Freestyle for All-Mountain Riders: 5 Simple Park Skills to Add to Your Line

by Jordan Darcy

You don’t have to live in the terrain park to ride with style. Freestyle isn’t about becoming a comp kid or sending triple corks off a 60-footer. It’s about expression, flow, and control taking your line and making it yours.

Whether you're dropping cliffs, surfing pow, or threading trees, adding a few park skills to your tool belt levels up your riding everywhere on the mountain. Here's how to dip your boots into freestyle, even if you're mostly a freeride soul.

Why Every Rider Should Learn Freestyle Basics

• Better board or ski control

• More confidence in the air

• Stylish transitions in side hits, trees, and natural terrain

• Unlocks your creativity and redefines “the line”

  
  

Freestyle isn’t a different discipline—it’s the language of style in every type of riding.

Skill 1: The Ollie (and Nollie)

It’s basic, but it’s everything. A clean ollie gives you air control, helps you pop off rollers and drops, and adds punch to your ride.

How to Ollie (Boarders):

• Load your back leg, press the tail, and snap the nose up

• Stay centered in the air

• Land with knees soft and eyes looking forward

  
  

Skiers = Pop with Both Feet:

• Flex your skis and push evenly through the balls of your feet

• Use your ankles and knees to explode upward, keeping your tips level

  
  

Next Step: Learn to nollie, press off the nose instead. Adds flavor to transitions and butters.

Skill 2: 180s (Frontside & Backside)

Nothing will teach you board/ski awareness faster than spinning 180s on mellow hits. It’s the intro to air control and switch riding in one move.

Start on rollers, knuckles, or side hits, no park feature required.

• Approach flat-based and controlled

• Wind up gently and release your rotation just off the lip

• Spot your landing and stay low to absorb the impact

  
  

Focus on:

• Keeping your upper body aligned

• Not over-rotating

• Landing switch (so you’re learning both ways of riding)

Skill 3: Butters and Nose Presses

Butters are like the wheelies of snow. Stylish, playful, and totally functional in pow, groomers, or natural features.

How to Butter (Snowboard):

• Shift your weight over the nose or tail

• Flex your board and use your core to balance

• Add rotation for ground tricks (like nose rolls or surface 180s)

  
  

How to Press (Ski):

• Weight forward on the tips or back on the tails

• Use momentum from a turn or feature

• Keep your center of mass over your press—not behind it

  
  

Butters teach edge finesse, body awareness, and terrain playfulness.

Skill 4: Grab Control (While in the Air)

Even a straight air looks dope with a solid grab.

Start with:

• Mute, indy, safety, or tail grabs

• Focus on balance—don’t reach until you’re stable in the air

• Keep your knees up and your eyes on the landing

  
  

Why It Matters: Grabbing your board/skis teaches control and balance mid-air. It’s a simple way to turn basic jumps into stylish statements.

Skill 5: Riding Switch (Everywhere)

You saw this one coming. We’ve covered riding switch already but now, it’s about doing it everywhere.

• Approach side hits switch

• Land tricks switch

• Ride out of pow stashes or cliff drops switch with control

  
  

Freestyle lives in flow. Being able to ride, spin, and butter switch opens up your entire mountain like a canvas.

Bonus: Where to Practice (Without Getting Snaked in the Park)

• Side hits off groomers

• Rollers and knuckles

• Cat tracks with little bumps

• Natural drops and wind lips

• Wide open greens where you can play without pressure

  
  

You don’t need a park pass or to drop into a full jump line. The mountain is your park, once you know how to use it.

Final Thoughts: Style is Substance

The best riders aren’t just the ones who go big. They’re the ones who make it look effortless. And that comes from freestyle flow even if you’re not a “park rider.”

So start small. Ollie over a shadow. Butter into a side hit. Spin off a roller. Then watch how your riding evolves from “functional” to flowing.

Because style isn’t extra, it’s essential.