How are you all doing?

Malcolm Moore here and in today's video we're going to be talking about what kind of turn you should be doing on what terrain.

Now I've made videos about up-arm weighted turns, down-arm weighted turns, torsional twist.

These are all techniques you can use when you're snowboarding but sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming about what you should be doing and when.

So to start off we're going to take a run and we're going to start with turn size.

You alright Indy?

You ready?

Should we go?

Come on boy.

So this one is the simplest thing to get right.

Basically it goes like this.

The mellower the slope you're on the bigger your turns are but as it starts to get steeper you need to bring them in a little bit smaller because the goal we're trying to get to in snowboarding is to control our speed with our turn shape.

We don't want to be controlling our speed just by doing this, by skidding.

It's just not a very good technique.

While you can kind of get away with it on the piste here, say I was to hop over here, just come off the side.

If I try and skid here it's really, really nasty.

It's just bad technique and you don't want to do it.

You really want to be controlling your speed as much as possible by your turn shape.

So yeah, like I said, big wide open turns when it's mellow and as it gets steeper you want to make those turns a little bit tighter, a little bit smaller.

So now the next thing, the edge change.

The edge change is essentially when you're going from heels to toes or toes back to heels.

It's the movements we're doing to go between those two positions.

What are we doing to get from our heel edge position, which is like this, into our toe edge position like this?

Two different positions, how do we go between them?

So I made a video recently on up unweighted turns.

The up unweighted movement basically goes as this.

You're coming across the slope, you stand up and then you sink back down.

Stand up, sink back down.

As you stand up the board flattens and it's easy to cross your hips, your center of mass over the board.

Now this type of turn, get out of my way Indy, get out of my way.

This type of turn I would say is the best one for people to learn first.

It's a movement that you can do really slowly to get it right.

You can do it if you're a complete beginner, you'll feel that board flatten.

It's really easy to change edge and it's easy to get this movement right.

Not only that, when you do it properly it's good for like 99% of your situations.

Let me just demonstrate a few.

Those are a bit basic, the ones I was doing.

I'll show you how it can really work.

What we've got here, we've got a red slope.

It's reasonably steep.

I'm going to show you how those up unweighted turns are going to help me change an edge here.

Out of the way you.

Over there you go.

Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

You can see that kind of turn is really working.

I'm not on a very good piece here either.

It's pretty slushy, there's lots of old tracks in it.

I'm still able to ride pretty well using that type of turn.

The one thing about these types of turns is it puts you in a slightly weak position at the beginning of the turn.

When you stand up, when you're in this tall position, it's not the strongest position.

If you're riding really fast or you're riding something really bumpy, you want to be low down in a strong position to absorb all those bumps.

Most of the time, it doesn't actually matter because we're only in this weak position at the start of the turn, that top part of the turn, which is what I call the lazy part of the turn.

All you're doing there is simply going down the hill, going with gravity.

There's no external forces acting against you.

By the time the board is pointing back down the slope, it's in the full line, you then sunk back down.

As soon as you turn past the full line, as soon as you start to go across the slope, that's when this force is acting against you.

Gravity, your momentum, everything, it wants to keep pulling you down and you're fighting against that.

In this up and weighted movement, by that point of the turn, you're already down, nice and low, ready to absorb those forces.

You come back across the slope, you slow yourself down, got your control back, and then you stand up again.

It's about getting this movement in the right place.

Watch me do a few more and you'll see the edge change always happens as I'm traversing across the slope.

Good boy, Indy.

Ready to do some more?

Coming across the slope, up, down.

Cool.

That's your up and weighted movement.

You can use that for all kinds of turns, whether you're on the steeps, whether you're carving, but there's something else actually going on there.

I mentioned it at the top, torsional twist.

This is when you use your legs independently as levers.

When you start incorporating that into your riding, that's going to enable you to make shorter, tighter turns.

Because up there behind me was a little bit steeper, I was doing the up and weighted movement, but then as I sank back down, as my knees begin to bend, I was letting my front knee, my left knee bend into the turn first, and then following with my right knee.

Now, I'll just demonstrate some turns using much more of that torsional twist.

You'll see that by doing that, I'm able to stay within a real narrow corridor.

In fact, that's the only movement I'm going to do here.

Watch my left knee is going to go first, right knee follows.

Left leg, left knee, can't speak, right knee.

Indy, other way.

That's just isolated that movement.

You see, if you look at the track behind me, I stayed in that real narrow, narrow corridor.

By incorporating those two movements, a bit of the up and weighted movement and a bit of that torsional twist movement using your legs as levers, you can blend them together to create the ideal turn shape for whatever terrain you're on.

There, something quite steep, up and weighted movement to initiate the edge change, and then a light bit of torsional twist to pull the board around in a reasonably tight arc.

If I was on something much steeper, I'd be using much more torsional twist to really bring that board around.

Those two techniques will be able to get you most places on the mountain really comfortably.

You can ride off-piste in the slush and stuff using those techniques, but this is where other types of techniques like down unweighted turns can start to have a bit of an edge.

I mentioned the up unweighted turn puts you in a weak position at the start of the turn, but normally that doesn't matter, and it won't matter when you're on the piste.

Imagine you're in some real bumpy, horrible terrain, and even at the start of the turn, even though you're going with gravity, you don't want to be in this tall, easy-to-get-knocked-off position.

You might want to stay down a little bit lower.

That is where the down unweighted turn can be really helpful.

This one, rather than coming up high at the edge change, you essentially drop down low.

What that does, it allows you to be in this strong position right at the beginning of the turn.

You're down low, and you can really manipulate the arc of your board.

I'll tell you what to do.

We're actually going to go into some horrible terrain over here, and we'll give that a bit of a go.

Because you're in this low-down strong position as well, the other thing you can do is throughout the turn, if you push against the board, imagine you're stood on a pair of scales.

When you stand up, you put more weight through the scales.

The same thing happens on a board.

As we push against it, we put more pressure through the board.

That actually bends it into reverse camber, and it allows you to tighten up your arc.

That's what I meant about a minute ago when I said you can manipulate the arc of your board.

That is also super helpful to do in slushy terrain or in powder, because as you push against the snow, it compresses underneath you and creates this platform that keeps you afloat on it.

A lot of people think powder riding is just about getting the weight on the back foot.

Actually, it's much more about getting this rhythm where you're constantly pushing against the board, keeping you afloat of it.

Then as you make the edge change, you drop down low, and then you're ready in your next turn to push against it.

It's a similar technique for slush.

Have a look behind me.

It's slushy.

It's super bumpy and horrible.

I'm going to change up my turns.

It's going to be more of a down-on-weighted turn.

Sometimes, you might not actually see me drop much.

I might just stay low for the whole turn.

The way to make the edge change is really, again, by using your legs as levers to flip that board from heels to toes and toes back to heels.

Anyway, just give me a watch.

Stop nattering on.

I could natter on all day about snowboarding.

Couldn't I, Indy?

Yes.

Right.

Let's jump into it.

This is nasty.

Just before I even turn, you can see I'm being low.

I'm using my legs to absorb the bumps one at a time.

I'm going to stay low throughout the edge change.

Really keep my legs nice and soft.

All right.

Let's try and do more of a down-on-weighted turn.

Down, push out.

Down, push out.

Down, push out.

This is really nasty snow.

Well done, Indy.

Admittedly, that was not the best demo, but you guys have to trust me.

That snow is not too nice.

You can see that in most scenarios, you want to be in this low position so you're nice and strong.

We don't have any today, but lots of you often ask me, what turns you should do for moguls.

This one technically has its own name.

It's called a terrain-on-weighted turn.

It's getting mega confusing, right?

Essentially, that is just a down-on-weighted turn, but you make the low-down movement when you go over the top of the mogul.

Imagine you're riding along.

You suck your legs up over the mogul.

You're in this nice low position as you do your edge change.

Then you push out through the turn.

Then the next mogul, as you hit it, you suck your legs up and turn over the top.

What this does as well, it means your legs are working overtime underneath you, bouncing away, but your body, your center of mass, your head, and everything stays relatively smooth going across the top.

I've got one small bit of bottom.

I'm going to start riding a little bit harder because it's actually quite difficult to get the down-on-weighted movement when you're going slow.

You need a bit of momentum.

The up-on-weighted movement, you can be going dead slow.

That's why it's so easy for beginners and everything.

It's so easy to get right.

To get the down-on-weighted movement done correctly, you need a little bit of speed because as you sink down, you essentially fool your center of mass, fool your body weight onto the inside of the turn.

A bit like when you're riding a bike fast, you just lean into it.

Same idea with down-on-weighted turns.

If you're going too slow and you try and do that, it's not going to work.

You need that momentum.

I'll try and show you some turns here.

We'll get back on the piste, a little bit bumpy.

I'll try and do some bigger open carve turns, but with more of a down-on-weighted turn.

On the piste carving, you'll see how this allows for a more aggressive style of riding.

Up-on-weighted, think you're more like a bit of arch.

Down-on-weighted, you're pushing against it.

You're manipulating that arch and creating the turns you want.

Let's give this a go.

Hopefully, I'm not confusing you more.

I've got a friend.

The aim of this video was to hopefully clear up some questions some of you are having.

What should I do?

Down-on-weighted, up-on-weighted, torsional twist?

I'll try and summarize as good as possible now.

We started with turn shape.

You want to control your speed with your turn shape.

Small turns for the steep stuff, medium turns for the medium stuff, and big turns for those mellow greens.

Then within that, every edge change, what technique do you need to most of the time when I'm riding around casually, I'm doing an up-on-weighted movement.

Super easy to get it right, and it works really, really well.

It puts you in a strong position where you need it, which is when the board turns past the full line.

As I said, just dead easy to get right.

Into that, you can bring in some torsional twist.

Say I want to make my turns a little bit more skidded, a little bit smaller.

I'll use my knees independently as levers a little bit more on the way down.

That's going to bring the board around in a tighter arc.