Have you ever wondered why snowboarding is so much cooler when compared to its skiing counterpart? In case you don’t know, it is because you can actually shred with snowboarding. What this means, is that you can literally ride your board in both directions, meaning that you are also able to press in both directions as well. What this does is to give you a whole lot more creativity when you are out on the slopes.
No matter if it is blunts, presses, or butters, you pretty much have an unlimited number of different ways that you are able to use your board in order to surf around the mountain you are on. In this article you will learn exactly how you can improve your jib game. Yes, this means that you are about to learn how you can bring your rails and boxes to a whole new level. In order to do this, you must master the tail and nose press.
What is a Tail Press and a Nose Press?
The tail and nose press move are what you may have seen some more experienced snowboarders doing on a rail that may be longer than normal. It works great if you are unsure about what is going to happen next.
What makes the tail press cool, is the fact that it gets you setup to handle just about any situation that may be in front of you. It allows you to absorb anything that comes your way on your tail, meaning that if you fall off your rail or jib, you are already in the position that allows you to simply ride away.
As for the nose press, it is virtually the same exact thing as the tail press, just switched around. It is going to be much harder and have some much higher consequences, but at the very same time, it is pretty easy to master.
How to Perform a Tail Press While Snowboarding
In order to successfully perform a tail press, the first thing you must do is to find a surface that is flat. Strap that flat surface to your snowboard and then shift all of your weigh to the backside of your board. This can be done literally anywhere, some of those places including your living room or even the bottom of the mountain you are planning on running.
When you are shifting the weight of your hips to over your tail, you will notice that your nose will lift off of the ground a little bit. If it does not come off the ground a little, try to bend your back leg while straightening your front leg, standing up straight and shifting even more of your body weight over the tail. If you need to, you can even try to reach your back hand in the direction of your board’s tail as well.
Make sure that you are keeping your shoulders in line with the rest of your snowboard and your posture straight. Make sure that you are not bending at your waist at all. If you are doing this correctly, your board will be lifted a couple of inches, which is all you will need in order to tail press successfully. On a sidenote, keep in mind that you are just starting to learn this move and you don’t have to be the best in the world at it right off the bat.
Once you are comfortable with this position, try practicing a few times and you will soon find out how much you should be leaning in order to get your board off of the ground. You can even try to bounce up and down on your flex in order to get an idea of where you should be able to find stability and support. Keep in mind that you may need to find your balancing point, but you will eventually be able to start jumping directly onto this balance point.
Ideally you will be using a softer board when you go through these movements, but any board should work. Just know that it will be a little easier for you to get the motions down when you are using a softer board.
As soon as you are comfortable with the movement, take your board to a mellow slope and continue to practice the movements. Build up to trying it on a rail or box that allows you to ride onto it. Gradually start to increase the difficulty by testing your new skills out on harder rails and boxes.
Learning the Nose Press
The nose press is going to be much more difficult than the tail press to master, but you should know that it is going to be the very same process. In fact, the nose press is essentially going to be the very same exact move as the tail press, but all of your momentum and body weight will be shifting towards the front of your board instead of to the back of it. Just keep in mind that while these two moves are pretty similar, the nose press is much harder to balance on and will greatly improve your chances of falling.
Some of the main things that you can expect to go wrong when first learning how to nose press include:
- You will fall over the nose. You will need to learn how to find your perfect balance point without actually leaning too far over.
- You do a noseslide or crooked grind, not a nose press. Try to keep your shoulders directly aligned over your snowboard to help prevent your body from turning to the side.
- You don’t move your hips over the part of your snowboard that you are trying to press.
The tail press and nose press are some really great moves that you can easily learn how to do while snowboarding. Just make sure that you follow the outline that has been laid out above and you should have no problem mastering these two incredible boarding moves.
