Wintersports
Snowboarding
How To: Understanding Slopestyle Tricks
Slopestyle is an art, and naming tricks is a science. Here’s a quick lesson so you can keep up.
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Mark McMorris
© Jason Horton
With the Burton U.S. Open knocking on the door, we're preparing to see a whole lot of intense action go down, along with plenty of jargon from the webcast hosts that, to the new snowboard fan, may sound like gibberish. To be fair, it often sounds like that to everyone else, too, but there is method behind the madness of trick descriptions.
Every trick description is broken down into three main parts: 1) the rider's riding and rotation direction, 2) the type of grab or tweak performed and 3) the number of rotations completed, and on which axis (horizontal, vertical or both).
To make things a little easier, sometimes a trick has its own unique name, usually coined by its inventor. For example, an inverted backside 540 with a Mute grab performed in the pipe is simply called a McTwist, after its inventor Mike McGill.
While we really don't have time to explain all the mechanics of trick calling here, we're going to get the ball rolling with a few moves you're likely to see done this week, starting with four major Slopestyle moves.
Jamie Anderson | Gap to Frontside Boardslide
Jamie Anderson, Gap to Frontside Boardslide
© Burton
The frontside boardslide is a truly classic style trick, and the judges will be rewarding Jamie Anderson here for a) positioning the board at exactly 90° to the rail, b) sliding smoothly along a good portion of the rail's length and c) riding off the end of the rail clean. In this case, Anderson earns extra difficulty points for the 'gap'; jumping a long way from the takeoff to the rail.
Silje Norendal | Backside Blunt 270
Silje Norendal, backside blunt 270
© Burton
The Blunt is another trick that has its origins in skateboarding, where the skater's back truck goes over the obstacle and grinds on the tail and wheels. Snowboards don't have trucks or wheels, but they use the name anyway for this move. The rider slides down the rail with their weight over the back foot, then rotates 270° as they dismount, returning to the normal riding position, and riding away regular. Silje Norendal has this nifty little trick wired — watch out for it in Vail.
Ståle Sandbech | Cab 1260 Stalefish (flatspin)
Ståle Sandbech, Cab 1260 Stalefish
© Burton
OK, this is a complicated one. Normally a trick is described based on spin direction (frontside or backside), and whether the rider hits the take-off riding normally (regular) or backwards (switch). However, there is one exception — if a rider hits the jump switch and rotates frontside, it's not called 'switch frontside' but 'Cab'. So, in this case, Ståle Sandbech, who is Goofy (right foot forward), is riding into the jump switch and rotating frontside, so he's doing a Cab rotation. He's grabbing his board Stalefish and rotating a full three-and-a-half times, so it's a Cab 1260 Stalefish. Meanwhile, as his head never rotates below his board and he extends (tweaks) one leg out, judges will take note that it's a) a flat spin, and b) really, really stylish.
Mark McMorris | Backside 1440 Triple Cork (Mute)
'Triple Cork' is a term you'll be hearing a lot: it represents the current cutting edge of the sport. A 'cork' (short for corkscrew) describes the body's movement as it simultaneously rotates along the horizontal (spin) and vertical (flip) axes. In this case, Mark McMorris isriding in and out regular and rotating backside, executing four full rotations, including three flips on the vertical axis. The grab is Mute (front hand grabs toeside edge), which is the default grab for this trick, as it’s the natural place to grab your board. It's a mind-meltingly difficult trick, and Mark owns it — he was the first rider to ever stomp it in competition, back at the 2012 X Games.
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