180s and 360s, snowHeads ski forum (2024)

Thanks for the reply!

Tip, turn with your head, not your arms. And don't lean back as you take off.

I'm hoping to move towards doing more switch and trying 180s next season and was planning to start by taking off backwards...although I may change my mind when I first try it. I assume that a 360 is more difficult simply because you need the extra hang time so have to start out on a bigger jump..but at least the landing should be easier.

You need to rotate slightly more but you don't need to ski it out and landing backwards while moving takes a little practice and more balance so it evens it out, If you are able to try them on a slope somewhere just now then go for it, i just assumed you wont be skiing till winter and if you have your own kit and outside space there's no point waiting for the snow you will be much more comfortable when it does arrive if you get the jump and rotation sorted now.

One thing that will really help is making sure you "pop" before you initiate your rotation.
This will make sure you stay on the right axis and land balanced.

One thing I find helps when spinning off jumps is the UP - CHUCK - LOOK formula.

UP (pop like you would on a trampoline just before the lip of the jump)
CHUCK ( Use your arms to initiate the rotation)
LOOK (Where you look will help bring the rotation round - keep your eye line horizontal rather than looking into the sky and landing on your back)

A 360 is the same process just needs more commitment and a faster rotation.

Land - and wait for the girls queuing to buy you drink at the bar

Good tips for my lad on this thread...!

OK, I tried them when I was in my 30's (I was always mentally "immature", so I felt like a 20 something at the time). The doing part was fun. And I handled bad landing reasonably well too. But once in a while, I'd had a landing that was hard on my knees. After a few of those, I decided the risk was a bit too high and gave up.

If you're fit, you can handle more of those imperfect landing much better. Give it a try and see how you like it.

I reckon you have two choices:
(a) You can do nothing so you don't break anything.
(b) You can do something. In the worst case you may hurt yourself. In the worst case of that, maybe then you will do nothing.

Those are both bad outcomes, but (b) is not significantly worse than (a) and almost always you'll get better results with (b), and have fun doing it.

What I would not do is play 13-year-old kid aerial ballet ("freestyle") inverted over ice. No one's watching, but it looks bad and it's asking for trouble. Find some powder, meet a better class of people, and have it all.

I am 35... I'm not risking it!

I don't understand the physics of that. what do you turn against to rotate if you are already off the ground? I think you have to initiate the spin while your skis are in contact. No? Quite a lot of the youtube vids with tips show the skier moving to a wide stance prior to pop to provide the strongest base to torque against

Caveat - I've never succeeded in get round 360 degrees on skis although I can manage it jumping off a step. I'm asking out of interest not expertise!

There're two components of movement, one to do with the whole body, the other the relative parts of the body (arms, legs, torso). The two movements are pretty independent of each other (even though they happen in the same time).

The "pop" is to project the whole body on a particular trajectory. If you pop forward, your body's center of mass goes forward. If you pop slightly to the side in the hope of leveraging that for a spin, the body's center of mass will go... to the side instead!

While most don't jump on skis, just about everybody jump from the ground as a kid, high jump/long jump, gymnastic, playing basketball, volleyball, even football... You probably remember how you jump?

The part of where the spin comes from while in mid-air is always a bit hard to understand. It's the arms and legs working against each other, all the while the body's center of mass kept on going in a straight line.