When it comes to board sports like skateboarding and snowboarding, your stance is a fundamental aspect of your riding style. It determines how you position yourself on the board and influences your comfort, control, and ability to perform tricks. There's no right or wrong answer when it comes to snowboard stance. Whether you're goofy or regular footed, there’s no distinct advantage to either.
The four main stances are natural, nollie, switch, and fakie. Each requires different foot placement and vary in difficulty.
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What is a Snowboard/Skateboard Stance?
A snowboard stance is how you ride, either with your right or left foot naturally forward. Overall, your snowboard stance is which way you feel most comfortable. For example, if your left leg leads, this is called ‘regular’ stance, and if you’re right foot leads, that’s ‘goofy’.
Your stance is how you are positioned on your skateboard. Most of the time you will be in your natural stance, but to do some tricks and maneuvers you have to change your stance. You can learn how to do tricks in different stances to add to your trick selection. Stance can be confused for "footedness" (i.e. goofy or regular), which describes how you prefer to stand on your skateboard.
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Comfort is critical whether you’re riding pavement or waves. Finding your best stance is one way to get better at these leg-intensive sports.
Regular Stance
Imagine you step onto a skateboard. Most skateboarders crouch slightly to gain control and use their right foot to generate power. You put your left foot at the front, leaving your right foot at the back of the board. This position is the regular stance.
The regular stance benefits beginners because it’s closer to human nature. Native English speakers read and write from left to right, and marching band regiments typically lead with their left foot. Therefore, it’s more natural for most people to use the regular stance.
Goofy Stance
The goofy stance is theorized to derive from the Disney character - not because you’ll look funny while boarding. In 1937, Disney released “Hawaiian Holiday,” a cartoon where Goofy used his right foot at the front instead of his left.
This method was initially recognized as unusual but isn’t indicative of skill - some of the best skaters in the world use the goofy stance. Does the name Tony Hawk sound familiar?
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Switch Stance
The switch stance may be the hardest for the average board sport enthusiast. This strategy calls for using the method opposite to what you’d typically do. For example, if you are regular footed, in switch your right foot would be in front and your left foot in the back. If a Goofy skater rode opposite of their natural footing it would also be called switch and they would put their left foot in front.
Any tricks performed in this stance would be called switch (i.e. Switch Heelflip).
The ability to ride switch is essential to becoming a well-rounded rider. It’s a stepping stone to 180’s, 540’s, 900’s, half cabs and more…Simply put, people like to do things they’re good at, and most of us are horrible at riding switch.
5 Tips for Learning Switch Snowboarding Turns
I’m talking about full turns both directions. Some of you might worry that you need to ride a “twin tip” or a snowboard that is symmetrical on the nose and the tail, but you can ride switch with a directional board no problem. For years I only rode a twin tip board with a perfectly symmetrical stance, because I thought I needed it to ride switch, but once I switched to a directional board and set my stance back a bit, I didn’t mind it at all.
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One common mistake to watch out for when riding switch is riding your snowboard like it’s backwards, keeping your shoulders squared up towards the back of your board. We don’t want to actually ride “backwards” we want to ride switch. Practice ollies, and other tricks we do regular. This will help us treat it like it’s own way of riding rather than just riding backwards.
Fakie Stance
Fakie stance is when you're riding in your natural stance, but in reverse. You position yourself on your skateboard as if you were riding normal and roll backwards. Another way to think of fakie is riding switch with your feet shifted to the front kick.
Typically you will find yourself in fakie stance when you roll back down a ramp or bank without doing a kickturn or a 180. Another time you will find yourself skating fakie is when you do certain tricks such as 180s or Big Spins on flat ground.
Am I Goofy or Regular?
As we said above, there’s no instant way to know based on which hand or foot is dominant. For example, I’m right-handed, but I ride goofy-footed. My friends are right-handed and ride regular.
You’ll need to figure out which suits you best, as it’ll be much easier to learn to ride once you know your natural stance. Riding with the other foot forward will only slow your progress as you’ll be learning to ride ‘switch’, which is basically the equivalent of riding backwards! But we’ll get to that later.
How to Test if You’re Goofy or Regular
If standing at home looking over one shoulder and then the other doesn’t feel particularly useful for figuring out your stance, don’t worry! Luckily, you can do a few simple tests to help sort out your regular from your goofy.
- Skateboard test: If you’ve ever ridden a skateboard before, you’ll already have decided which foot goes forward. So your snowboard stance will be the same as your skateboard stance (or surfboard stance if you’ve tried that!).
- Pedal test: If you have access to a bike, hop on it and stand up on the pedals with your feet level. Look down. One of your feet will be forward and the other back. This is often another good way to determine which foot leads naturally.
- Push test: Don’t have a bike or never ridden a skateboard? Try the push test. Close your eyes and have a friend gently push you from behind. Once off balance, you’ll naturally step out with one leg to catch yourself. This is usually your leading foot!
- Risky business test: Find a slick floor and, with some socks on, slide on it à la Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Your lead foot is your lead foot!
Benefits of Riding Switch
Do you really need to know how to ride switch? Half the fun of snowboarding is that you can go both ways. You can butter, spin and grind either way. You can take off switch, land switch, and revert mid rail. You can save yourself from a fall, by being quick on your feet, and avoid disaster in the trees by being versatile and being able to switch back and forth.
Schedule a switch day for 1 out of 5 days you ride, and ride switch the entire day.
Muscles and Pressure
Keep in mind that your muscles haven’t been trained switch, so it’s going to feel weird, and you might be weak at first. Like anything, you’ll build muscle and get stronger the more you do it. When starting out, Your friends will be much better than you right now if you’re riding a switch and they’re riding regular. You have to learn to be ok with this, and eventually you will be much better than them in both directions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some frequently asked questions we hear a lot on the mountain!
- Is regular better than goofy? No. No stance has a distinct advantage. Bindings and boards all work the same for both stances.
- Where did the terms regular and goofy come from? Regular is what most riders ride with, whereas goofy-footed was coined based on a 1950s Disney film. In it, we see the character Goofy surfing with his right foot forward!
- What is riding switch? Riding switch is intentionally riding in the opposite way to your natural stance, i.e., a regular snowboarder riding with their right foot forward.
- Does your dominant foot determine your stance? Often, it can. Most right-footed riders ride with their left foot forward so their strongest leg is in the supporting and steering position, and left-footed riders the opposite. But it’s not a given!
- Why are more people regular footed? It’s just the way most people feel natural. The back leg does a lot of muscle work and has the most power going through it. So, most people’s dominant leg will feel most comfortable in the supporting position.
Board Sports Comparison
What do skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding have in common? They’re all sports that don’t center around a ball. You use your legs and feet to do most of the work.
Your stance in snowboarding is similar to that of your skateboard. The regular stance involves your left foot on the front of the snowboard and your right foot on the back. When snowboarding, you need balance to stay on the board. If you want to do tricks, you must have superior control and maneuverability. Choosing among regular, goofy, and switch stances is vital for your success.
The same logic with skateboarding and snowboarding applies to surfing. Placing your left foot at the front means you have a regular stance, while goofy means your right foot is at the top. Your balance is critical on the surfboard. You must have terrific balance and control to catch the waves as they arrive.
| Sport | Regular Stance | Goofy Stance |
|---|---|---|
| Skateboarding | Left foot forward | Right foot forward |
| Snowboarding | Left foot forward | Right foot forward |
| Surfing | Left foot forward | Right foot forward |