Toeside Carving on a Snowboard: Lock Your Ankle, Don't Kneel Into the Boot Tongue

“Relax your ankle and kneel down onto the boot tongue.” KAKU has heard of instructors teaching the toeside turn this way. KAKU’s reaction: complete bafflement.

This is Part 2 of Carving Lab. Part 1 covered how to tell whether you are carving; this part looks at one common way people ride the toeside: kneeling into the boot tongue.

This post will help if you:

• can already link turns and are starting to practise toeside carving
• get your knee very low on the toeside, but the board doesn’t come up on edge
• find the top of your foot going numb and your arch aching after only a few runs

What follows is KAKU’s teaching judgement, compiled from KAKU’s posts on Threads. It is not quoted from JSBA teaching materials, and it is not an official position.

What’s wrong with kneeling into the tongue

KAKU’s February 2026 post opens with the conclusion: pressing the boot tongue is not the same as edging, let alone an effective way to pressure the toeside edge. KAKU names two problems:

• The force doesn’t get through. Kneeling unloads the force into the boot tongue and the shin; it does not fully reach the edge. The stance looks low, but the edge isn’t biting.
• The top of the foot gets squeezed. Pressing hard on the tongue in a toeside turn cinches the laces tight across the top of the foot. After a few runs the top of the foot goes numb and the arch aches.

In November 2026, KAKU filmed a video putting the two approaches side by side. KAKU’s description: kneeling down and pressing the body onto the tongue, versus actively locking the ankle and working with the shift of the body’s centre of mass, have completely different effects on the board.

The first keeps bending the boot; the second lets the body's movement drive the board onto edge more directly.

KAKU

KAKU adds one more line: a low knee does not mean the edge is up, and it certainly does not mean you are in control of the board.

Key point: what counts is whether the force reaches the edge, not how low the knee goes.

What “locking the ankle” means

KAKU’s definition is short: locking the ankle does not mean making your whole body rigid. It means actively keeping the ankle stable, so that body and board work together.

Another of KAKU’s posts, on edging, fills in the context. Edging is not just “lift your toes, press your toes”; the ankle, knee and hip have to work together, along with the tilt of the whole body, so you can adjust the edge angle and stay balanced at the same time.

So “locking the ankle” is not an isolated movement. The ankle is held steady so that what the rest of your body does can travel straight into the board.

KAKU’s posts do not say how much force the ankle should use or at what angle. Those numbers have no source, and this post does not supply them. The video includes a demonstration; the most reliable check is to have an instructor watch your toeside turns on the snow.

Key point: locking the ankle means actively keeping it stable so the whole body’s movement reaches the board. It does not mean going rigid.

Symptom, cause, fix, self-check

Symptom	KAKU’s explanation	Fix	Self-check
Knee very low, board doesn’t come up on edge	The force goes into the tongue and shin, not to the edge	Don’t look for the feeling of edging by pushing your knee lower	On video: when your knee drops, does the edge come up with it?
Top of the foot numb, arch aching after a few runs	Pressing hard on the tongue cinches the laces across the top of the foot	First stop and check how you are pressing; if the discomfort persists, rest	On this run, did the numbness or ache appear while you were pressing the tongue?
Board skids sideways, tail swings out	Edging is not under control; simply making the movement bigger and pressing harder won’t necessarily help	Go back and check the most basic edging	In this turn, can you say where the edge came up?

30-second self-check (after a run, think it over while standing):

1. On the toeside this run, was I “kneeling down”, or keeping my ankle stable?
2. Once my knee went down, did the edge really bite, or did my stance just look low?
3. Did the top of my foot go numb? During which movement did it start?

Our editors put this self-check together from KAKU’s posts. It is for noticing what you are doing; it cannot replace an instructor watching you on the snow.

If you were taught to “kneel”

In another post, KAKU writes that, in KAKU’s teaching experience, eight out of ten students who come to learn carving still believe that toeside edging means kneeling down hard and pressing the boot tongue. That is KAKU’s personal teaching experience, not a statistic.

KAKU’s advice: when an instructor gives you a cue, ask one more question — “What is this cue training? When is it not appropriate?” Instructors, for their part, should explain clearly the conditions, costs and limits of a movement.

KAKU is not against every cue. When the phrase “fall forward” came up, KAKU replied that it probably describes the weight shift in a crossover, and that for students just moving up to carving it is a good cue. The problem is treating the cue as the technique itself.

Who this post is not for

• Riders who can’t yet link turns consistently: get your edge changes solid first; you can read the post on the fake weight shift. Toeside carving is still too early for you.
• Readers looking for “how much force, how many degrees” at the ankle: KAKU gives no numbers, and this post does not invent them.
• Riders who get stuck on the heelside: the heelside’s key point lies elsewhere; see the next part: where to look in a heelside carve.

SnowWind’s Snowboard Progression Lesson requires that you can already link turns consistently; content and prices are on the courses page. For how to judge whether you are carving, go back to Part 1. KAKU’s qualifications are on the principal’s profile.

This post is compiled from KAKU's Threads posts of February, October and November 2026. The November comparison video is not embedded here; the video's movements are described only in the post's own words, and we have added no explanation on KAKU's behalf beyond what the posts say.