Now you'll probably notice the effects of these mistakes because they manifest themselves in your riding as a lack of grip or skidding which you'll probably be quite aware of but you might not necessarily be aware of exactly what is causing that to happen and because you're skidding at the end of the turn you might kind of get into this trap where you think it must be something that I'm doing at the end of the turn perhaps you need to work on your posture your position how low you are something like that and those things of course might help but very often there's something else that's going on that's causing you to skid and lose grip at the end of each turn.

I'm going to go through these two mistakes how to spot them as well as how to fix them but before we get started I'm just going to very quickly talk about the importance of the arc of the turn that kind of S shape we want to leave in the snow as we're going down the mountain.

Now it's really important because each time we turn we're essentially changing direction right now I'm going this way across the slope and now I'm going the other way across the slope that's pretty obvious yes and we use that smooth arc of the turn to allow us to carry momentum around the turn and it means if we have that smooth arc at the end of the turn our momentum is carrying back across the slope in the other direction but if you make one of these mistakes I'm about to talk about like I'll just show you if you do something wrong then you kind of send your momentum down the slope in a skid rather than across the slope.

So what are these two mistakes there's one when people transition from the heel to the toe side which is the one I just did actually and there's one when people go from the toes to the heel side so let's start off with that one that I just showed.

I'm on my heel edge coming across the slope and what I need to do to change edge is cross my center of mass therefore pass my hips from this side of the board over onto the other side of the board and by doing that you can roll the board from one edge to another and you can smoothly set it on track at the start for your next turn on its edge but a very common mistake is people struggle to get their hips from behind the board on the heel edge to in front of the board on the toe edge like that and what happens is a counter rotational movement is kind of added in to force the board to get round onto the toe edge so if I just show you right now I'm coming across on my heel edge but if I don't get my hips over the board I can't get the board to change edge unless I kind of flick the back foot out and counter rotate my body like that to quickly whip the board round onto the toes and the problem with that is it means you suddenly lose that smooth arc of the turn and therefore you don't carry your momentum round back across the slope in the other direction rather you send your momentum going down the slope like this which is going to mean you end up skidding.

Now the second mistake is when you go from the toes to the heels and this looks similar but it's usually caused by something else so I will just show you once these guys are out the way.

By the way as always I'm filming this video using the Insta360 X3 camera you can check it out by the link below and if you purchase through that link you will get the discount and some free stuff chucked in and I also get a little bit of commission just so you know but yeah that's how it works.

So this mistake now I've got clear piece toes to the heels again it's all to do about crossing the hips over the board like that that allows you to get that smooth edge change and leave that smooth arc in the turn to carry your momentum going from one direction to the other direction.

Now a very common thing and you might not even spot it from this okay you can see I'm skidding you might have even spotted that I kicked my back leg out and you might even be aware that you're doing that but why did I have to kick my back leg out?

I had to get the board, I had to kick the back leg out onto the heel side because the board wasn't rolling onto the heel side because I wasn't crossing my center of mass my hips over the board instead I kind of pulled them over my back foot and then that kind of bends my back leg makes it like a spring ready to be pushed out but ultimately because my hips didn't pass over the board the board didn't change edge and then I use that kind of kicking movement to get the board from toes to heels this one is so so common I see it all the time you just kind of lean back a little bit and then push that leg out like that let me just show you once more from overhead and it might better illustrate my point so look at my hips my center of mass on the toe side it goes over the back foot and then by pushing that back foot away yes I get the board away from me I now have my center of mass on the inside of the turn but that's happened because I've pushed the leg away which has led to skid which once again means you've carried your momentum from across the slope into going down the slope so all of this sort of comes together to tell you that the most important part of the turn is that very top part of the turn is the edge change and if you get the edge change right if you can roll your board smoothly from one edge to another without any skid then your board will continue following the nose moving in that direction and you send your momentum through the arc of the turn and it means at the end of the turn once you've completed that turn your momentum isn't going down the slope therefore it's much much easier to keep the board gripping and going across the slope so if you find yourself skidding at the end of a turn it might not be because you haven't got perfect posture or something like that it might not be because of something that you're not doing at the very end of the turn it might be because of something you're doing at the very top part of the turn and that's how I kind of when I'm watching people ride I always start there if you're going to sort of triage problems I always look at the edge change first if you get the edge change wrong there's going to be problems throughout the whole turn if you've got the edge change right then yes that's when you start looking at your lateral movements onto the inside of the turn how much you're flexed your posture all those kind of things but the most important part of the turn is the edge change okay there's lots of different ways to make an edge change I've talked about these in lots of different videos you can use your knees independently you can stand up to help cross your center of mass over the board you can even drop down in a down unweighted turn but in all of these things in all of these edge changes your center of mass passes over the board and that is absolutely crucial to having a nice clean good edge change that allows you to get that smooth arc of the turn which allows you to carry your momentum from going one way across the slope to going the other way across the slope which is essential for getting the board gripping in the snow okay real simple one today but guys check your edge change you need a good edge change to have the board gripping across the slope like that thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one I'm off to enjoy myself Oh you're still here center of mass over the board at the edge change carry momentum across the slope Oh