On skate: февраля 2012

This article is my attempt to help my friends to learn how to snowboard. I found the original post few years ago when were learning snowboarding basics. For those of you who know Russian the original self-teacher book is here. In addition I've found a lot of English resources while writing this post and figuring out proper snowboarding terms.
For those of you who know English only (or any other languages except Russian) here you go.

My translation contains only essential moments from the original post. Google Translate may help you to understand the whole book ;)

There are two types of stance-direction used by snowboarders. A "regular" stance places the rider's left foot at the front of the snowboard. "Goofy", the opposite stance direction, places the rider's right foot at the front

The basic concept of snowboarding is moving your weight (center of mass (CoM) or center of gravity) from one side of snowboard to another in order to control it movements.

Uphill edge - the edge of snowboard that is on the uphill side of a slope, downhill edge - on the downhill side of a slope. Toe edge - the edge of snowboard where your toes are, heel edge - where heels are. Working edge - the edge on snowboard that you're moving on.

Basic tips:

1. Always move on edge. If snowboard is moving on flat you cannot control it (it's the same as riding a bike without hands)
2. Edging is the only way to stop.

3. Never move your downhill down until you completely stopped. Otherwise, you'll catch an edge.

Exercise 1 - Sliding (Sideslipping)

Animated examples: Heelside, Toeside

In this exercise you should control your board with ankles and don't move your body. Just moving your heels(toes) up and down you can stop and accelerate.

Exercise 2 - Traversing.

Animated examples: Heelside, Toeside

This exercise helps to feel what you should do to stop. Move your lead leg forward - the board start moving, move your weight to the back leg (push the back leg forward) - the board stopping.

Exercise 3 - Falling leaf

Animated exercise

This exercise helps to understand that if you do not move your weight, board always moves along the curve.

Exercise 4 - Changing edges

Сhanging edges is the last but one of the most important things you should learn. Without changing edges the phrase "I can snowboard" is not true.

The goal is to be on the flat as short as possible. Your body should cross the middle line without stopping... if you stop, go back to the starting position and try again.

For most people changing from heel edge to toe edge is more easy... start with the easy one.