What to Learn After Linking Turns on a Snowboard? Carving, Ground Tricks and Park Aren't Ranked

This is part 5 of Snowboarding: Your First Week. There is no standard answer to where you go once you can link turns.

This post is for you if:

• you can already link turns and don’t know what to practise next
• you are torn between carving, ground tricks and park
• you feel stuck in place and are improving slowly

What follows is principal KAKU’s view, compiled from KAKU’s Threads posts. It is not quoted from JSBA teaching materials, and it is not an official grading.

The fork after linked turns

In a November 2025 post, KAKU wrote that learning to change edges is only the first step into the world of snow. KAKU’s advice is to max out these basics first:

• Weight control
• Basic riding (long turns, short turns)
• Basic jumps (Pop, Ollie, Nollie)
• Riding switch

Only then look at which style suits you best. KAKU lists four:

Style	How KAKU describes it
Freestyle / park	A high-difficulty sport; risk and challenge come together
Carving / technical riding	Beginner-friendly
Ground tricks	A lower barrier to entry
Big mountain / backcountry	Needs specialist gear and specialist skills

Backcountry deserves a further word. In another thread KAKU is explicit: being good at ground tricks does not mean you can judge backcountry risk. Backcountry also involves terrain, snowpack, navigation and rescue, and riding well is nowhere near enough. Editor’s note: if you want to ride backcountry, take formal training first and go with a qualified guide. The requirements for SnowWind’s Snowboard Tree & Powder Lesson are on the courses page.

Key point: after learning edge changes, max out the basics first, then choose a direction. None of the four styles ranks above the others.

No hierarchy, but an order

KAKU has compared riding with the way scuba diving courses are structured, stating first that this is a personal comparison, not a formal grading. In that comparison, the foundation looks like this: on a run that is open, with snow conditions that match your ability, you can link S turns at a controlled speed, stay balanced, choose a line, slow down and stop. That is enough.

You don't have to touch the snow, and you don't have to carve a thin line on every turn.

KAKU

On top of that shared foundation, each style is a specialty that branches outward, not a rank in a hierarchy. In KAKU’s words: specialties should be a map that spreads outward. Being strong at carving does not mean you must be able to ride park; being good at ground tricks does not mean you can judge backcountry risk.

KAKU has also written about why people start in the first place: many take up the sport to fly through the clouds, to roll like a surfer, to lean into a turn like a motorcyclist — to bring the fun they already love into winter and onto snowy mountains.

So why is carving the first stop for most people? An October 2025 post gives KAKU’s reasons: carving keeps you on the piste, away from jumps and obstacles, and getting started does not take much technique — riding smoothly is enough. KAKU called it the safe first choice for most people.

That is KAKU’s view, with no data behind it, and it is not an official conclusion. It does not conflict with “no hierarchy”: “first choice” is about how easy the starting point is, not a claim that carving is more advanced. That connection is the editors’ reading, not KAKU’s words.

If you want to head towards carving, start with Carving Lab, Part 1 to learn how to tell whether you are carving or skidding. The details of the toeside and heelside edges are in Part 2 and Part 3.

Key point: styles are specialties, not ranks. Carving is a good starting point for most people, not the finish line.

When you’re stuck: a cue is not the technique

Whichever direction you choose, you will get stuck. KAKU’s thinking on getting stuck comes in two parts.

The first is about the cues instructors give. To help students find the feeling quickly, instructors often use “substitute movements”: touching your front knee as a reminder to move your weight forward, putting your hands behind your back to stop you bending at the waist, pushing your belly uphill when side-slipping on the toe edge. In certain situations these may work.

KAKU’s worry is this: were the conditions where they apply, their costs and their limits ever made clear? If the instructor doesn’t make them clear, the student takes the practice cue for the technique itself. The trick worked once, so at a higher level the natural move is to do the same trick harder. KAKU calls this path dependence.

So KAKU’s advice to students is to ask one more question: what is this cue training? When does it not apply?

The second part is KAKU’s own story. The season before last, trying to break through on low-stance carving, KAKU sank almost all of KAKU’s savings into lessons with coaches and advice from top riders: several hundred thousand yen in all. The result, in KAKU’s words: if you can’t get it, you can’t get it. Not because the coaches taught badly, but because the body wasn’t ready yet and the muscles couldn’t yet remember the feeling. In the end the only way left was the dumbest one: more than a hundred hours of practice, pushing the body past its current limit bit by bit.

An instructor is a compass, not a lift. You still have to walk the path yourself.

KAKU

As KAKU puts it, what an instructor can give you is the right direction, methods that work, and a way around the pitfalls others have already fallen into. But an instructor cannot build your muscles, cannot overcome your fear for you, and least of all can “feel” for you the moment the edge bites. Same instructor, same method, ten students: ten different rates of progress.

Key point: a cue is a prompt, not the technique. When you’re stuck, find out what the cue is training, then put in the time.

Who this post is not for

• If you’re still working on your first turn: go back to Snowboarding: Your First Week and see which stage you’re at.
• If you want an answer that says “carving is definitely better than ground tricks”: KAKU’s view is that there isn’t one.

SnowWind’s Snowboard Progression Lesson requires that you can already make stable linked turns; content and prices are on the courses page. KAKU’s qualifications are on the principal’s profile. The next part covers opening the shoulders and counter-rotation.

This post is compiled from KAKU's Threads posts from October 2025 to October 2026. The savings, spending and practice hours are KAKU's own account, with no other source. The earlier post calling carving the safe first choice for most people and the later "no hierarchy" posts are both dated in this post.