Today’s reader question:
When should I start learning flips and inverts on jumps?
Okay so there are a some pre-requisites you should meet before you start learning upside down tricks like backflips and frontflips and inverted spins.
We need to be a little more careful when starting out with flips and invert tricks because of the slight added danger of landing on your head.
General pre-requisites for any flip/invert off a jump
1) You need to be able to hit jumps with stability and control
Don’t start working on flips/inverts if you can’t hit a jump 10 times out of 10 and have control while you do so.
By control, I mean things like grabs and sucking your legs up in the air should be natural and easy and you shouldn’t feel any awkwardness when you hit a jump.
You should feel in control from drop-in, up to popping off the jump and grabbing your board, and landing. Don’t try going upside down off jumps until you can at least perform solid straight airs every single time.
2) Try it on a trampoline/into powder/into a foam pit
There’s an very high chance that you will land on your head the first time you try a flip or invert, that’s why god invented trampolines, foam pits and powder.
You’re going to land on your head the first few times you try any flips/inverts, so you must as well do it into something soft first.
Pre-requisites for corked tricks
For those unaware, a corked trick is any snowboard trick where you spin off-axis. This means instead of just spinning left or right, you also spin upwards or downwards at the same time.
For example, this me doing a corked backside 540:
1) Learn the original trick
So, I know this might sound obvious, but before you start working on corked tricks make sure you can land the non corked version of the same trick.
For example, you want to have a backside 540 mastered before you try a corked backside 540.
2) Have an understanding of where you’ll spot the landing
The key to corked tricks is that because you’re spinning up or down while spinning your regular spin, you’ll have to spot the landing differently.
You know when you spin a 360 normally and you have to worry about spinning too much or too little? That goes double for when you spin a cork because you need to worry about your rotational (up/down) spin as well as your left/right spin.
So if you were to spin a corked 540, you have to know where the landing will appear because you need to align your body with the landing to finish the spin on your feet, instead of finishing the spin and realizing you’re still upside down and ending up landing on your head.
Where the landing appears during a corked trick will change depending on the trick and you want to know where you’ll need to look as you spin.
For example, in the corked bs 540 above, I have to spot the landing by looking upwards and left as I come out of the 540. This is so I can see where the landing is while I’m still slightly upside down and make sure I finish my spin the right way up.
Hope that answers your question!
- Jed
ps – Here are some how-to tutorials on backflips and frontflips that you might find useful:
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