How to stay on the goddam rail

Kenyon

Kenyon

Member
Ok so this may seem like a stupid question but one of the most frustrating things I find is falling off a rail early. So on my backyard setup I had a 10 foot rail and it was to short for me to do anything like k feds, brittanys, ray charles etc... so now i added an extra 8 foot rail and connected them but now i keep falling off the stupid thing to early before I even start the trick. But for some reason if i turn it into an elbow rail i can do it fine every try. So can someone please give me some tips on how to not fall off cause its frustrating as hell :(((((((((((. +k for answers
 
buy full tilts? i dont know dude just hit it gorilla steeze. its what we had to do back in the day to make it to the end so i'm assuming it still works.
 
your not the only one. all day i can only finish half of my two 10 ft rails then when i turn it into an elbow first hit finish it two out.while with the two rails i just keep falling off and off with occasionally doing a switch up i guess its just the way setups are at least it will make skiing on snow 100 times easier
 
Tip number 1:

Always look at the end of the rail, dont look down at your skis or whatnot.

Tip number 2:

Bend your knees and get low. Having a lower center of gravity helps tons.

Tip number 3:

This tip might not help you much, but at least for me it did. Try to slide the rail while setting for a frontside spin, even though you wont be throwing a trick. It make you grip the rail.
 
10 feet isn't too short to trick a rail, and it's most likely just a mental problem, since you see the rail is so much longer it just fucks with you, and yeah do what that one guy said and just gorilla steeze it
 
def agree with what everyone else has said about gripping for a frontside spin. I do it on every rail even if i'm setting up for a blindside spin
 
For me it is or maybe thats a mental problem too since on long rails i set it super late and it comes around really fast. And yea im gonna do that and siscor frontside.
 
+1. OP if you need someone to explain scissoring just ask

and most of all, just practice. dont get down on yourself, just keep getting rips on it and youll get better and better. also take breaks and chill and stuff, nothing makes you worse at something than doing it a bunch of times and getting down on yourself and thinking about it in a certain way, switch it up and keep your mind fresh about it
 
Superglue that shit. Jk its important though to bed down, keep your skis together, and look at the rail.
 
SCISSOR

or

Rock it --> watch the pros slide a straight rail an they will go from toe to heal. Start on your heal then by the middle you should be closer to your toes, shift back to your heals, then pop off. The more times you can do it the more PROOO you loook
 
Go faster. It's like a gyroscope, the more forward inertia you have the harder it is to build up side to side inertia
 
this

you can definitly k-fed on 10 feet because i can on 8ft, jst take less speed and you will have more time on rail to do your tricks.
 
Just get low, make your your body is parallel with the rail and make sure you look at the end(where your going) before you know it you'll be sending 630's in no time.
 
Yeah, a little bit of scissor is what I do naturally at this point. It may be just me, but for any down-flat kink, I have to scissor just a tiny bit, and put more pressure on the inside edge of my front ski so I can power through it without hanging up.

Since it seems like you're just starting out, make sure you start sliding un-natty early too. Say you get your natural, blindside 2 out: Go for an unnatural blind 2 out right after. One thing I regret is not getting good at unnatural until this year, and it makes you ready for any feature in a line. Can't forget switch and lipslides too!

Once you get all these fundamental rail entries down, you can flow through the park like a champ. No reverts, and no skipping a rail because you have to hit it from your uncomfortable side.
 
You just need to look at the end of the rail, so that right there will help your center of gravity. Then you need to bend your knees more so that it does lower your center of gravity. You will see that these two things will help tremendously!
 
look at the end of the rail. approach with shoulder width stance. Hands out, looks noobish but you will get it and then you can drop them arms.
 
put your skis in a daffy so that oppisite tips are leading toward the groung this should lock you in if you do it right otherwise look at the end of the rail and imagine yourself at the end. dont think about it to hard or you will work yoursself up! that wont be good. and you will fail! i had the same problem! just dont think.
 
if your rail is tilted and not level that could play into sliding off the same side everytime. My first rail i built was cockeyed making it real hard to stay locked on to the end.
 
magnets.jpg
 
Every thing you throw on the rail is blindsided. So a ray charles would be a blind side switchup, then a blind side 270 out. There is a change in motion.
 
Approach the rail at different angles. Focus on the end of the rail and try to get a nice line that will bring you across the rail and off the end.

Just keep practicing, it gets way easier when you figure out the balance more and get a good sense of it. Keep trying some longer rails at the mountains, even if you have trouble on them it'll make shorter rails easy and you might even start getting the longer rails pretty quickly.

either way you're going to get better. It's all muscle memory.
 
This is probably more related to riding in parks where you ski up to the feature, but could relate to backyard setups a bit. If it's set up so that you come on straight from the front, come in with a wide stance where you'd straddle the rail if you didn't pop and 90. Then you want to make sure you pop evenly (not one foot first). This should set your momentum in the right direction, and as long as you stay low and look at the end of the rail, you should make it to the end.

Also, if you're in a park, make sure you don't turn/speed check right before the rail. If you do, you're more likely to not have a centered stance and be a bit off-balance.

And for street rails where you come on from the side (probably not the rail in question), don't come in at too much of an angle unless you're prepared to lean hard to compensate for it.

Hope this helps.
 
sorry that was my first time on here in a while and i forgot about mythreads

scissoring is the thing you do on a rail to grip it.. for example say i jump onto a rail (with my left foot forward) and want to spin to the left at the end, i would slightly dip my right toe and my left heel. or if i wanted to spin the opposite way out id dip my left toe and my right heel. if you dont understand i can find a video that shows you

frontside spin means spinning so that you face forward first... it's like on a snowboard when theyre spinning jumps, since youre sideways, depending on which direction you start spinning youre either going to immediately be facing downhill or turning your back on it.. say im on a rail with my left foot forward.. frontside spin would be spinning to the left, since i would be spinning so that the first thing that happens is i face downhill.. backside or blindside spin would be spinning to the right, cause it immediately turns my back towards downhill

same thing on a snowboard, if im regular (left foot forward) and spin left, it's frontside spin, if i spin to the right it's a backside spin
 
bump for a chill ass thread that no cocky dude came on and ruined, hope you improve man!!! I wish I had a backyard set up right now. What is yours like? Might inspire me to build one
 
and look down the rail bro it took me the longest time to break the habit of looking at my skis..but when i did it was a life changer..kinda :]
 
just go faster and keep looking at the end of the rail with your knees bent or however you are going across the rail. I remember going on my first down rail I always fell off early, and still do occasionally if I don't have enough speed because of east coast wind is always at the hill when I am there. But yeah speed and keeping a stable position will get you through the hole thing
 
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