Coaching For Success

A Good Framework for Freestyle Progressions "A Good Framework for Freestyle Progressions"

By Chris Hargrave

What’s in your toolbox? Think of the many ways
you can analyze your students and deliver accurate information to them. When it comes to teaching freestyle, for most there seems to exist a gray area. There are some simple tactics you can use to get your students through the beginning to advanced phases of freestyle riding with less guessing and confusion. This area of coaching is still relatively young, presenting an opportunity for us to be creative and in many cases write the book for ourselves. The best rule to remember that will keep your students safe when creating and working through your coaching progressions is smaller steps equal more success.

When your student comes to you and says “Hey coach, teach me the sick gnarr gnarr jibby freestyle steeze”, you’ve got to figure out what you’re dealing with. Is it the kid who’s been watching pro-footy and playing too much play station or is it the adult that knows their limitations too well? In any case your goal is always safety and success. To be successful you have  to learn their goals, abilities, and limits. Then, build a progression that may require more than the one-hour lesson they have purchased. However, in that hour you can set them up with tools that will allow for progress beyond the lesson.

Once I get to know my students and have determined both my goals and their goals for their hour session, the real challenge begins. What is the most important, safe, and valuable plan of attack to help them achieve their goals? Believe it or not this may not mean heading directly for the park or pipe. For example, pipe riding requires stance alignment, carving, speed control, pressure control, rotary control-pretty much everything we do in snowboarding. Each one of these skill groups can be learned somewhere other than the half pipe.

The question you have to answer is, do you understand what it really takes to help your students learn to be successful on the many different features in the terrain park?” You have to understand the fundamental skills that each terrain feature and maneuver require. That is to say, if your student wants to learn how to clear a tabletop jump they need a few skills before they hit it. Like the ability to ride their board at speed in a straight line on an edge with a stance that allows them to manipulate their board and control pressure as it travels up the ramp and off the lip of the jump so that they can fly through the air in a stable position and land with the board flat, activating their legs to absorb the impact (don’t forget to breathe). That’s a mouthful and expecting them to remember all of that on their first attempt is ridiculous. Break it down and train them to really own those skills one small step at a time. This means they can work on a good stance that is aligned, centered, and flexed. They can work on speed control and judgment. They need to build edging skills so they are able to maintain a low edge angle on the ramp while still holding a clean carve. They need to work on the ability to manage their muscles and joints so they might properly time the flexion/extension movements to absorb and apply pressure to the ramp, lip, and landing. Seems like a lot to think about and it is if your students don’t have a chance to build these fundamentals before they get to the terrain feature of their choice. What you’ll find is that all freestyle maneuvers require a similar fundamental skill set and the ability to push those skills to the limits.

In the freestyle lesson examine your student’s overall stance both static and while riding. The stance issues will show the base problems and give you several things to work on with them both in and out of the park. For example, if they have a tendency to stand over their back foot when they ride then they will do so off every feature in the park. When you establish a good understanding of what the student needs to have before you get to the park, then you will be able to remind your student of what they need when they are having trouble in the park. If rails are the goal and their stance is countered when they ride straight, then their board would have a tendency to pivot and slip off the rail. They’ll need to spend time developing an aligned, centered, flexible stance to have success in the rail park. If their stance is funky, then we work it out away from the rails first. We’ll play around with ideas that will help them understand how their hips and joints affect the board when it comes into contact with steel; or how flexion/extension movements manage a soft approach to the rail and maintain board contact with the rail. Be creative. There are many drills and activities you can choose that will yield success for you and your students. Ideas for different drills will come more easily if you break down the goal into many tiny steps. If you coach them to ride with cat-like skills on the flats you can bet that they will carry those skills with them everywhere they ride.

Video analysis provides an excellent way to help clarify your students understanding of the mechanics that will help them achieve their goals. Use any video footage you can find, put it in slow motion and point out some of your core fundamental ideas in freestyle. Show them how the pros are using the same foundation skills that you will teach them and how those skills are pivotal to their success. When you have the opportunity on the snow to refer back to the images that you watched, there will be a stronger connection for the student. Whenever possible, video your students and show them the gaps between what they think they look like and what they are actually doing. The visual representations can be the most effective way to help them understand how important it is to have solid foundations. They might be able to clear a table or spin a 360 but do they look stable and strong when they do it?

You can keep your students safe by teaching outside the park, but they need experience in the park to apply what you’re teaching. Before you use any feature in the park with your students you have to remove the intimidation factor. Explain to your students how they can manage the terrain park successfully and safely. They need to have knowledge of etiquette and flow. They need to understand the intended use for each feature enabling them to visualize how a rider moves through the park. Blind spots exist in almost every portion of a terrain park and are some of the greatest threats to the safety of our students. Make them aware. Use the mistakes of other riders in the park to illustrate how you want your students to behave. Start with the simpler features and skills and work your way up step by small step. When you take your students to the top of the half pipe spend some time discussing how the riders are interacting and show them how to get in on the action. Remember, you are their personal guide and should show that you know how to relate. Make certain that you are walking the walk every time you enter the park or pipe.

When you head to the desired terrain feature don’t forget about safety and etiquette. Even though it is a good idea to teach freestyle fundamentals outside the park in the beginning, there is no substitute for practice on the desired feature. Make sure that the feature is appropriate for your students needs. If you’re teaching a newer rider how to jump tables, find a table that allows you to hip to the side. If your area has a hip you’re gold. If you’re teaching a more advanced rider how to spin off a jump, try picking the jump that they are most confident on rather than the biggest jump in the park. This way your student still gets to stare down the table top jump and ramp, but there is far less pressure to clear the deck. Be creative with the ways you use each feature. Sometimes the obvious choice in terrain is not the best one.

When the time comes to hit that table or hip, your students need to visualize and reinforce all the fundamentals that they have learned. Have them think carefully about what their terrain choice will demand of them. Teach them to trust their foundations and flow to the feature with confidence in their skills. Suffice it to say that once the rider’s in motion too many thoughts will hinder their performance. The best golfers in the world think of nothing once they have addressed the golf ball.  Static drills are an excellent tool for reinforcing the way things should look and feel. Have your students practice their ollie or approach stance before they roll at the jump. When your student gets to the bottom of the half pipe and takes their board off you have a perfect opportunity to show them the timing of flexion/extension movements in the pipe. Get them in their stance and talk them through the process of absorbing and pumping the transitions. Be creative. The best way to teach difficult skills many times can be to reduce the number of things done at once. Eliminate the slide factor. The best sign of mastery is the ability to act without thinking. Plan the trick and go. Don’t spend time thinking about the possibilities while you’re on your way to the feature.

When writing your personal coaching manual keep a couple of things in mind. You won’t make any mistakes if you don’t try. If you build small steps in your progressions then mistakes will generally be smaller. Mistakes that don’t hurt you will help you improve as a coach and rider. Creativity is the key if you want to expand your understanding to help your students and our sport continue to grow. It is our responsibility to teach our students the hows of freestyle because we are the professional educators of our sport. If our students look to us for coaching and we don’t meet their expectations, who will? Take this opportunity to grab freestyle coaching and riding by the reins and make it your own. Saddle only what you feel you can at first and try to implement it into all of your lessons. That may mean teaching your beginner students how to ollie or challenging yourself to progress on the rails. I like to believe that freestyle snowboarding is a thing born in youth. For those who are not so youthful, freestyle can make you young.