I’ve put together a video showing my first usage of a trampoline, to improve my snowboarding.
If the concept of using a trampoline to help your snowboarding is new to you, then here’s the idea. Bouncing around on a trampoline, whilst strapped onto a snowboard, gives you a lot of goes at grabbing your snowboard while in the air; a lot of practice. And that’s a lot of practice where you don’t need to think about the jumping part. Well, that’s the theory anyway…
For myself, I’m most interested in the nose grab, and along with it, the tail grab. I’ve been snowboarding for a while now, and whilst grabbing indy, mute, melon and occasionally stale-fish are within my reach (haha), I’ve always found the nose grab impossible. Literally, I’ve never achieved a nose grab snowboarding. Ever.
Some people seem to find the nose grab easy. I want it. I recently had a technique presented to me in the Snowboard Addiction freestyle tutorials: to first practice boning your back leg down, without attempting the grab. Get comfortable at that and then try for the grab. Being really keen to try this out, I wanted to put the trampoline to the test: use this approach on the trampoline – and then try it on snow.
A few quick points about the video:
- The video starts showing my first bounces. I was unsure how it was going to turn out, would it be useful, would it be hard, would it be safe etc? So I really wanted to show what it was like the first time.
- The video was accidentally filmed without auto-focus, so I’m sorry if it’s blurry at times. I would have done it again, but like I said, I wanted it to be a true reflection of my first go.
- Whilst I do advise using tape on your board edges to protect the trampoline – it’s been a hassle getting the tape off my board. I used cheap tape, which might have contributed to this. A much better alternative is picking up a trampoline snowboard training board. I wish I’d discovered these before applying the tape!
- The video concentrates heavily on my desire to learn nose-grabs. Depending on your current ability, I’d say the trampoline can be useful for all kinds of things. Basic grabs, rotations, trying regular rotation and counter-rotation, shifties, etc.
- Be safe. Start small, be controlled, and, be prepared to get tired, it’s hard work!
As always, feedback and questions are welcome. Enjoy…
2 comments
I am curious on an update on using a tramp to help your snowboarding
Hey, great timing – I actually filmed some trampoline snowboarding this week (including inverts!).
I’ll try and do an update as soon as possible. One of the biggest improvements was picking up a proper training board. The taped snowboard edges situation was driving me nuts!