than getting as many hits as possible.

Encourage different grabs on every frontside and backside air and different spins on every hit.

Work on switch riding in the pipe and building easy switch tricks, such as cab-3s and cab-5s, and switch alley-oops.

Movements & Board Performance

Vertical & Lateral with Edging & Pressuring

Pumping through the transition will help the rider to maintain and generate speed. Reducing the edge angle of the board as the rider moves through the transition into the vert section of the wall will help to maintain momentum up and out of the pipe. Extending slightly when riding through the transition will help achieve this; however, it’s important to maintain fairly constant pressure here. Leaving the pipe wall with a flat base is ideal. Use an active to high performance stance and focus on flattening the back foot as the nose reaches the lip. Vertical movement is required in the air to aid balance, help the rider to grab and prepare for landing, which will ideally happen on the uphill edge.

Rotational

Rotational movement in the air should be generated through the shoulders and hips. Frontside airs happen quite naturally as the rider turns to look back down into the pipe for a landing. Backside airs are less natural and a stronger rotation of the shoulders and hips is necessary. To help with this, focus on the front arm leading the rotation and pointing back into the pipe for the landing. Upper body rotation and pre-wind becomes more important for spins in the pipe. Separation between the upper and lower body will be needed for alley-oops on the backside wall. All rotational movement should be perpendicular to the transition.

Longitudinal

A slight centre-to-aft movement can be introduced to help pumping, ensuring that the COM remains relatively centred on the board.

Terrain & Group Management

Learning to flatten the base of the snowboard on the pipe wall can be tricky. Use edging and flat base tactics and tasks out of the pipe to increase awareness of this. Activities inside the pipe that focus on line and edge angle, rather than speed, will help to increase awareness here.

Speed should only be added when everything else is flowing well. Using quarter pipes and other transition features is a less intimidating way to introduce frontside or backside airs, but keep in mind that any feature that has an under-vert transition will require more pop from the rider, which can create movements that aren’t ideal when riding a pipe with lots of vert.

Hot Tip

For spins and alley-oops, using the last few hits in the pipe will allow the rider to keep practising their pipe riding techniques without sacrificing speed. Consider which is the sunny wall (i.e. the softer one), as the ideal time to learn new tricks is on a wall that is just starting to soften in the sun.

Corrective Teaching

Rider turns on the wall too early before their momentum has run out:

Encourage them to be patient and let the snowboard travel up the pipe’s wall, looking progressively up towards the lip, rather than looking directly at the wall or back into the pipe too early.

Encourage smooth vertical movements and focus on the sensation of forward momentum increasing and decreasing. Remind them to rotate when their speed has decreased substantially and they have reached their peak on the wall or their whole board has left the lip of the pipe.

Rider pushes away from the wall towards the centre of the pipe to get air:

Review the timing of their extension to get air in the pipe. This should be smooth and timed to match the length of transition, resulting in a trajectory that flows out of the lip. Often, a late, powerful extension is made to get a sensation of jumping out of the pipe, which results in a trajectory that moves away from the wall. This can become quite dangerous when riding pipe, especially when speed and pipe size are both increased.

Focus on the feeling of the tail leaving the lip of the pipe before retracting the legs for a compact position in the air. This will help to avoid pop off the wall yet still allow for a stable position in the air.

Rider under-rotates the frontside or switch frontside 360 and lands on the heel edge:

Make them aware that landing on the heel edge initially is okay to build confidence, but it will limit their ability to maintain speed and that landing on the toe edge is ideal.

Focus on the wind-up and timing of the release to match the peak of their arc on the wall, then add the feeling of a tightening core to help bring the rotation around. Retracting the legs during the spin will help with this.

Make sure the back hand is pointing down the transition and across the pipe upon landing.

Rider lands nose/tail heavy, or catches the tail on the wall during their 360:

Ensure that all rotations are happening perpendicular to the point in the transition where the rider is spinning.

Focus on an even two-footed takeoff and an even retraction of both legs when in the air.

Rider edges too hard through the transition of an alley-oop:

Have them consider the angle they are taking up the wall. Is it a steeper angle than they would normally take for a frontside or backside air?

Draw attention to the feeling of flattening the back foot through the transition.

Ensure that the rotation is applied at the top of their trajectory and not before.

Self Reflection

“Are they able to flatten their board progressively through the transition before adding more speed?”

“Will teaching spins in the pipe at this stage negatively impact their ability to take a good line in the pipe, i.e. increased edging on the walls?”

“Are they popping too hard off the wall, rather than retracting their legs?”