You will fall. Not knowing how to fall can mean spending the day in the ER and missing days of snowboarding fun. You don't want to do anything that will deny you of your snowboarding experience, especially if it can be easily avoided by reading a simple paragraph. So, even though falling down is quite an odd thing to be learning, it makes sense to learn it.



Falling down while riding heel side

When you catch your toe edge, you'll fall forward. When falling forward, your fingers, wrists, and elbows are at risk. The natural inclination is to extend your hands out in front of you to break your fall. Make sure you RESIST this temptation. Doing it can break your fingers, or worse, your wrists. Instead, make fists (to prevent your fingers from breaking), hold your arms in front of your chest (bent, not extended), and fall on your forearms, not your elbows. The surface of your forearms you should fall on is the one that makes contact with the dinner table when you rest your arms comfortably on it.

Falling down while riding toe side

When you catch your heel edge, you'll fall backward. When falling backward, your head and tailbone are at risk. If you feel yourself falling backward, tuck your chin toward your chest. These are good advice for beginners on the bunny hill, but before you hit the slopes, get a helmet. When you are going fast, the chin tuck doesn't afford much protection. Your melon will bounce off the ground anyway. My second time down the slope on a snowboard, I wore just a hat, caught a heel edge and CLEANED my CLOCK. I decided to buy a helmet the next day before heading out. The other thing you need to protect is your tailbone. This is where you women with BIG BOOTIE have the advantage! The bigger the better. Of course we are not all so blessed, so make sure you protect your tailbone. Falling flat on your back is better than falling on your rear while bent over. If you feel yourself falling backward, twist a little while falling so you end up on one butt cheek or the other.

If you spas out every time you fall and can't seem to follow any of my advice while falling, you can buy a butt protector for your tailbone or (cheaper) simply tape a fleece hat to the inside of your pants seat. Tailbone injuries suck. Take it from me. I fractured my tailbone in a bizarre train mishap on the way to Manhattan (don't ask).

There are times you may want to fall down on purpose. This may sound like a stupid thing to do, but if you are on a collision course with a child, tree, rock, or metal post, kissing the snow is far preferable.

Improving

Say you're moving horizontally or diagonally across the slope, and you're having trouble getting the end of your board to point downhill. Regardless of whether you are heel side or toe side, you can get your board to turn more easily by REDUCING the amount of edge-digging under the foot that you want to go downhill. Just remember, reducing edge-dig is not the same thing as reducing total pressure under that foot (your weight should be on both feet, recall?).

Once you are comfortable turning from heel side to pointing your nose downhill to toe side, and once you are comfortable turning from toe side to nose downhill to heel side, you'll be ?linking turns?. Go all the way down the slope alternating heel side and toe side. This will look like a zigzag pattern down the slope.

The thing that most helped me develop control was deciding on a destination point (a nearby person, a tree, a dirty spot of snow, whatever) and making my board go there. Try this both heel side and toe side. It will develop your control and will help you understand how your body movements translate into steering.

Stay heel side, and try riding ?switch? or ?fakie?, which means turning so that you lead with the tail end of the board. Then turn and lead with the nose again, then turn and lead with the tail again, all the while going heel side. Alternate like this between switch and straight. This is called "falling leaf" because it looks similar to a leaf falling off a tree. Now try doing it toe side.