I think every one of you heard sometime of jibbing. Probably most of you know what is this, but I think the others have no idea what is it or maybe just start an adventure with the snowboard. In this article I’ll try to discuss the most essential cases connected with jibbing to let everybody know something about it (more or less- it depends on how carefully you have read this text).

So now maybe I will tell you what exactly is jibbing. Jibbing- snowboard riding technique which belongs to freestyle. It consists in riding on everything, except the snow; e.g. on rails, boxes, funboxes, benches, walls, chests etc. Precursors of this snowboard type are: Terry Kidwells, Matt Cummins, Dale Rehberg, Nate Cole, Roan Kogers. First jibbing attempts were registered at snowboard film “Sims Factory Video” in 1987. Now when we just know what is jibbing it is worth adding that it is very painful riding technique. Not the riding only but accidents which are inevitable, especially for those, who are just learning how to ride.....

During your first jibbing lessons you shouldn’t choose very big figures (snowpark elements), because it won’t make it easy to learn. In the beginning you should choose small boxes and rails in order to leard how to ride on this kind of figures. When you learn how to make tricks on boxes and rails, your dress may be very useful. As we know falls on rails are very painful and dangerous; contusions, bruises and fractures are also very possible. And that is why it is very important to be suitably dressed. I think of pads, which decreases risk of contusion and they limit the pain. The basic thing is a helmet which can really save our health and even our life. When you hit on the metal rail with your head it may (but don’t have to) end tragically. So when you learn jibbing it is really worth having a helmet. Next pads, which may prove very useful are knees pads, “turtle” (spine pad), and tail bone pad. In the first case it may be volleyball knee pads, which will suppress hitting with your knee on the rail. Obviously very good are pads for rollerblades, skateboard or just bike pads which have plastic cover. Third pad, which will spare a lot of pain and suffering especially for beginners, are pants with pads for tail bone, buttocks and thighs. It’s a gadget, which costs about 200 zl, but it will cause that learning of new tricks will be more pleasant and you won’t be put discouraged too fast.

And that’s all about the dress and now I will tell you how to make some basic (and not only) tricks on rails, boxes etc.

Tricks:

50-50

While making this trick, first you must ride in the front of the rail. Next prepare yourself to take off, bend your knees (still looking on the rail) and make Ollie just a little above the rail and then land perpendicularly to it, while having it in the middle of your board. Next element is keeping your balance; you shouldn’t lean both ahead and to the back (it may be threatened with unpleasant fall) but you should look ahead on your landing area. While reaching the end of the rail you should bend your knees and make next Olllie, but this time with landing on the ground. Now you just have to land correctly, not loosing your balance and ride away to prepare yourself for next trick or further riding. In order to diversify this trick you can add some rotations while getting on or off the rail, e.g. Ollie 180 bs, 180 fs, 360 or even more and you can also apply a conversion from 50-50, e.g. on bordslide, fs bordslide etc. It all depends on your abilities and your own creative invention.

Boardslide

While making this trick you must take on proper accessing position, it means that you should bend your knees. Next while being on the driveway to the figure you should make Ollie very calmly with simultaneous 90 degree rotation in order to be in the front to your riding direction. Remember that while jumping on the figure your knees should be bent and you should lean ahead a little to transport the weight of your body on the middle part of your snowboard. We try to keep our shoulders on the line of the board. When we are already on the figure we should balance with our body this way to have the rail in the middle of the slide. While preparing to landing we should make Ollie again with 90 degrees rotation and land on bent knees.

Frontside boardslide

Similary as in boardslide the figure should be placed in the middle of our slide between bindings but this time we are turned inversely to our riding direction. While riding on the figure you should not only make a rotation of your board but you should make also inside turning of your body to look through your shoulder. When we are going to land we make Ollie with 90 degrees rotation and we keep riding

Nosepress

We ride on the figure with a middle speed. When we are on the driveway and we jump on the figure we transport the weight of our body to the front part of the snowboard with siultaneous drawing up your back leg; the end of board should be in the air. In this position we try to keep our balance on the whole lenght of the figure. When we want to land we make nollie and we land calmly.

Lipslide

While making this trick you should reach the figure quite fast on lightly bent knees; nollie taking of is easier than ollie in this particular case because during the snowboard rotation we level out the possibility of hooking up the figure. When we jump on the figure snowboard tail should be placed lead above the nose. Board (just like in boardslide) should be balanced in the middle of figure. You have to try not to look under your feet- it’s quite often mistake and it causes painful falls. Landing depend on your imagine- it may be 90 fs/bs 270, bs fs.

5-0’s

While making this trick we ride on the figure with our knees bent. When we jump on the rail or box we transfer the weight of our body on the back part of the board with simultaneous drawing up our front leg to cause the front part of the board is in the air. In this position we try to keep balance on the whole lenght of the figure. When we are close to the end we transfer the weight of the body to the middle part of the snowboard and we land.

Noseslide

When you want to make this trick you must reach the figure on bent knees. When we are on the driveway we make light Ollie wwwith 90 degrees rotation so as the rail is close to our front binding. Next we must bend our knees and transfert the weight of our body to the nose of the board. While reaching the end of the figure we make Ollie with 90 degrees rotation and we land on bent knees. Tailslide A trick very similar to previous, but in this case we make the 90 degrees rotation to cause that the rail is placed close to the back leg binding. Next we bend ourselves and transfer the weight of our body to the back of the snowboard. While reaching the end we make Ollie with 90 degrees rotation and we land on bent knees.