FS 360 nose roll
- Skill:
- do a butter FS 360 Nose-Roll
A frontside 360 nose roll is a buttered full rotation on the snow. You carve in on your heels, press into the nose, roll the board 180 degrees around it, then transfer onto your toe edge and drive the last half of the spin into the ground. Done right it's smoother and easier than jumping a 360 without a board on, because you're not fighting gravity - you're using your edges to carry you around.
The idea
This is not a flatground spin. The whole trick is built on edge control, not on pressing and pivoting on a flat base. You're riding an edge through the entire rotation: heel edge in, nose press, roll through 180, toe edge out. That's what makes it stable, consistent and safe at speed - you can't catch an edge if you're always deliberately on one.
Which also means the honest version of "how do I learn this": if your carving regular and switch isn't clean, the trick will feel sloppy no matter how much you work on the butter. The butter itself is the easy half.
Before you try it
You want carving and switch carving to feel solid, plus a comfortable nose press and standing 180 nose roll. Riding away switch at speed should be a non-event.
How to do it
Step 1 - the edge drill, no butter. Regular riders: start on the skier's right side of the run. Carve out on your heel edge to about the middle of the run, then let it transfer over onto your toe edge. Both hands point back toward the trees on the side of the run you came from. That's it - heels to toes, over and over, until the transfer is clean and quiet. This is the whole trick without the trick.
Step 2 - build the energy. Now start on the skier's left side, on your toes. Finish that toe turn, get on your heels quickly, and let the sidecut load up under you. Toes, heels, toes - smooth and fluid. That quick load on the heel edge is where the rotational energy for the 360 comes from.
Step 3 - add the butter. Coming out of the heel-edge carve, take that energy and feed it forward into the nose. Press, and let the board roll around the nose. At the 180 point, roll it over onto your toe edge and drive that edge into the snow to carry the rest of the rotation. You're still riding an edge the whole way through - that's what makes it smooth and stable rather than a scrappy flat-base spin.
Step 4 - ride away. Come out on the toe edge with the board driving into the ground, weight back over the middle of the board, and carry on carving.
Board and speed
Softer boards butter more easily at low speed but get noodly when you're moving. A stiffer board is the opposite - it takes real force to press slowly, but at speed you can properly drive on just the nose and tail. Don't blame yourself for a trick that's actually your setup: if it feels impossible slow on a stiff board, carry more speed.
Learn more here:
Video by Ryan Knapton