Snowboard
GrabGuide Guide
Welcome to the Australian Snowboarder official guide to grabbing your snowboard. It is often said that variety is the spice of life and nowhere is this phrase more prevalent than on the snowfields. Progressing and mastering new tricks is an essential key to sustaining the maximum enjoyment possible from your snowboarding. Many of us become creatures of habit and find ourselves performing the same routine grab every time we defy the laws of gravity. With the help of photographer Dan Himbrechts and young riprip per Nate Johnstone, the team here at Snowboarder put together this guide to help solve the problem of repetitive snowboarding. Memorise these next couple of pages and keep the images fresh in your mind for the next time you’re on the slopes. DanHimbrecHts.com
1. indy > This trick is done with your back hand between your bindings on your toe edge. By straightening out your front leg, one can bone out the nose of their board for extra style points. As it’s perhaps the easiest and most natural place to grab your board opinions seem to vary on the origins of this grab. Legendary punk ass and pool skater Duane Peters is credited with doing the first frontside airs out of pools. Snowboarding purists will correct you on the proper use of the term "indy" when it comes to riding halfpipe. On the frontside wall the grab is called a frontside air, but on the backside wall of the pipe it’s an indy. Got it?
2. Mute > Grabbing the board’s toe edge between the bindings with the front hand is a "mute" grab. Legend has it a deaf skater named Chris Weddle was one of the first skaters to execute this trick at The Ranch Pro/Am contest in 1981. The trick was labelled "mute" due to Chris’ speech difficulties and deafness.
3. Melon > A shortened abbreviation of the term "melancholy", which involves grabbing the heel edge with the front hand behind the front foot and boning out the front leg. The name originates from the combination of the skateboarding tricks a sad air and an ollie, giving you the name melancholy. Melon grabs are quite popular with big frontside spins.
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5. noSe Grab
Quite simple to execute with the front hand grabbing the nose of the board. Pushing down the tail with your back leg usually makes this trick a hell of a lot easier. Such a fun grab often used for comedy purposes as a straight air, also used to style out a spin.
4. tail Grab ≥ Often the grab of choice when dropping cliffs and rocks by simply using your trailing hand to grab the tail. Poke out the nose by straightening the front leg and you’ll find it easier to reach the tail.
< 6. StalefiSh In 1985, Tony Hawk while on a skate summer camp in Stockholm, Sweden, started trying a new grab: backhand holding the heel edge with the arm around the back leg. Tony had been keeping a journal of his stay at the summer camp and made several references to the horrible meals they were fed as "stale fish". A fellow camper read Tony’s journal and asked if the term "stalefish" was what Tony’s new grab was called, and having not decided on a name for his grab, Hawk replied yes.
Snowboard
GrabGuide
Perhaps the most stylish and often photographed grab in snowboarding is the method. Methods are performed by grabbing the heel edge with your front hand, pulling the board up towards your body while arching your back. The term "method" was invented by legendary vert skater Neil Blender, who described this grab as a method for achieving higher airs. Check out any footage of Terje Haakonsen’s riding to see the perfect execution of this trick in snowboarding. After winning the Red Bull Big Air event at Falls Creek one year, Czech rider Martin Cernik declared “That if you cannot make the method you have no business snowboarding”. Martin was pretty spot on there.
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8. lien
7. Method >
Grabbing the heel edge with your front hand (just like a melon) while airing out of the frontside wall in a pipe. Lien airs differ to melons in that the rider leans right back. Invented by Neil Blender who, when asked how he did them, replied that “you have to lean into it”. As it was invented by Blender, and sounds the same as lean, it is now spelt lien, which is "Neil" backwards.
≤ 9. Japan Basically a mute grab, but with your knees tucked together, while dropping your front knee down towards the board. Can be performed both equally as stylish as a straight air on a transition or in a rotation off a jump. For perfect execution of a Japan air check out some vert skating footage of Christian Hosoi.
< 10. taipan Perhaps one of the most technical grabs to master as your front hand goes behind your front leg, like going for a melon, but you continue and grab your toe edge between your legs. People with elongated arms and rubber spines tend to find this trick a breeze.
11. truck driver > A combination of grabbing both "indy" and "melon" with the front hand on the heel edge between the bindings, and the back hand on the toe edge between the bindings. The grab is usually performed mid rotation and when viewed from below it looks as if your holding the board like a steering wheel, thus its name "truck driver".
12. crail rail > A retro grab that has come back into fashion of late. Your back hand goes in front of your front binding on your toe edge while poking out the back leg.
13. rocket â&#x2030;Ľ Another old school vert skating move perfected by Christian Hosoi and poularised in snowboarding by the late, great Craig Kelly. Both hands grab the nose of the board and pull it towards the body. Can also be preformed cross-handed as pictured.
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< 1. tindy Perhaps the most commonly committed offence is the tindy. The back hand is placed in between a tail grab and an indy, just behind your back binding on your toe edge. A sure-fire sign of a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s laziness is their inability to reach that little bit further back to their tail or forward to their bindings. This is the fat personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grab who simply grabs their board where their hand falls. Not cool at all.
The following four grabs are the most commonly executed crimes against humanity performed by beginner snowboarders. These grabs are never really acceptable behaviour and the guilty party should face a financial penalty for executing such lewd acts. If you witness such a crime please contact your nearest ski patroller and report the assault.
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2. SuitcaSe Method/backScratcher
Suitcase methods are what punters the world over do when getting radical off 50cm jumps. Knees bent, the board scratching your back, or more commonly your ass, and the closest to a grab is usually just a slap on the base of the board. This is the kind of trick one would picture rollerbladers celebrating.
< 3. tailfiSh The evil stepchild brother of the tindy, but grabbed on the other side. The back hand grabs just behind your back binding on your heel edge halfway between a tail grab and a stalefish. This grab is commonly sighted in the beginner half-pipes of resorts the world over, usually by people wearing mitts too. Like the tindy the cause of the problem can often be attributed to laziness, but poor education also plays a hand too.
4. double-handed Stiffy > Lord knows how anyone could think this trick looks cool. It almost looks as if you are backing one out mid flight. Again this criminal behaviour is commonly sighted in the halfpipe. No trick is really ever going to look cool with both of your legs straightened out like that, not to mention how far off balance the body position tends to throw you. You probably deserve to break your tailbone performing this grab.