What you'll learn
A Backside Shifty is a freestyle snowboard trick where you rotate the board 90 degrees in the air, then counter rotate back to straight before landing.
The idea
The mechanic is counter-rotation: your upper and lower body twist against each other. You wind the twist up in the air, hold it for style, then release it back to straight. Nothing rotates as a whole - the board goes one way, your shoulders resist the other.
Backside is the harder of the two shifties (Frontside Shifty). The movement feels awkward at first because the natural instinct when you pop is to open your shoulders forwards, which is exactly the direction that kills a backside twist.
Ride straight down a gentle slope on a flat base.
- Shifty the board backside and hold it for a couple of seconds
- Bring it back to straight
- Actively use your upper body to counter rotate both into and out of the shift
Take It to a Jump
- Approach
- Ride in flat-based and relaxed
- Keep your upper body aligned with your lower body
- Do not let your shoulders face forwards as you jump, or the backside twist becomes very difficult
- Takeoff
- Get a solid pop first
- Be patient. Trying to shifty before you leave the lip is the most common mistake
- The Shifty
- Twist your lower body backside until the board is 90 degrees across
- Think about getting your back hand over your nose at the peak
- On bigger jumps you can slow it down and pause the shifty out
- Bring It Back
- Untwist and return the board to straight
- Align with the landing slope
- Land Clean
- Absorb with bent knees, stay centered, ride away on a flat base
Learn more here:
Video by Snowboard Addiction
Key Tips
- Learn it on a trampoline first. Repetition is what makes backside feel natural
- Pop first, shift second
- Keep your shoulders aligned or slightly back on takeoff, never open forwards
- The perfect shifty is 90 degrees at the peak of the jump
- Your first ones will be small and messy. They get better as the movement gets efficient
- Combines great with an Indy grab, and a method is essentially a huge backside shifty