That's really going to improve your riding all across the mountain now

This is something which is crucial if you're a beginner

Yeah

It is also something I find myself revisiting with more advanced riders

Because if they're not aware of it, they develop bad habits, which then stop them progressing in all other aspects of their riding

Welcome to my home Alpe d'Huez

So the lifts have only just opened which means I haven't really been riding for about six months

As I get back into it, what I'm thinking about today and what I want to share with you is the importance of good posture

Without it, you're really going to struggle in all aspects of your riding

If you've ever found yourself fighting for grip, whether that's when you're trying to carve or if you're riding steeps and that board judders out

It's likely because your posture isn't quite right

So with good posture, you can actually create grip underneath your board

There's this idea that you can get your center of mass, your whole body weight up here

Through a turn to be driving down directly over your edge

You're actually going to create grip underneath your board

If you're standing slightly wrong, you're going to have the weight in the wrong place

And rather than achieving grip, like I say, you're going to be fighting for it

So that's the theory and to actually put it into practice, it's quite simple

So I'm sitting next to a snow cannon here and I'm going to show you the correct way how we do it

So first, I'm just going to show you I'm in my heel edge position

And the easy way to think about this, I want you to trace the line of my spine

So my spine obviously starts up here in my neck and it comes down here

And then I want you to imagine that continuing out from my tailbone

Now you can see here on my heel edge that my spine is in a position where it then points down directly over the edge of my board

This is so that, like I mentioned, all my body weight, my center of mass, when I'm going for a heel side turn

Is driving down directly over that edge and creating grip

If I was to let my arms hang loose, again there I could kind of point my arms down and they're also over my heel edge

So that's essentially your heel edge position

It doesn't matter if you're down really low riding hard or if you're being a little bit more relaxed

If you follow my spine, it will always go down over the heel edge

My knees are slightly bent and my hips are a little bit backwards

So we're going to the second position now, spin around onto my toe edge

So your toe edge position is slightly different

The main difference here is that my hips are really pushed quite far forward

Theory being exactly the same

In this position, if you follow my spine down through my neck all the way through to the tailbone

It is now pointing down all my weight over that toe edge

So it's really key, it's really simple to think about

It's basically hips forward on your toe edge

You can see here a real straight line from my knee up through my hips

There's no bend here right up towards my shoulders

Which means my spine, my tailbone is all pointing down over that toe edge

So that's the two things to think about when I start riding

So just make sure toe edge, hips are forward, heel edge, hips back

Okay, so I'm going to make a few turns

I'm going to have that as my focus and just hopefully I'm going to feel how it starts to improve my riding

Gives me more grip through each turn

I really found that helping my turns

I could feel the extra grip it was giving me throughout them

I was really thinking heel edge, hips back, toe edge, hips forward

One small problem I was having though

There's a few times as I came onto the toe edge

I didn't quite bring my hips through quick enough

So the point at which your hips cross over the board is the point at which you roll onto your new edge

Sometimes I was just leaning onto my toe edge

I was already on my toe edge and then I was bringing my hips through after

It's really crucial that as you change from heel to toe edge

You bring those hips through as the board rolls from one edge onto the other

So that's what I'm going to be thinking about my next few turns down here

That's it, a really simple tip that's going to have big improvements on your riding

And it's something that's really easy to identify as well

When you're riding with your mates, watch them and check their posture

Check on their toe edge, their hips are forward

Check on their heel edge, their hips are back

Get your phone out, record each other and you can actually pause it

Go through it frame by frame and you'll be able to see exactly

If you trace your spine, you'll be able to see if it's making a line down over your toe or your heel edge

So have some fun with that, give it a go

And you're going to really notice the gains it's going to make in your riding

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And check these other videos out up here

Thanks for watching!