Having trouble with backseating 3's

I

IanIsBored2000

Member
Well, maybe backseating is the wrong term. About 3/4 of the time I throw a 3, I can get the rotation fine and land with my feet straight at a normal distance apart, but I'm like almost laying down from having my weight waaaaay too far back by the time I land. One thing my friend noticed is when I throw my arms around from pre-winding, I throw them to the left, and a bit up, could that be throwing me off balance? If I throw them straight across, my tips go down and I can only get like some sort of nasty flailing 270. The other thing I thought could be a problem is the length of my skis. I know it isn't all about the equipment, but I have tiny skis right now, 153cm invader minis from last year. (I've grown a lot since I got them) I'm about 5' 6 now, and I'm about to get 171cm invaders, since my 153cm minis just broke. Will the longer ski help my balance, or just slow my spinning? Any help would be great, I just can't seem to land quite right. Thanks.
 
when you pop, try to pop forward more - it sounds like your weight is already ofer the back of your skis when you leave the lip, so just concentrate on keeping your weight almost over your tips
 
dont throw with ur arms...doin a 3 u shouldent need prewind at all...try poping forward and up more then just going with the lip of the jump
 
if you think about it you have to lean forward in the air to match the angle of your landing. so if your completely vertical as you start to come down the landing is going to push you backseat. Just keep doing them and try to lean forward as you come in for the landing maybe. youll figure it out
 
pop.

come into the takeoff with an aggressive stance, have your weight over the balls of your feet,

and pop,

popping harder will make so you body is vertical as opposed to keeping with the angle of the lip.

and practice. dont think about your arms. its all in the hips anyways.
 
Searching for "Backseat 3" only came up with one result, and it didn't answer all my questions, so I decided to post, I do hope that's alright with you. Anyways, The more air I have, the less stable I feel. Off little tiny like bumps I can almost completely 3, and when I land off those my weight is still centered. But trying them off a waist high kicker we buil in the back yard, or the 15 footer at the local hill, I end up backseat, and I just feel really unstable. Guess I just need to keep trying.
 
practice is super necessary. if you are unstable on bigger jumps it is prolly just lack of practice, another thing is you should try to pop to your center of balance, so basically work on popping so that when you are in the air you feel perfectly strait, then start doing that while spinning.
 
Thanks.....odd...usually the harder if I pop really hard I feel less stable, atleast when I straight air. I haven't focused on popping at all when I 3 because of this, I guess I should give it a try though. Thanks for all the help.
 
just like any sport, you need an athletic stance when you're going off the jump,

try to stay on the balls of your feet with forward pressure on your shins comming into the jump,

at the lip spot out towards the nuckle/landing and then lift with your shoulders and hips, and innitiate spin. (as opposed to twisting/hucking the spin with no pop)

the rest of the spin should follow naturally
 
Thanks, great advice, I'll give it some more tries....I have a problem spotting my landing, I never seem to have enough time in the air to really concentrate and look for a landing, I throw my arms, and in the same motion turn my shoulders and look over my left shoulder, and don't really see anything again until I land in the snow, so I guess some more practice to work on stability could help.....
 
mabye try throwing a high afety ora critical grab in just to get your weight leaning over your skis more
 
2 things

1) try a grab that should keep you more centered

2) It sounds like you are allready backseat on the takeoff so try keeping more pressure on the front of your boots as you take off
 
really try spotting the landing even before you take off

and try to spin with your hips, not your shoulders -- good core = good jump

practice practice, and ice baths for those hurting shins
 
hate to bump this but,

last 2 days in the park i'm backseating all my 3's. i had them down perfect all season and i have no idea whats going on. i'm not winding up the arms at all nor am i throwing them when i go off, wide stance coming off, popping with knees bent and weight on the balls of my feet/toes. practice was the answer before, but i couldn't get a single good landing the other day, and i was landing them clean since the 2nd day i started doing them, seems like i did enough practice to land them clean, and overtime it just got worse again

as to the quote above, spin with your hips? im popping off and turning the upper body after i pop and following around. i've been grabbing safety and everything trying to balance myself out but still no luck, could you explain the spinning from your hips part, all i ever hear is set your spin with the shoulders/head.

 
Yeah wtf, i spin with my shoulders and it keeps me straight, it would seem like spinning with your hips would make shit out of control
 
i used to have the same problem, and its all in the pop. make it a really firm hard pop into the spin, and dont start spinning before you leave the lip. have a wide aggressive stance and keep your hands in front.
 
This has probably already been said, but make sure you spot your landing. Yeah it's important to pop it and throw it right, but it's gonna be pretty hard to be prepared to land if you have no idea when that's gonna happen. It's just like on backflips, right before you land, you spot the ground and bring your feet under you, and on 3s you just have to see the landing, and tense your legs and make sure your stance is right.
 
okay so i just started doing 360;s to and last week i stepped up to a bigger 10ft (land way farther down, like 20 ft) and what i kept doing was landing backseat and over rotating. It hurt really bad, one time i fell at exactly 450.. and twisted my leg. I dont know how to calculate how hard to throw and once i see my landing how to slow down my body correctly.

And I also land backseat. I pop really hard in a wide, aggressive sport stance or what ever you call it, with bent knees. Sometime i can spot my landing but i still come down pretty backseat. sometimes not as bad and I need help, at this rate my shins and ankle (from over rotating) will not hold up for skiing.

 
as for landing backseat, i would recommend just practicing your 3s over and over again until you can land right over your skis. You said you just learned them, so don't worry too much about whether or not they look steezy, nobody can do smooth 3s right away. just learn them in a way that allows you to do them consistently, and never backseat. after that, work on steeze.

The over rotating can probably be fixed by just really really spotting your landing, keep your eyes exactly where youre going to land, and once they get to that point, don't let them travel any further. opening up should slow down the spin a lot too.
 
I have the same problem almost every time i throw a 3 but hope that i get them nailed properly when i get to the slope next time
 
same thing happened to me when i was learning them, i just kept doing them and they came to me.. i dunno, everyone learns in their own way, but just keep doing them.
 
basically when you first start learning threes, you wind up as hard as you can throw your arms and spin your head, you'll barely get around all penciled out, we've all been there... What you should do is as you aproach the lip, be in the general athletic stance -- forward pressure, solid stance, wait untill you see the knuckle/landing before you start rotating.



you lift up with your chest (this is the pop) and then when you rotate, spinning with your hips means that you rotate more with your core, instead of just trying to throw yourself around with your hands.

keep your shoulders and your hips together, and it'll feel a lot better, and you'll be able to do cool stuff with your hands like grab skis, throw gang signs ect...

one problem that i had was that i'd rotate with my arms to just shy of 270 and then my arms would stop rotating. if you rely on your arms, and they stop rotating, your spin gets all caught up because your lead arm ends up across your body.

Not that this is necessary for you to do, but when i was learning three's i was actualy taught to be able to look up hill at 180 and be able to spot the person on the stage zone before the jump before spotting the landing. Keeps your head up, and over the center of your spin.

Watch ski movies, picture it in your head, go out on the hill, and throw it... pretty soon you'll be stomping 5's and 7's no problems.

 
one thing that works for me to keep from getting all twisted up is to look down at your feet or the ground. i found i keep square and i know were i am through the spin and were i am on the jump. this works well on back country jumps.
 
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