How Do You Get Over Heelside Fear on a Snowboard? Split the Fear in Two

KAKU says snow sports go against human instinct: stand high on a slope, slide down with speed, and your body is bound to be afraid. If you freeze every time you get onto your heel edge, don’t count it as a personal flaw just yet.

This is Part 4 of Snowboarding: Your First Week. This post splits “fear” into two kinds and gives one fix for each.

This post is for you if you:

• freeze on your heel edge and don’t dare put pressure on it
• keep wanting to sit back on your heelside, or are afraid of falling backward
• have had a lesson, were told by the instructor to “relax”, and can’t

The views below come from posts by KAKU, 西西 and SnowWind instructors. They are teaching experience: not medical advice, and not text from JSBA teaching materials.

Fear is normal: KAKU on the falling sensation in an edge change

Writing about why some people still can’t learn even with an instructor, KAKU lists mental resilience as one of four reasons. KAKU’s explanation: snow sports go against human instinct, and standing high on a slope, sliding down with speed, the body is bound to feel fear. Many beginners get a “falling” sensation during the edge change, because their weight moves forward; once they are scared, their movement falls apart.

KAKU names courage as the first step in learning to ride. That doesn’t mean gritting your teeth through it. Each of the two fears below has its own fix.

That passage of KAKU’s is about the edge change as a whole, not heelside alone. (Heelside is the edge of the board on your heel side.) Splitting the fear into “not daring to look back at where you are going” and “fear of falling backward” is our editors’ arrangement, drawn from the two sources below; it is not something KAKU or SnowWind instructors said.

Key point: fear is a normal reaction. First work out which of the two you are afraid of.

Technique fear: not daring to look back

KAKU has a line for riders practising heelside carving: what is really holding you back may be that you don’t dare look back at all. In the original, this is about where to look when carving, not about teaching beginners. Applying it to a beginner’s heelside is our editors’ inference.

KAKU’s sequence: just before the heelside turn begins, turn your head to look behind you, toward where the turn is about to go, and keep looking until the turn is finished. Only where your eyes go will your shoulders, torso and weight dare to follow.

How a beginner can use this: on a gentle slope you can control, practise one thing only, turning your head, and don’t rush to pressure the board. Turning to look behind you assumes there is no one ahead of you and your speed is under control; whenever you can’t see ahead, stop first. This drill is our editors’ arrangement, not KAKU’s beginner lesson plan.

A 1998 study is worth knowing about. On a ski simulator, Wulf and colleagues asked one group to focus on the wheels of the platform under their feet (something outside the body) and another group to focus on their own feet; the first group learned better. That result comes from a simulator, not from testing on snow. Carried over to your heelside, it only suggests that “watching where the board is going” is more worth trying than “staring at your own body”.

西西 has described a movement that tends to put your weight too far back: fold at the hips straight forward, like a bow, and your weight shifts back and the turn comes late; fold diagonally forward, and your weight settles naturally over the middle-to-front of the board. 西西 also says not to bend at the waist or hunch your back. That is 西西 describing carving, not a beginner lesson plan. It is here to make one point only: bowing forward at the waist is not the same as putting your weight in the right place.

Change one thing at a time.

Key point: for the technique fear, start by turning your head to look where the turn is going. Practise one thing at a time.

Falling fear: falling backward

SnowWind instructors’ cue for beginners: when many people fall backward, their head tips back too, and the back of the head can easily hit the snow. When you fall backward, don’t move your head back. Instead, tuck your chin, imagine your eyes looking at your navel, and round your back so your body has a slight curve.

The cue and the on-the-spot drills are in How to fall safely on a snowboard; this post doesn’t repeat them. Remember: it is a practice cue, not a guarantee against injury.

Key point: if you are afraid of falling backward, practise falling first: tuck your chin, look at your navel, round your back.

After a fall, and the root fix

SnowWind has an unpublished document, “SnowWind’s Teaching Method”, that records teaching methods discussed at SnowWind instructor meetings. One part covers the moment of a fall and of fear: the safety movements must always be explained clearly; emotionally, the student’s fear or pain is not judged, and the student decides whether to try again or ease off for a while. The document stresses that the decision to try again must be the student’s own.

So after a fall you don’t need to get straight back up to prove anything. Pause, check that your body is fine, then decide. This reminder is written by our editors from the principles in that document; it is not instructors’ standard procedure.

As for the root fix, KAKU and 西西 each put it their own way. What they share: go back to a level you can control.

KAKU’s advice for people who ride only 7 days a year: first fix the thing you keep getting stuck on. Can you control your speed? Does the turn go where you intend? Each time you practise, know what you are changing; there is no need to change a pile of things at once. (The “7 days” is KAKU’s rhetorical framing, not a statistic.)

Talking about students who are afraid of falling, 西西 says this is not a technique problem, and no amount of biomechanics will help. 西西 has had students like this. The most effective approach is not reassurance; it is lowering the difficulty until the student finds it boring, so they remember that their body can cope, and then adding difficulty a little at a time.

On KAKU’s beginner route, once you have taken the lift up to a green run, the first section is heelside: standing up, braking to a stop, side-slipping, falling leaf. Toeside comes after. For the stages and where people get stuck, see How long does it take to learn to snowboard?

Who this post is not for

• Riders who can already link turns consistently and are working on heelside carving: for the details of gaze and hips, see Where to look in a heelside carve.
• Anyone who wants to know how many lessons it takes to stop being afraid: no one can give you that number, and this post doesn’t either.

If you want an instructor to watch your heelside on the snow, see the courses page. The previous post: Stuck halfway through a turn? Check for a fake weight shift first.

This post is compiled from posts by KAKU and SnowWind's official Threads account, and from 西西's Threads posts. It also draws on two unpublished drafts, 西西's "The Mountain Path of Eccentric Contraction" and SnowWind's "SnowWind's Teaching Method", both cited with 西西's permission; each is a description of teaching practice and has not yet been published. The research section cites only conclusions stated in the paper's abstract.