How To Ride In The Buttering Position

You may know the basic body position required to Butter on your snowboard, but do you know how to keep that position while riding? Learn how to execute stylish butters now!

This is part two in our six part, Basics Of Buttering series. To get this entire series now make sure you join our Snowboard Tutorial Membership, and if you need the part one refresher, we wrote a blog on this below:

• Basic's Of Buttering - Step 1

(Narrating/Riding: Nev Lapwood. Film/Edit: Adison MacDonald. Filmed At: Whistler Blackcomb)

Step 1

Find a gentle slope, somewhere without lots of people, and try to project your weight toward the nose and tail of your board. 

Leaning back = Tail Press. Leaning forward = Nose Press.

As you do this, try to keep your board as flat as possible by staying off your toe and heel edge. If you begin to lean onto your toe or heel edge, your board will start turning, making it very difficult to remain stable while buttering.

Stay off those edges.

Fall Line

To ride in the buttering position, you'll want to be following what we call the fall line. The fall line is the most direct line down a slope. If you were to roll a ball downhill, the fall line is the line that the ball will take.

Follow that ball fool!

Back Knee

While buttering, pay attention to what's happening at your back knee. Is your back knee bending inwards like this:

Don't let that back knee tuck inwards.

Or is your back knee staying in line with your foot and bending out over the toes? Keeping your knee facing out will give you better stability and control.

Keep that knee facing out.

The Nose Butter

It's significantly harder to ride in a Nose Butter position because you have to project a lot of weight downhill into the direction you are riding. This causes many riders to use an awkward body position, where they bend over from the hips.

"No Ben Dover, you're not welcome here".

To correct this, you must shift your weight forwards from the hips and move them outside your front knee and foot. This is what allows the board lift off the ground and will lock in the Nose Butter position.

When buttering, what you're aiming for is your Nose or Tail to only lift up about 10cm/4 inches.

Remember, it's all in the hips. Move those hips out past your knee and project that weight forward or backward to get some nice stylish Nose and Tail Butters going!

Want Even More Training Tips?

Alex McCann
Snowboard Addiction
Our Goal Is To Improve Your Riding