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How To Frontside 360

As with all of the spins, approach the kicker with a low centre of gravity and minimal movement to keep control. Your weight should be evenly balanced across both feet. Focus on the kicker’s lip, and ‘pre-wind’ the spin by pushing your leading shoulder slightly forwards and your trailing arm backwards, primed to unleash them in the opposite direction.

As you ride up the jump, try to keep a flat base with your weight slightly over your heels (just as with the backside 360, it might help to do a set-up turn – only this time the other way around, so you’re coming onto your heels as you hit the jump). You’re aiming to be travelling in a straight line right up to take-off, so resist the instinct to lean back and do a full-on heel edge carve! If you do, you’ll drift sideways in the air and go slightly inverted – not good. Stay straight and upright.

As your nose leaves the jump, throw your arms in a frontside direction and – at the same time – extend your legs so you’re popping off the lip. Timing is crucial. As you get airborne, your arms will be further into the spin than your board, but your lower body will then start to catch up. When throwing your arms into the spin, make sure your shoulders stay flat i.e. in line with each other and parallel to the ground. If you drop your rear shoulder/raise your leading one then you’ll cork the spin.

Now you’re in the air, suck your legs up towards your chest and look down at the ground between your bindings (like the backside 180). As your board approaches 180 degrees, go for the grab: reach down and hold on to your toe edge with your trailing hand for an indy, just in front of your rear foot, or do like Aimee does and tweak your back leg out and grab stale on your heel edge between your feet.

Now comes the tricky part: you’re about to do the last 180 back to the landing, and you’ll be effectively travelling backwards. Keep looking downwards so you can see the ground moving, and use this to gauge your height and align your board correctly. This part of the trick is basically the same as a switch backside 180. As you come down to land, extend your legs to meet the floor. It’s very, very difficult to land a frontside 360 absolutely perfectly straight, so aim to land a little more on your tail so if the board is a few degrees off it’ll right itself.

As soon as you land, try and get the board on its edge just for a micro second, and use that stable point to re-align yourself and get back to your normal riding position. Most good riders try to do a little heel edge check there, but you can use your toe edge if you prefer, or if the angle of the landing deems that a better edge to use. Once settled, stand up straight and head to the next jump – you’ve just landed your first frontside 360.