Carving Terminology

Style
Boards
Boots
Stance
Hazards
Weather
Misc
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Style

Sidecut rider A rider that applies only static pressure to the board throughout the turn, without any dynamic flexing. The board traces an arc that is dictated entirely by its sidecut.
Hip Shooting A quick thrust of the hips in the downhill direction, to flip the board up on edge quickly, before turning the nose of the board downhill.
Cowboy turn On toeside, keeping your torso upright, but bending your knees to a 90º angle, to cause your back knee to skim the slope.
Double-arm carving Carving with both forearms skimming the slope, You can do it either with a compact technique, or with a eurocarve technique.
Angulation Tilting the board on edge and keeping your weight over the carving edge by expanding the side of your body facing the inside of the turn and compressing the side of your body facing the outside of the turn.
Inclination Tilting the board on edge by leaning your entire body to the inside of the turn.
Carve porn Really good carving that turns heads.
Dumping speed Tilting the board high on edge to bleed off speed.
Buttonhole, Circle Carving a circle and retracing your track, usually done on the flats at the bottom of a steep run.
Switch Riding fakie.
Rail Tilting the snowboard high on edge and locking it into a carve without any skid or wash-out.
Doing laps Repeatedly going down the one run at the resort that is best for carving.
Inside hand/Outside hand Use this terminology instead of uphill hand/downhill hand or right hand/left hand.
COG Center of gravity
Square to the board When your chest faces the nose of the board.
Pet the dog When you let your outside hand trail behind you.
Sitting on the toilet Sticking your butt out the side of the board and not getting enough angulation. You can stick your butt out and simultaneously get angulation, which is not sitting on the toilet. On the other hand, in one video, Sigi Grabner demonstrates proper racing stance by sitting on an actual toilet.
Breaking at the waist Bending too far at the waist, which takes pressure off the tail and puts it all on the nose. It can cause the tail to wash out, and the nose to pearl.
Sidecut rider Someone who tilts the board and applies static pressure, allowing the sidecut alone to determine how the board turns. It's better to apply dynamic pressure, to get better control.
Hip shooting Thrusting the hip into the turn in order to get the board high on edge quicker.
Feathering Barely getting the board tilted up on edge.

Boards

Quiver A list of boards that you own, along with all the specs.
Sidecut radius The radius of the average circle that best defines the sidecut curve of a board.
Effective edge The board edge that contacts the snow in a turn. It is defined by the sidecut, before the sidecut transitions to the upturned nose and tail sections.
Taper The nose width minus the tail width.
P-Tex Often used as a generic term for the base material of a board, but it is a trade name for base material from IMS Plastics.
Noodle A carving board that is too soft for the rider.
Hooky When a board catches too much at the nose, or does not easily release on edge changes.
Detuning Dulling the metal edge of the board at the tip and tail for better edge release
Camber The built-in lengthwise concave shape of the base.
Cheater board A board that holds an edge even when you are off balance
Happy board Of the many boards in your quiver, this is the one you have most dialed in.
Swallowtail A rocket-shaped board for powder, with a deep gap cut into the center of the tail to help it sink in powder.
Fishtail A rocket-shaped board for powder, with a shallow V cut into the center of the tail.
Powder board A freeride board good for powder. Typically, it has a large taper.
Boat-hull or V-hull The pointed tip on swallowtail boards or fishtail boards.
Square tail The flat, sharp-cornered tail of a race board.
Split Tail A board with a narrow gap in the tail.
Slant tail The slanted tail of an asym board.
TCS Torsion Control System, the built-in Conshox for F2 boards in '05
VAS Vibration Absorbing System, used on Rossi race snowboards
Inserts The threaded sockets on the board
Insert packs The pattern of inserts located at the front and rear
Damp, heavy A board that dissipates energy quickly, to provide more edge hold
Lively, loaded, aggressive A board that bounces energy back to assist with edge changes.
Flex The longitudinal stiffness of the board.
Flex pattern The way that the flex varies along the length of the board.
Dead Zone An area of the board where the flex pattern is distorted by bindings that are too large.
Dead board When a board loses it's camber, it feels dead.
Cap construction The topsheet curves down to meet the metal edges. It has more torsional stiffness.
Sandwich construction The layers of the board remain stacked out to the edge.
Dualtec Cap construction at the tip and tail, and sandwich construction in the middle.
Hot Scrape Cleaning the dirt out of the base by hot waxing, then scraping the wax before it cools.
3D Burton's insert pattern to accommodate 3-hole bindings
LSD A Freeride snowboard from Rad-Air.
4x4 The 4-hole square insert pattern used by most board manufacturers.

Boots

Mondo Point The boot sizing system for hard boots. It is the distance from the back of your heel to your longest toe.
Thermoflex The DeeLuxe liner that can be heated in a convection oven and then molded to your foot.
Thermofit The DeeLuxe liner that has areas capable of self-molding to your foot. It cannot be heated in a convection oven.
DIN Deutsche Industria Normen. The standard geometry for ski boots.
Drink+Drive The walk/ride lever on boots.
RAB Raichle Accelerator Box. The lean/flex adjuster on Raichle boots that is controlled by a spring.
Fitment Bootfitting.
Cuff cant The adjuster on either side of the boot ankle that tilts the boot cuff laterally to match the pronation/supination of your leg.

Stance/Bindings

Stance The binding angle, stance width, and setback. Sometimes includes cant/lift.
Bias Adjusting the toe/heel bails fore/aft along the length of the binding plate
Binders Bindings
Cant The angle that a binding is tilted along the heel/toe axis
Lift The angle that a binding is tilted between the heel/toe axis and the topsheet
Riser Lift The total lift of the binding vertically off the board.
Riding Flat No cant or lift
LDS Lateral Dampening system: pads used in Nidecker soft bindings for dampening.
Rat trap A generic term for bail bindings, or sometimes referring to older Burton plates.

Hazards

Shooting Gallery When the slope is full of skiers bombing down the course.
Boot-out When either the toe or heel of the boot overhangs the board and digs into the slope, taking pressure away from the edge and causing the board to wash out.
Shin bang When the shin rubs or pressures against the boot cuff, creating a painful bruise.
Auguring the nose, Pearl When you overload the nose, causing it to catch the slope
Fold the nose Auguring or Pearling the board, causing the nose to catch the slope and bend, sometimes causing the nose to break.
Pinwheel, cartwheel You pearl, the nose catches the slope and pivots, and your momentum keeps the board going.
Jibber, Jib monkey Strictly, a softbooter who rides on obstacles like rails and logs, but more generally, someone who stays in the park and the halfpipe, and who does not develop carving skills that would improve performance in the park and the halfpipe.
OJT On the Job Training. In the worst case scenario, a high school slacker will use your board for OJT when learning how to use the base grinder.
Board chattering When the board loses an edge and stutters down the slope.
Wash out Losing an edge and skidding, usually on the tail.
Hipcrash An injury that occurs when your rib cage crashes against your hip: Caused by hitting a sudden bump while being maximally angulated.
Shooting gallery This is what you experience is you take really wide turns at a popular resort on the weekends.
Base burn When the base of the board turns an ash gray from excessive abrasion as a result of too little wax.
Binding suck, base suck Concave dimpling of the base, usually under the inserts. It can result either from over-tightening the binding screws, or from using a donut gasket under the bindings. It does not have anything to do with the base sticking to warm snow.
SPOREs Stupid People on Rental Equipment
Joey A skier with limited skill and control, who goes too fast and gives no consideration to anyone else on the slope. You are more likely to get hit by these people than by anyone else. There are two types: those on rental skis who have just downed a few beers at the bar, and those on very expensive skis who have just arrived in their BMWs.
In Russian, these people are called "flying crow-bars" (летающие ломы)

Weather and terrain

Le Sous-Bois French for glades.
Fall Line The direction that a ball would take if placed on the slope.
Pow Powder
Pow day It dumped.
Pow-pow It dumped big time. You need either a snorkel or a swallowtail board.
Groomers A groomed snow carpet of corduroy
Groomers People who operate the grooming machines
Skier-groomed Snow that has been chopped up by skiers in a statistically uniform manner.
Hero snow Perfect snow for carving. It lets you hold an edge, and makes you look like a hero, even if you have bad technique.
Vanity run A groomed run underneath a lift.
Dust on crust About 2 inches of pristine powder on top of uneven hardpack
Chalk Windblown ice. Just looking at it causes your throat to dry out.
Frozen death cookies Icy, gravel-sized chunks of snow that rip loose from hardpack and follow you down the mountain. If they are big, you can stub your fingers on them.
Steeps Steep terrain
Boilerplate, Bullet proof Ice
Squeegee grooming Warm temps after grooming cause the ridges to completely melt
Mashed potatoes Slurpy snow. Also comes in the form of frozen mashed potatoes, a carver's nightmare.
Cascade concrete The type of snow you get in the Northwest.
Sierra cement The type of snow you get in Tahoe.
Ice The type of snow you get in the East Coast. Also comes in blue plate.

Misc

Swag (sometimes pronounced schwag). Loot, Booty.
Mach schnell The SwitzerDütsch term for fast.
The Japanese term for fast.
YYZ The 3-letter code for Toronto Pearson International airport
UP Michigan Upper Peninsula
PDX Portland, OR, as opposed to the other Portland.
Posse, crew A group of carvers.
Slopestyle A competition consisting of several jumps, where you try to impress the judges with a series of extreme moves.
BX Boardercross. Oops, we meant Boardercross®, a registered trademark of Peak Productions Inc.
GS Giant Slalom
SL Slalom
NOS New old stock, such as a brand new 5-hole variplate bindings from '92.
PGS Parallel giant slalom
Frenchie A French dude.
Pre-school

Pre-dates old-school
PSR Pre-School Rider
Sensei The one who came before, and reveals the path

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