Let’s talk about a very simple technique today which will help you to remember to bend your knees and extend your body in between turns.
It’s called ‘Tall & Small’.
What is Tall & Small?
It’s very simple, and it only has two steps:
- Make yourself tall when you initiate a turn
- Make yourself small when you’re not initiating a turn
Why tall and small?
By going from small to tall when you make a turn, you’re basically almost jumping off both feet and doing a sort of bounce upwards which reduces the amount of weight you are putting on your snowboard just as you’re about to turn.
The technical term for this move is ‘up-unweighting’ and by having less weight on your snowboard as you try to turn, you make it easier to maneuver your snowboard into the turn.
This method also helps you to swap from your heel to toe edge (or vice versa) quickly and smoothly.
If you want a more detailed blog on the subject, I did a past blog on ‘bouncing and up-unweighting‘, but for now, back to ‘tall and small’!
How do I do it?
Here’s a simple diagram to break it down for you:
So it goes something like this: small > tall to initiate the turn and swap edge from toe to heel or vice versa > small right after that to continue the turn.
Try it out on the hill and see how it works for you.
– Jed