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Understanding the Three Popular Styles of Snowboarding

Sunday, June 15th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

Introducing Snowboarding

You can compare the sport of snowboarding to surfing on powder instead of water. Ever since carving its radical personality in the minds of Americans and others, snowboarding has galvanized the imagination of all age groups but none more so than the young. To teens and twenty-somethings, it represents freedom like no other activity. Snowboarding probably hit the world consciousness in 1998 when it was “demo’d” in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Since that time it has rapidly caught on across the world and is now a permanent Olympic discipline. According to some pundits, there are over seven million participants in the United States alone.

Snowboarding is for Winter

Its an unavoidable fact that snowboarding is a Winter sport, which means you’ll have to store your board in Summer (unless you consider downhill wheeled “grass boarding” part of snowboarding-but I digress, that’s for another articleJ). But when Winter hits, you can’t go far wrong by hitting the slopes at the major ski areas or even at one of the mega resorts. All you’ll need is a parka (insulated pants and jacket if skiing in Winter instead of Spring) and your own snowboard, helmet, ski boots and sundries like gloves and goggles.

If you can’t manage the change to buy all the gear just yet, never fear, just about every place you can ski will rent snowboarding gear for a pretty easy daily fee. In fact, it’s probably a better idea to rent so you can get the feel for the gear and try out different [brands. When you get the money together, you will have a much better knowledge of what’s good and what equipment is best left to the novice.

Three Snowboarding Styles

Freeriding
Freestyle
Freecarve

Freeriding is by far the most common and easy form of snowboarding to learn. It simply takes the form of pointing yourself down the mountain and riding the slope down to the bottom! Of course, you might want to get a gentle slope to get the feel of it first. Once you get this style down (which in essence is for beginners), you’ll never look back.

Freestyle snowboarding is where you will find most people. Generally speaking, freestyle involves more complex runs and a variety of tricks. Everything from obstacles (slalom, moguls) to jumping ramps (acrobatics) can be found in this style. In this style of snowboarding, you will find all age groups and skill levels. Unlike Alpine skiing, one of the things that takes a little getting used to is the way in which you lock your feet on the board: “duckfoot.” It is so called because of the way your boots (and therefore your feet) are placed on the board, facing away from each other, as opposed to the Alpine or downhill skiing style of side by side.

Freecarve is a 180 degree departure from the other snowboarding styles, principally because it is not concerned with obstacles or jumping. In freecarve, the snowboarder is only concerned with making really deep cuts or carves in the snow. Making radical turns and sometimes coming so close to the snow that the snowboarder can put his hand out on the snow as he carves up his turn. It’s a method for keeping your balance as much as for just looking cool. Check out the vid below!

Future of Snowboarding is “Hot”

When you decide to make the plunge and go for the snow, go to a large, well-equipped ski area. There you will find every thing from instruction and “noobie” slopes to jumps and half-pipes. The future of snowboarding is going for broke! Grab your gear: Snow’s up!

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One Response to “Three Popular Snowboarding Styles”

Lots About Snowboarding and Gear Says:
July 19th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] and the kind of style of skiing you enjoy. For snowboarding styles see are post entitled “Three Popular Snowboarding Styles” Your snowboarding style will dictate many of your snowboarding gear [...]