How To Safety Slide With Magnus Granér
Adding in grabs to your jibbing is an amazing way to open up your skiing and creativity. This variation is called the Safety Slide however, you'd be forgiven for believing it's anything but safe. Fortunately, Magnus is back to show you how you can stomp this like a pro... without skiing over your hands!
If you are still working on your jibbing technique, check out our recent tutorial on How To Jib Urban Style Features!
(Narrating/Riding: @SkiManGuy - Magnus Granér. Filming/Editing: @SkiManGuy - Magnus Granér.)
Pre-requisites
The Safety Slide is an intermediate jibbing trick which requires a good familiarity with:
- Hitting Rails.
- Balancing.
- Safety Grabs
As this trick brings all of these components together, ensure you have good confidence with each of these areas before pushing forwards with this tutorial.
So Much Style From Magnus
Where To Start?
Begin by finding a feature in which you are already comfortable with and practice hitting it a couple times to warm up. This trick is best broken down into the following three learning phases; Grabbing after landing, grabbing the 'Pre-Safety' and learning to add extra style.
Lets break it down!
The Grab After Landing
Committing to jumping onto a rail with Safety already grabbed takes some serious kahunas! This is why we suggest that your first step is to jump onto your chosen rail as usual. Only once you are sliding the rail in a controlled manner, reach down by bending at the hips for the Safety grab.
When reaching down for Safety, avoid crouching your legs. Keep them strong and instead, use your upper body to reach down for the grab. As Safety Sliding becomes more and more natural, be sure to continue challenging yourself by reaching for Safety as soon as possible after landing on the feature.
Reach down with your upper body and keep your legs strong!
The Pre-Safety Grab
Now that you have managed to master the muscle memory and balance for holding Safety while sliding a rail, it is time to take this trick further and complete it! The aim here is to progress to the point in which you are able to jump and grab Safety before you land on the rail.
Confidence and commitment are the crucial elements in bringing this together because you'd be forgiven if you are worried about landing on your hand. Beating the reflex which is telling you to remove your hand right before landing is tough but by practicing this with your Tramp Skis and Jib Bar, you can perfect this muscle memory with less risk!
How good does the Pre-Safety look!
Styling It Out
So now you're looking to add even more style to the Safety Slide? Add extra steeze while sliding by reaching for the grab by bending your knees and leaning back into a tail press! If that isn't enough for you, then it's time to switch up your Safety grab to a Truck Driver!
Leaning back into the Safety Slide
Keen to see more tutorials from Magnus Granér? See what he has to say in his How To Backslide Tutorial.
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.