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Frontside boardslides are one of the hardest rail tricks for most riders. The reason for this is that you are either looking uphill or you are twisted and looking over your shoulder in order to look downhill. Most of us don't like sliding whithout seeing where we are going or where the landing is. This trick is an intermediate skill no matter what level the rail is.
Similar to backside boardslides, there is some confusion about why this trick is called a frontside boardslide. It all goes back to skateboarding on halfpipes in the early days. Usually, skaters would only approach a rail or the lip of the halfpipe from an angle. They called this trick frontside because they approached the trick very similar to the way they did a frontside kick turn or frontside air. On a snowboard, in a halfpipe, this would be on your toe edge wall. Your back foot needs to stay below the lip or it would be called a frontside lipslide.
Today, most terrain parks have kickers or approach ramps straight in front of a feature. This requires the rider to do a backside 90 degree turn to get onto the rail. The name of this little spin move confuses most beginners and intermediate riders. Think of this trick in a halfpipe or from a side approach (toe side). A frontside boardslide is facing uphill with slightly more pressure on the toe edge. Ideally, the board should be flat, but this is difficult to do. Check out the CD for some great vids on doing frontside boardslides.
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