Getting your technique right is the first step towards more advanced riding. Freestyler riders need to have good edge control in order to carve up the side of an icy halfpipe just as much as racer needs it to grip on a slalom course. Re-learning snowboarding basics is a wise move even if you feel like you are beyond it as the key to good snowboarding and style is to perfect your technique.

During my first snowboarding season, which was in Whistler - Canada , towards the end of the first half of the season I began to feel very competent on my snowboard and thought it might be a good idea to try out achieving a CASI (Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors) Level 1 snowboard instructor certificate. I had no intention of teaching snowboarding but just wanted to give it a shot. Well, to cut a long story short I had never learnt so much on snowboarding before! Because it was a level 1 instructors course it meant going right back to basics. It was like starting all over again and to be honest it was tough! I had to completely scruitinize my technique and have it ripped apart by others. But after the week long instructors course I felt my snowboarding had improved dramatically and I now knew that I still had a long way to go. My point is that no matter how good you think you are always remember the snowboarding basics as these are what everything else is built upon and without properly honing your basic snowboarding skills you will just be limiting your self further on. It may be hard to force yourself to take a step back every now and then but it will pay off.

I will be adding some fantastic ‘Learn to snowboard‘ type tutorials and lessons here which you can use as a beginner to get to grips with the snowboarding basics and as a more advanced rider you can use to hone your technique. Many of these snowboarding guides and techniques will come straight from my CASI Instructors course notes so consider yourselves lucky I’m not charging!