How To Nose Butter 180

Nothing beats the style of a smooth Nose Butter 180! For such a simple trick, getting this on lock down will be sure to give you an endless amount of combinations through the park. Stomped by leaning into the noses of your skis and buttering around, these can be thrown anywhere on the mountain from knuckles and rollers to jib features.

While your Tramp Skis aren’t essential in learning the motions of this trick, these will boost your progression for finding the balance point on your noses and buttering onto your Jib Bar.

(Narrating/Riding: Dean Bercovitch Filming/Editing: Vince Emond. Filmed At: Whistler Blackcomb)

Pre- Requisits

Before we dive straight into the Nose Butter 1, there are some more basic skills that you should probably have on autopilot first. Being comfortable with spinning 180’s over jumps and skiing switch is essential to learning this trick. Begin by finding a park jump that you’re very comfortable with and practice these entry skills.

Cool, Let’s Go.

With a key component of the Butter 180 involving getting your weight forward and buttering around on the tips of your skis, getting familiar with having your weight in the right place is important. Start by skiing in a straight line and begin to push your weight over the front of your skis until you can feel your tails lifting off the ground. Maybe you have already learned this skill from when you dialled in your Nollie's?

A smooth weight transition will help to hold your balance and not over cook it.

But how do you get your weight over the front of your skis? This weight shift is achieved through pressing into the tongue of your boots. Now you will want to combine this with flexing your ski, getting your glutes fired up and finally driving your hips forwards and towards your noses.

If you struggle to balance while on your noses, you can use your poles with a pole plant to balance yourself.

Getting Buttery Smooth

Sweet, so now we have the nose pressure part dialled in. Let’s put together the butter element.

I know you’re excited to Nose Butter, but let’s practice just buttering around to 180 with your weight over the centre of your skis rather than over the noses for now. This can also be helped through using a pole plant on the same side as the direction that you are wanting to spin.

Remember that your pole plant should be initiated before starting to spin around for a 180. 

More Nose & More Butter

From here, the next natural progression is to begin pressing into your noses as the rotation into your butter begins. Through doing this, you’ll find that your pivot point moves from being spread out across your full ski to just coming from the noses.

To gain extra balance while rotating around to 180, you can still use a pole plant to provide support

Go Big Or Go Home

Now, to really get the Nose Butter going you’ll need to find a way to start pivoting right on the tips of your noses.

To achieve this, begin by moving even more weight over the front of your skis while also popping up with your legs by extending your knees. If you find that you are struggling to pivot on the noses all the way through to 180, you may find that some counter-rotation is needed!

Through doing this, you’ll also gain some additional style points thanks to your tails being higher.

Butter For Longer

Now that you have the basics of how to spin around a Nose Butter 180, the real style can come out! Being able to hold your butter for longer over rollers is a sure-fire way to boost your cred on the hill. 

To do this, lean into the noses sooner and slow down your pivot to allow for more time to be spent on the tips of your skis.

Mastered this already? Maybe it's time to perfect another playful and versatile skill to throw all over the mountain; The Slash. 

Ollie Barbour
Ski Addiction
Helping You Ski Better

Want Even More Ski Training Tips? 

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter to hear about our latest tutorials as soon as they drop.