Learning to grab your snowboard while airing off of jumps is one of the first snowboard tricks that beginners to snowboarding should learn. It is relatively easy, simple, and is a good building block for more complex tricks. Learning how to do a board grab on your snowboard equals serious style points too.
Before you start to try and learn snowboard grabs, you should be comfortable getting air off of jumps and landing safely. Once you can do this, you’re ready to start learning. Below are a few tips to help you learn your snowboard grabs quickly and easily.
Snowboard Grabs Explained
Though it is true that you can grab your snowboard nearly anywhere and with either hand (or both), there are a few main grabs that most snowboarders start with. Learning these ones first is easiest plus they will prevent you from looking like a kook.
The grabs that you should learn first include:
How to do an Indy Grab
Grab the toe edge of your board between your feet with your backhand. Requires you to flex your knees.
How to do a Mute Grab
Grab the toe edge of your board between your feet with your front hand. Requires you to flex your knees.
How to do a Tail Grab
Grab the tail of your board with your backhand. Requires you to flex your back knee and straighten your front leg to help you reach the back of your board.
How to do a Nose Grab
Grab the nose of your board with your front hand. Requires you to flex your front knee and straighten your back leg to help you reach the front of your board.
How to do a Stalefish
Grab the heel edge of your board between your feet with your backhand. Requires you to flex your knees and reach around the outside of your back foot.
How to do a Lien Grab Snowboarding
Grab the heel edge of your board between your feet with your front hand. Requires you to flex your knees and reach around the outside of your front foot.
Beginner Snowboard Tricks
The first step to learning snowboard grabs is to practice them without a jump. You might feel corny doing this but it is a great way to train your body to make grabbing movements.
The first way is to strap into your snowboard on a flat area. Simply bend down and try to grab each area of the board. This is an excellent exercise in learning how to bend your knees correctly so that you can reach different areas of the board with ease.
The second way is to strap in and lay down on your back with both of your feet up in the air. You’ll look pretty silly but this is an even better way to get the mechanics of snowboard grabs down pat.
Once you have the movements down, find a safe jump that you feel comfortable on. You should be able to get a decent amount of air off the jump.
Approach the jump like normal. When you leave the lip of the jump, pull your knees in and reach down to do a grab. The key here is not to actually complete the grab (unless you are comfortable with that). Rather, bend forward, get your hand close to grabbing your board, and bring it back. Indy and Mute grabs are generally the easiest snowboarding grabs to start working with.
Build towards actually grabbing your board from here. Tap the edge with your fingers on a few attempts. And then just go for it – grab the board and stick the landing.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Like anything in snowboarding, you can only learn grabs with consistent practice. So grab your board, launch off your favorite jump, and work on a single grab until you have it down. From here you can progress to other grabs (including those not mentioned in this article) and larger jumps.
Snowboard grabs are actually fairly simple. They just take a little confidence, know-how, and practice. Get out there and start learning.
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Grabbing the board in any manner is STUPID. It adds nothing to the performance. would you ever see a skier or skater grabbing their equipment? Just do the tricks and forget grabbing anything.