Craig Kelly’s Style
I recently had the pleasure of riding in Craig Kelly’s adopted home of Nelson, BC. It has been 20 years since we lost this legend in an avalanche. The trip inspired me to learn about Craig, and as I did I discovered something interesting about his style.
“I’ve never seen anybody ride a snowboard like Craig did. He was a master of turning, and he really had his hands dialled. He either must have thought about it or been born with it.”
I’m no pro, but the way I have seen people ride and teach others to ride is with their shoulders and hips parallel to the board, hands down. The way Craig rode was completely different.
The way Craig rode was a perfect match with great surfing: he used his back arm to drive through turns. Where most people let their back arm and hand drag behind them, their shoulders and hips parallel to the board, and their but dropping into a squat, Craig did the opposite. He rode front on, with his shoulders & hips perpendicular to the board, and most noticeably…his back hand driving the turn.
Notice how both Craig and Shane’s back arm stretch completely across their body. Common in surfing, rare for snowboarders.
The only reason I caught this is because of what I learned from Chris Mills about why I suck at surfing. Chris did some video analysis for me earlier this year and pointed out why I fall so much. I’m still pretty terrible at surfing & skating, but Chris’s advice on how to use my back arm helped me level up on all board sports, including snowboarding. Chris breaks down the back arm thing very clearly… Now I see the back arm driving consistently with great surfers, and a few snowboarders, but none more than Craig.
It’s a bit less pronounced, but you can see the back hand driving on toeside turns as well.
This style is less common with snowboarders than surfers, perhaps because there has been less emphasis on turns, and more on tricks. That seems to be changing though. The folks in Japan are laying down some beautiful surf inspired lines.
Another reason why this style might not have caught on in snowboarding is the stance. If you are riding switch, you need a duck stance (positive front foot, negative back foot), and that makes it difficult to shift your hips and shoulders forward. Craig rode a famously forward stance (+27, +9) which makes sense given his front on style. Because you can move your feet around on a surfboard, it’s easy to get those positive angles on your feet.
Riding like Craig is really hard with a duck stance, but if you setup positive angles it starts to click. Jeremy Jones has been playing with this too…
In maybe the perfect test to take on Craig’s stance & style, Mikkel Bang was at Baldface recently and rode Craig’s old board for a few runs…
“I’m trying out his stance, I actually really like it. I might just change my whole riding style now.”
