How to Frontside 180 on a Snowboard (FS 180)

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How to Frontside 180 on a Snowboard

Introduction

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It’s Christian from Shred School.

I remember that glorious day back in 1997, shredding down the Pennsylvania hill on my Burton Chopper 122, launching off a mogul, spinning frontside 180 and landing switch.

It was my first spin ever, and one of the easiest spins to do on flat ground, moguls or a small jump.

The easiest spin trick on a snowboard – the first spin most people learn.

Today, we’re going to talk about the frontside 180 which could be your first time spinning on a snowboard.

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What is a Snowboard Frontside 180?

The frontside 180 is a 180 degree spin where you take off regular, spin with your front facing down the mountain, and land switch. It’s a 180 to the left for regular riders and to the right for goofy riders.

For those of you that are new, a 180 is a half of 360, or half of a full spin, which means, whichever stance you take off with, will not be the same stance you land with.

Yes, that means landing switch.

Before you learn the frontside 180, make sure to practice your ollies, and riding switch. It doesn’t do anyone any good to learn a 180 if they haven’t practiced riding switch in order to ride away from the trick.

If you’re pretty sketchy riding switch, take a few more switch runs before going for the 180.

Ok, now you’re ready to get started

How to FS 180 on a Snowboard

It helps if we start on an edge. We’re going to Ride across the slope on your heel edge, and swivel around 180, so you’re riding switch on your toe edge.

Practice this a couple of times, and then we’re ready to add a small ollie.

Lean in to your heels, give a small windup with your arms, and use the power of your tail to pop, spin and land on your nose to bring the trick around.

The key here is to spin with your shoulders, and your board will naturally follow. You can start turning your shoulders frontside 180 before you’ve even left the ground, open up your chest to face down the hill, and you can use your nose to pivot around.

You can see this clearly on a skateboard.

If you’re having trouble getting this around, it may help to Pull your front arm behind you.

How to do a FS 180 Jump

Once you’ve got the 180 dialed on flat ground and on the slope, it’s time to take it to a jump.

We’re going to use a light toe to heel approach, coming up the jump on the left side (if we’re regular) on our toes, and switching to our heels as we come up the ramp.

You can also use a heel side side hit as a substitute for a jump here.

We don’t want to lean too far into our heels, because this is only a 180. If we cut too hard, we’ll go off axis, or spin too much. Keep your posture straight, stand up tall, and keep your body weight above your board, with just a slight heel edge.

Keep your weight centered over your back foot, but land nose heavy (that means your switch tail), with a flat base or slightly on your toe edge.

That’s going to make sure we land leaning down the landing, without going over the tip of our board.

Ride out of this trick switch, and hit the next feature switch.

Let me repeat that. Get in the habit of hitting the next feature with the same stance as you land. Nothing says amateur more than someone who reverts as soon as they land, because they can’t ride out switch.

Advanced Snowboarding Frontside Spins

That’s the fs 180. It’s super fun, incredibly easy to do on a small jump or side hit, but quite a bit harder to do over bigger jumps. The challenge is not to spin too much as the jump gets bigger.

You can do fs 180’s out of 50-50s, you can frontside 180 on to a grind.

I like to tailpress 180 out.

Remember, It’s all in the shoulders.

You can do this trick switch, also called a half cab, so that we’re landing regular, although I recommend you start with the regular frontside 180 and learn the half cab next.

You’ll want to master this trick as it’s the exact motion you use to land switch backside 360’s, frontside 540’s, switch backside 720’s and frontside 900’s.

That’s it, the frontside 180. The first spin I learned. A 180 degree spin with your front facing down the mountain. Take off on your heels, give it a little wind up, ollie, and come around to switch. Ride out switch and hit the next feature switch.

Go give the frotnside 180 a shot and let us know how it goes.

That’s all for today.

Peace out shredder