Hey, today we're going to have a look at how to backflip on skis. They truly feel
amazing, but they are a little bit dangerous
and they are rather scary when you get started.
So we are going to do this tutorial step by step, and it's important that you follow that and
you do many, many repetitions, so you learn it really well.
First of all, we're going to go and practise this with a real gymnastics coach and show you how to backflip on the trampoline.
Hi, so we're here with Louise. She's a badass gymnast.
In this video, we're mostly going to focus on skiing,
but we're going to bring some of the key points from
gymnastics with us. To summarize what we learn and our how-to-back through like a gymnast,
is, we want to have a really nice, straight takeoff, bring the arms all the way up, have a nice tuck into the thighs,
so you get maximum height. Spot the landing, adjust rotation, and stomp it.
Because if you do sloppy stuff like this,
that's something you often see on skis, like here, you see you just tilt back,
this leads to really low height and people even hit the back of the head on top of jumps, not so cool.
Here's the same crappy jump, but a much better pop on this back leg,
and in the ideal world you bring a lot of your gymnastic skills with you, but without
making it look too stiff and let's say, gymnasticy.
The prerequisites for backflips are hard to say, but I'd suggest you learn 3s and 5s or a jump this size.
But some people learn backflips way before that. So you do as you wish.
The first place to try some backflips is definitely off a water ramp.
It's so much fun, you can even maybe try some doubles there.
If you don't have a water ramp, option 2 is an air bag, also great. Option 3, is
a self-built jump. Don't build a shit jump like any of these two.
Let's talk a little bit about jump building. Find a place like this,
the nice roller where you can build a jump with the nature, where you have a landing, it's so much easier and more fun.
Wait, don't have any trees in the landing.
Now when you get a more or less safe place to practice it, just do
backflips after backflips after backflips, and you're going to get it.
Since I assume you want to learn sleeker backflips than any of those ones, let's look into the technique.
Alright, it's important that you start doing your first backflips in a place where you feel safe, like an air bag, so you can focus
on the technique while taking the scary leap of faith and sending it.
Here's my best attempt of doing a correct backflip. Ride in towards the jump with a nice stance, with your arms in the back.
You're then ready to swing those arms forwards and the timing of the swing needs to be very good,
of course, that the arms are up and you're popping fully at the end of the jump.
Tense the buttocks and bring the hip forward, but don't bring it more forward center straight.
The arms should ideally go straight up, but hard to do.
I'm losing the feet a little bit here, but it's not too big of deal.
But it would be better if I was leading with the toes.
Tuck on the top,
spot the landing, and then you can feel like, am I rotating too fast or too slow?
Then you extend your legs and pull them in depending on what you need.
No matter what backflip
you're going to do,
this is the most important part, that you don't lean back
too much that you are perpendicular to the jump with an awesome pop. Do dozens of backflips in a safe setting before you even
consider doing it off a park jump.
Let's look at that now.
What you have to have in mind with air base is often, that the jump is steep, and in this position would be perfect to
land more or less but when you land perfect on the air bag
that would be a really back or tail heavy landing in a park jump.
So in the park jump, you know, you have to time the flip with the landings.
You land nicely perpendicular. Ideally land a little bit higher up, so you're perfectly in the sweet spot.
So it's important that you nail the speed before you finally go for it
off a park jump. I'm going to give you some tips on the rotation and getting it right. Here, I'm rotating quickly opening up.
This is great for small jumps where the consequences of over-rotating are pretty small, but on bigger jumps
it really sucks to over rotate. Then I suggest you set it off really gently. I'm hardly using my arms.
Sorry for the bad set. And then once you can spot the landing
you know that you're going to be high enough then that you have time to pull in the legs,
speed up the rotation and land perfectly.
Hope you enjoyed this video and if you remember one thing, is that you need to practice hundreds of times to really get it,
so you learn it safely, and step-by-step and you'll have a great time.
It's one of my favorite tricks and I'd do it in the park in the backcountry. I just love it. It's so much fun.
And if you land it on the mountain or on an air bag, I don't really care,
post a video to Instagram with the hashtag, "I stomped it" and you'll have a chance of winning some sweet gear from Smartwool.