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A Beginner’s Guide To Ragdolling (Tomahawking)

Jeez, isn’t it annoying how people these days are sooo concerned with landing tricks? Don’t you ever find yourself asking ‘how can i steeze out my bails’? Well, fear not, Onboard has the answer! A totally serious beginners guide to ragdolling – where we look into the technique behind a fine art.

Follow these steps to really make the most out of your backcountry – and you’ll be tumbling lifelessly like a pro in no time.

Step 1: Pick a really short camber board

First things first, you’re going to want to minimise your lateral stability with a short board. It’ll make sure you’re off balance as possible and the small surface area will make it almost impossible to ride out your landings. For guaranteed bails, we recommend you go with a camber profile to ensure your nose sinks conveniently into the pow.

Step 2: Check the snow conditions

If you’re going to get the ultimate catherine-wheel through the snow, you’re not going to want to sink down too far, but you don’t want hard-pack either. For best effect, try and go when the pow is fresh but stable.

Step 3: Pick Your Spot

For ultimate Tomahawking, you’re going to have to think hard about the angle of your landing – ask yourself if you have enough continuous steep terrain to keep momentum once you get rolling?

And remember, there’s bonus points for every tree you hit:

Step 4: Stretch

Make sure those muscles and tendons are nice and loose – you’re about to do some involuntary gymnastics.

Step 5: Get A Good Run Up

Never has the saying ‘speed is your friend’ been more true:

Step 6: Send It

If you’re going for an aerial to ragdoll combo, you’re going to want to go big, but you don’t necessarily want to go high. Try to give yourself as much forward momentum as possible.

Step 7: Get Loose

Don’t brace for impact – at most you want to point an effective edge towards the snow – this should take your momentum and turn it into a full on tomahawk.

Step 8: Lose your shit (literally)

Start throwing goggles and beanies – added steeze points if they fly off and are never seen again.

Step 9:

Check you still have all your limbs, head to the top and start again.

Types of Ragdoll

Now, you’ve got the basic principles down, click through to the next page for a few variations you might want to throw in. These are totally legit – and we definitely didn’t just make most of them up:

1. ‘The Double Take’

Half way through the double take you might think you’ve landed safely on your feet, but you’d be wrong… really you’re just going for round two. These are hard to predict, but if you can, throw in a little 180 like E-Jack does here:

2. ‘The Tomahawk’

Tomahawking is the peak of ragdolling efficiency – minimal contact with the snow and maximum velocity ensure you’ll be happily flipping for miles:

3. The ‘Buttered Out’ One

Sometimes you’ll find you can incorporate a few powder butters into your bail, they actually feel pretty good – give them a go:

4. ‘The Marathon’

You know how they say you can never have too much of a good thing? Well these guys just don’t want to stop:

5. Honourable Mention: ‘The Hole in One’

Yes, he’s a skier, but we haven’t seen this anywhere else – skip to 1.27 for the action, the ‘hole in one’ is truly one of a kind:

SEE ALSO: A Beginners Guide to Eating Shit on Rails

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