Well, I had the pleasure of jumping off some of the bigger jumps and did awfully well due to the fact that I have been snowboarding over 20 years, even some little kids were cheering me on.
Anyways, there’s couple lessons I learned over the years on how to jump (or nollie is it?) on a snowboard:
1. Learn to go very fast, if you can learn to balance your body while going fast, this will help you get a lot of speed into your jump without any problems.
To do this, you will want to practice on black diamond downhills a lot and going through lots of moguls can help too.
While you are going fast downhill, try turning by bunny-hopping (or mini jumps). Because you are going downhill so fast, it will be easier for you to turn by jumping off the ground (or feels almost like flying) slightly right before your turn.
2. Once you master going downhill fast (about 45mph+) and you can control your board, it’s time to head to the snowboard park.
At the snowboard park, you will find a bunch of different jumps varying from small to some huge ones.
Start with the small jumps at first. Once you get the hang of the small jumps, start challenging yourself to larger ones.
Eventually, you will get more and more comfortable.
3. One of the most common mistakes I see among beginners is the fact that people go too slow before the jump. You actually need to go about 25% faster than you think.
The faster you are going before the jump, the higher and longer you will jump, all the while your balance gets easier because you are going faster through the air.
That’s right. Use your balls here and make sure you are going really, really fast.
If you keep falling down on your landing, that means you need to either work on your balance at high speeds or you need to go faster.
If you go too slow, you will lose momentum and it’s harder to balance yourself in the air.
So in all, just go fast enough so you feel “scared”. Once you get through the fear of going fast, that’s when you start landing jumps flawlessly.
Here’s a video of couple jumps I did and landed them perfect, all while holding the digital camera:
(My digital camera frame rate is slow, so the jumps look kinda crap but I did get some good air in real life. You can see someone broke their back at the end of the video right after my jump…)
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ-gMMmI6iU
Well, I did go down the mountain run at Squaw Valley after they closed all the lifts at 9PM, here’s a long video of me going downhill. (again, it looks waaaay slower than it is in real life due to my crappy Canon)
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWKepi3PCyA
I still suck compared to these guys though.
More Snowboard stuff:
8 Responses to Snowboard Tricks DIY – How to Jump or Nollie Is it?
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Wow, when your learning you don't want to go to fast thats just stupid! going too fast of a small jump to med jump and you will fall because you've overshot the transition, and landed on the flat but on the same note don't go to slow or you will land on top of the table top! find a balanced speed that works! don't go above your confort zone but make sure you go fast enough!
going too fast where you are scared will most likely cause you to have accidents, if your scared go slow and small get your confidence level up before ripping it of a jump! trust me if your trying something new and your really scared and you don't start small, you will get hurt!
ive been snowboarding for 9-11 years now!
mattias
oh one more thing! are you trying to get someone hurt? ask any proffesional snowboarder (other than you) how to learn and they will say start slow! seriously though i think you like seeing people getting injured so you say to do something that will make someone get hurt!
Wow, when your learning you don't want to go to fast thats just stupid! going too fast of a small jump to med jump and you will fall because you've overshot the transition, and landed on the flat but on the same note don't go to slow or you will land on top of the table top! find a balanced speed that works! don't go above your confort zone but make sure you go fast enough!
going too fast where you are scared will most likely cause you to have accidents, if your scared go slow and small get your confidence level up before ripping it of a jump! trust me if your trying something new and your really scared and you don't start small, you will get hurt!
i mean once youve reached professional level and confident and can hit massive jumps then go for it do as much speed as you want!
ive been snowboarding for 9-11 years now!
mattias
oh one more thing! are you trying to get someone hurt? ask any proffesional snowboarder (other than you) how to learn and they will say start slow! seriously though i think you like seeing people getting injured so you say to do something that will make someone get hurt!
What is this crap about “Bunny-hopping” to turn while going fast downhill? Are you trying to get people hurt? You hop onto an edge while speeding down a black diamond is likely to throw the nose behind you (spin out) and you eat !@#$ hardcore. You never hop to an edge while going fast, you always make an undercut transition/turn, never force it at high speed. If I were bombing a black diamond and tried that, recovering would be incredibly hard, how do you think it would work for someone new to it? Not to mention those other problems that mattias mentioned. Finally, going faster doesnt improve balance, years of riding and practice improves balance, if you go too fast without trained balance, you are going to get hurt much more than if you were going slow. Either you are a horrible teacher/don’t understand riding mechanics, or you are lying about being a 20 year (park) rider. I’m a trained Level 1 Certified Snowboard Instructor with Freestyle qualifications, its my job to know these things.
Well, I must be horrible teacher or maybe just too good but I have almost NEVER spun out trying to bunny hop, I think it depends on how you ride. When you are gonig black diamonds and you don’t hop, you are gonna pick up some serious speeds plus if it’s icey, there’s a chance you will slip or spin out. To prevent those things, you can “hop”.
Of course, if you are a beginner or just getting hang of snowboarding, you shouldn’t even be on black diamonds.
I am not certified and I have never been taught to ride snowboard but I’ve snowboarded since 1989. I do also skateboard which helps me snowboard I guess. Well, just my 2 cents.
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hey max,
Thanks for the tips, it’s inspiring to see people snowboarding and doing tricks when they’re just beginning.