One week later

 This past weekend

 Thanks!

Hi @spatxik, welcome to the forum and thanks for posting.

Looks like you're making good progress, the later videos you posted show good improvement over the first ones.

You're really very lucky, with size 25 boots you can carve standard width boards that are out of the range for most of us.

As for gear, I'm not familiar with the boards you mentioned specifically, but at 200lbs all of them are quite small for you.  The Heavy Tools is the closest to your range with 1300ee, and because it's an older model from the 90s it may also be stiff enough for your weight (boards were generally stiffer 30 years ago than they are today).  Normally I don't recommend the SG Soul because it's so narrow but it's probably a great fit for you.  Buy it if you can!  It'll be a huge upgrade over that ancient Heavy Tools Bulldog.

For technique, it seems as though you're on it so just keep practicing.  One tip that might help you is to focus on finishing your turns and slowing down.  You tend to exit the turn just before you come all the way perpendicular to the fall line.  I'd like to see you keep turning a few more degrees on each turn and feel how you can slow down and gain more control over your turns with a proper finish.  To do this you may have to initiate your turns closer to the sides of the run to leave enough space.

Other than that, keep the focus on your hips and generate the rotation from there, particularly on heelside.  If you're stiff (inflexible) or have trouble bringing the hips far enough around, consider a set of Trenched Canted Risers from the store above, these are designed to help carvers achieve a more ergonomic, comfortable and aggressive position on their board.  (The pre-order deal is expiring in about a week as our 2026 stock is being manufactured right now locally in British Columbia, Canada.)

@wild-cherry Thank you very very much!

"One tip that might help you is to focus on finishing your turns and slowing down.  You tend to exit the turn just before you come all the way perpendicular to the fall line.  I'd like to see you keep turning a few more degrees on each turn and feel how you can slow down and gain more control over your turns with a proper finish.  To do this you may have to initiate your turns closer to the sides of the run to leave enough space."

I´ll try, i´m worried with the wide of the piste, i still do not control how much i can make the turn closer... sometimes I hit the fence or I pass through the ski lift path... 🙂

Just for my knowledge, do you think a JJA C4 162 med stiff, for example, could fit my specs? Do you think i could use it as daily driver board in the Alps (for example). Maybe too wide or too much board for me?

I´ll take a look on the risers option.

Thank you!

Posted by: @spatxik

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i'm worried with the wide of the piste, i still do not control how much i can make the turn closer... sometimes I hit the fence or I pass through the ski lift path...

To tighten up your turn radius try a bit of retraction at initiation.  In the nine secrets video I recommended that your knees be at maximum extension at the moment of initiation (0 degrees) and then progressively bending towards a maximally compressed position at the apex (90 degrees into the turn, board facing directly down the fall line). 

Try this instead: do a quick retraction of the knees right at initiation (0 degrees to about 30 degrees into the turn), and then start the extension earlier, pushing through the apex.  This will slow you down and tighten the turn.  It's closer to the Asian style carve and it works well in tight spaces.  Maybe try to combine this alternative compression/extension timing with more compression in the upper body also by bowing at the hips and bringing your chest closer to your knees.  With these slight adjustments you should be able to finish your turns and avoid the fence and the T-bar too!

Posted by: @spatxik

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Just for my knowledge, do you think a JJA C4 162 med stiff, for example, could fit my specs?

Definitely yes!  This is THE board for intermediate and advanced carvers.  I have a batch coming in a week, send me a PM if you want to pre-order, there are only 12 boards and 750 people on my email list.

Posted by: @spatxik

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Do you think i could use it as daily driver board in the Alps (for example). Maybe too wide or too much board for me?

Daily driver yes, so long as those days are carving days...  The JJA C4 (now the Big Snowboards G4) is a directional carving board, not an all mountain.  It's not recommended for off-piste riding.  It'll float in the powder for sure, but it's not made for quick jump turns in moguls or trees, one of your other boards will be better on powder days.

I started working today on a G4 script for the Big SB website (coming soon).  This is what I've got so far:

Big SB G4:

Our flagship model, the G4 is designed to help aspiring carvers level up and achieve the kind of turns that dreams are made of.  Grippy yet ultra-forgiving, powerful yet nimble, fast yet easy to control; the G4 is meant for high edge angles and high G-force carves.  

Engineered from the ground up with specific turn characteristics in mind, this board is all about the pure freecarving experience.  The G4 was born from the need for a fast board that’s easy to carve and easy on the body, a board that wants to finish the turns to control speed.  The result is incredibly satisfying turns without the locked-in character that can lead to high consequences for small mistakes.  The G4 transitions smoothly from a carve to a skid and then back again without the chatter in between; this is the magic of this model, and this is why it inspires so much confidence.

Directional, cambered and calibrated for the carve, the G4 will not disappoint.  Read the reviews here: https://carving.clunk.tech/community/postid/1275/

Good stuff! Another way to turn in tight spaces is the stivot… a steering pivot.  This isn’t a pure carve, but I think if you do it right it’s fairly advanced.  At the initiation you pivot a bit before setting the edge, carve through the turn, finish with strong edging, then do it all over again.  

It’s more useful on crazy steep slopes and I think it’s worthwhile to learn. I simply can’t pure carve everything like Cherry. 😂 

Hi! I was wondering if someone have some drills or some advice to try to practice making the edge angulation higher in the initiation phase... more than just throught my ass to the floor and see whats happen... :):):)

Do you think this is something I can practice independently, or is it something that comes naturally with continued practice? Do you think I'd need more speed or flatter terrain to gain confidence in how far I could lower my stance? I wear a tailbone protector whenever I practice, but I wouldn't want to hurt myself. Also i dont like the idea to use my right hand on the snow because is an easy way of being hurt in the shoulder...

All advice should be appreciated! Regards!

Posted by: @spatxik

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if someone have some drills or some advice to try to practice making the edge angulation higher in the initiation phase... more than just throught my ass to the floor and see whats happen... :):):)

@spatxik  Your new G4 will help a lot with this!  Your old boards just aren't capable of this kind of angulation with any real speed or steepness.

I'll see if I can get it shipped right away, I was gonna wait for the official announcement and then send out a longer list of shipping addresses but I can see that you're keen!  Jasey is in Chile for another 10 days so no promises, but you'll definitely have it soon!

In terms of drills, the J-Turn is the one that focuses on initiation but there's also a "Four Drills" video that I published on YouTube a year ago that can be helpful.  (Just make sure that when you're doing the Hand-To-Knee drill, that you're not reaching across your body on heelside, but rather rotating from the hips through the shoulders to get your back hand to the front knee.  This is a common misunderstanding of this drill that I intend to correct in a new upcoming video.)

And there is one more new drill coming soon:  it's the "Don't Pee On Your Board" drill, adapted from my friend JG (@johnasmo on YouTube).  Basically, it goes like this: start in a toeside carve and imagine that you're peeing while you're carving.  And then, as you transition to heelside, make the hip motion as if you were flipping your dick over the board in such a way as to minimize the dribble on the board.  This should be a familiar motion to most men, a hands free pee control, a bit of lift and flip.  The actual hip movement through carving transitions is quite similar though perhaps not identical.  This drill is meant to bring the focus to your hips as you transition both directions and feel how you can control the board's trajectory with your hips.

As with all the drills, the idea is to focus on and exaggerate one motion or body position at a time, and try to hold that in mind as we work through other drills until the right amount of each motion in combination with the others becomes natural.  For example, we practice over-rotation so that we learn how our board reacts with this input, and eventually we can dial in the perfect amount of rotation for our bodies, our equipment, our own personal style and the demands of the specific conditions and terrain.

(And more angulation will come when you're riding steeper runs.  If you angulate the board too much on a flat run you'll turn very sharply and come out with no speed for the next turn, kind of like the Vitelli turn and other early Eurocarvers.)

Hi @wild-cherry !!!

Thank you very much for your advice, i´m pretty sure i´ve seen the "dont pee on your board" video 🙂 at least a video you metioned that, and the four drills... I'm just asking to see if I can add other exercises to the days I'm going to train, which are usually 2-4 times a week for two to three hours per day, it is a lot more fun than going to the gym :):):)

I´ve also seen @Joshthesquash17 videos and envy corrodes me from within :):):)

I'll see if I can get it shipped right away, I was gonna wait for the official announcement and then send out a longer list of shipping addresses but I can see that you're keen!  Jasey is in Chile for another 10 days so no promises, but you'll definitely have it soon!

Please, you dont have to worry, i can wait for the standart procedure. I'm really looking forward to trying the board, but I don't intend to change the way you have things planned.

Thanks!

@spatxik The Dolphin Turn is another great drill to work on.  Plenty of good YouTube videos on that one.  Switch riding, nose and tail rolls are worth practicing too if you like the ground trick style or freestyle/park riding.  @thebutterdojo has some excellent tutorials on this type of riding.

Analyzing your own tracks is a good habit to practice too.

Taking the "training" approach to snowboarding will do wonders for your riding versus the "beers on the chairlift" party with friends approach.

Zeb Powell says that the first tricks snowboarders should learn are the nose butter and tail butter:

Posted by: @spatxik

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I was wondering if someone have some drills or some advice to try to practice making the edge angulation higher in the initiation phase... more than just throught my ass to the floor and see whats happen... :):):)

So my 'stivot' recommendation probably isn't what you want.

Before you generate any G-force in the turn, you do need to get your weight up on the nose to get the board bending into the turn.  This is done with smooth motion through the transition... you're moving your weight forward on the board, but sometimes it helps to visualize shoving the board back relative to you.  Once your centre of mass is moved up, "dumping the boots" helps me with that early edge angle.

The dolphin turn seems to be an over-exaggeration of all of these things.

Hi!

Thank you very much @wild-cherry and @board-doctor for your advises!

Actually the "stivot" is other thing that i practice a little bit also 🙂 for sure with a little of skidding... is very useful when being to much close from the fence or the t-bar, usually when my transition has not beeing not good enough 🙂

And yes, i tried to do jump edge excersises as Malcom Moore explain in some of his videos for begginer level, but my knees at my actual weight didnt like too much... and later on, the indoor piste was narrowed, so actually i dont have enough space to practice all the things the best way i should.

At the end of the day if my legs are burning when i finish the sesion i´m happy 🙂 but it´s fun to try things a little bit.

Thank you very much!