How to Use Your Back Foot to Carve on a Snowboard

Learning to snowboard properly can be challenging, but it's also very rewarding. Being able to carve on a snowboard is a key skill for the sport, and can also be applied to many other board sports, such as wakeboarding and surfing. When learning to snowboard, then, a key part of the process is learning to carve with the back foot.

Instructions

    • 1

      Position yourself at the top of a run with your snowboard attached to your feet. If you're still learning to snowboard, it would be best to start on the bunny hill. You should be facing the bottom of the hill with your back edge dug in.

    • 2

      Turn your body so that your left shoulder is facing the bottom of the hill. This assumes that you're using the regular stance. For goofy stance, everything will be reversed.

    • 3

      Lean forward as you're turning your body to get pointed down the hill.

    • 4

      Look to where you want to go and keep the board centered under you with a little more weight on your back foot.

    • 5

      Keep straightening your board out until you're pointed directly down the hill and aren't on either edge.

    • 6

      Begin pushing on your back foot while simultaneously shifting your weight forward slightly and engaging your front edge. This will begin turning you so that you're now on your toe-side edge.

    • 7

      Begin to flatten out the board and coast for a while on your toe-side edge, then engage your heel-side edge and push your back foot forward at the same time to get yourself pointed down the hill once again.

    • 8

      Continue pushing through with your back foot while shifting weight to your front foot until you're back on your heel-side edge.