Canting. Sounds technical doesn't it? Like you have to have worn either a GS suit or a name tag that says snowboard store employee before you're allowed to use the word. The truth is that canting is a fairly old concept that is actually simple to understand, yet can be very dramatic in its effects. But canting's role in snowboarding has gone through an evolution, with freestylers, racers, and freeriders alike. Similar to the theory of asymmetry, the theory of canting has changed as snowboarders have changed the standards of riding.

What exactly is canting? Canting is the lateral, or side-to-side angulating, or tilting of your boot or binding. Canting is usually achieved with an aftermarket device that typically consists of a sloped platform, or wedge that you mount to your board underneath your binding. Canting is sometimes erroneously called beveling which is actually a custom edge sharpening practice, and is totally unrelated to canting. Canting is also not the front-to-back lifting of the toe or heel.

Cants came about when people looked to the world of skiing for a way to improve the comfort and effectiveness of their riding. Racers originally used cants to help center their body between their feet and to help make riding in hard shelled boots more natural. Freestylers formerly used cants to help tweak nose oriented aerial tricks. It is important to note that the popularity of canting was born in the days when carvers stood more across the board; they needed something to make facing forward more comfortable.

The next step in the evolution of canting came when Alpine riders started riding with steeper binding angles and asymmetric Alpine boards became the new technological must-have. While the angles got steeper, the cants stayed the same. This presented a new problem, where the cants that used to point towards the middle of the board were now pointing significantly towards the side of the board as well. Would-be carvers back knees were awkwardly and unstably locked into the back of their front knees, forcing a host of brand new bad carving habits to arise.

Finally, with the advent of 360 degree freedom of binding angle adjustment, cants have settled upon a circular wedge shaped disk design that slopes only along the long axis of the snowboard. These are a vast improvement since no canting takes place towards the side of the board anymore. Cants are used mainly by Alpine carvers and freeriders; freestylers have abandoned cants for the close-to-the-board feel and unidirectionality.

There is a new theory in the school of binding tilting that goes hand in hand with the new symmetrical carving technique, and it just may help you get over that hump or plateau in your Alpine abilities. Much like symmetrical carving boards, this technique is beneficial to anyone riding with angles greater than 45 or 50 degrees.

The setup involves a toe lift, not cant, for the front foot, a heel lift for the back foot, and a slight outward canting of the back foot. The bindings should be mounted parallel, such that no part of your boots or bindings protrude past the edge of the board when you view the board on the floor from above. Some people, including Mark Fawcett, even ride pigeon-toed, with their back foot angled more than the front foot. But if that sounds like contortionist snowboarding, parallel is always a good choice. A parallel stance unifies your lower body and helps your legs work together. With a splayed stance, your legs and joints fight each other, and your efforts are less efficient.

But how do these new cants work? The toe lift under the front foot helps to compensate for the forward lean built into all hardboots and ski boots. Forward lean in a boot is good because it is natural for your ankle to bend that way when your knees bend. But if you ride without a lift, that forward lean causes an uncomfortable and unstable situation where both your legs are tilting forward, and your whole lower body is cocked awkwardly out towards the nose of the board. The toe lift brings you back to a more natural, comfortable position and your knees are more able to naturally adjust to the terrain and the carve. The heel lift on the back foot works with the toe lift to augment the effect. Heel lift also enables you to comfortably use a slightly wider stance, which can improve stability at speed and increase the effects of fore and aft weight adjustments throughout a carve. With narrower stances, the heel lift may not be necessary, and the forward lean or softness of a boot may be enough.

The most radical feature of this setup, and the newest idea in canting is the slight outward canting of the back foot (outward meaning to the right and tailward for a regular foot, and to the left and tailward for a goofy foot). One of the big advantages of the whole toe/heel lift technique is that it lets your knees stay more naturally apart and somewhat side-by-side rather than one jammed in behind the other. The outward rear cant takes this idea one step further by actually bringing the rear knee slightly farther away from the front one. When looking at a snowboarder carving a toeside turn from the front with this cant in place, both knees will actually be visible.

Conventional cants, while better than older cants, still lead to that popularized method of carving with the knees stuck together. When the knees are together, they become a single point of support, and the body teeters precariously on top of it. With the new system of lifts and the slight outward rear cant, the knees are free to act independently and naturally. The benefits of this cant are noticed mainly on toeside carves. Carve initiation is executed with far greater ease, and a level, upright, quiet upper body is maintained. No longer will you have to inefficiently tilt your shoulders into the hill to get the board angled, the setup allows you to initiate your toeside carve from your center of gravity down, where you should.

This setup is the next step in binding alignment, and binding manufacturers will soon be enhancing the adjustibility of bindings to include these planes. Some, like CAT, already have. The notion of canting the rear foot slightly outward may seem counterintuitive, but you will know it works when you feel it. Using these lifts and the slight cant is all part of the concept of making your stance more natural, comfortable, stable, and conducive of the modern symmetrical Alpine riding and racing style. It will also hopefully shed light on the joys of hardboot carving by disproving the misconception that a hardboot setup is too restrictive or uncomfortable.

If your Alpine setup feels at all awkward or unforgiving at times, or you feel that your carving ability has reached an impasse, try this setup and feel how much better and more fun carving can be!