I've been snowboarding for about 4 or 5 years, long-boarding for about the same. I'm pretty decent at riding normal (goofie for me), but it looks like it would be super fun to be able to switch my stance, either mid-way down a hill / mountain or after.
Does anyone have advice on either:
How to ride normal after first learning to ride goofie?
Practice techniques for learning new stances on a board?
Thanks!
I've been riding for 5-6 years now and skating for longer, and I tried the same thing about 2 years into it. I found that the switch took a while to get used to, but once I had the muscle memory I could switch flawlessly. What I did, as silly as it sounds, was look in a mirror while standing on my board and looked at my stance. I analyzed the key points in my stance, such as the angle of my feet and legs etc, and essentially replicated this with the opposite legs. I went from goofie to regular, but the same technique should apply to the opposite.
As for practice, I did a couple things:
I didn't go cold turkey on my original stance. I made it a gradual switch, riding on each near the end of my runs so as not to injure myself and give myself a chance to think about it
As dumb as it sounds, I put my boots on and strapped into my bindings and just switched back and forth, flipping the board around on each hop to get my legs into the rhythm.
I took my skateboard and found a short, gradual hill and just rode that up and down, switching my footing for each run whenever I had free time to also help with my muscle memory.
I eventually got it down pat, but it took me about 4-6 months. Don't be discouraged if you don't get it immediately. Keep on riding and enjoy the season!
