#ICYMI - Snowboarding: Shreddin' the Gnar

The forecast is for snow, and hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice are hitting the slopes for a physics lesson with former pro snowboarder and soap opera star Othello Clark and veteran surfer, snowboarder and skateboard champ Dr. Bill Robertson, aka Dr. Skateboard. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Subscribe to our channels on: TuneIn: tunein.com/playingwithscience Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360 GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/snowboarding-shreddin-the-gnar/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Knobb.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. And today I think we shall all head for the slopes. So wrap up warm, grab a hat, and don't forget your gloves because the forecast is for snow. And by the time we hit the top, it will be all down here from there.

• 0:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, it's the turn of snowboarding to get the PWS treatment. And for that, we've got the band back together. And not for just science, but for the pros' eyes view from the top of the mountain.

• 0:36Gary O'Reilly?

  So it'd be welcome back to Dr. Skateboard, aka Professor Bill Robertson and former pro snowboarder and regular of the smash hit Soap the Bold and the Beautiful, Mr. Othello Clark. No, not just you and I, Chuck.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, I thought we were the Bold and the Beautiful.

• 0:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Hmm, Othello.

• 0:53Gary O'Reilly?

  So Chuck, you skateboard.

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  I, I, no. Yeah, I was gonna say, let's clear that up.

• 0:59Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  I used to.

• 1:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Snowboard?

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  Never did a snow, never, never snowboarded. Um, and the reason is, um, I don't like snow. So that's a, that's a, that puts me at a very distinct disadvantage for skiing and snowboarding, even though I, I probably would enjoy snowboarding and maybe even skiing. But I have to tell you that I just don't like snow. Even as a kid, uh, I didn't like snow.

• 1:29Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 1:29Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, except for I made money off of it. I had a snow removal service when I, from the time I was 11 to the time I was 14 and I made a crap load of money. So when I-

• 1:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you get like Homer Simpson, one of those jackets with Mr. Plow on the back?

• 1:41Chuck Nice?

  Oh, Mr. Plow. That's the name. That name again is Mr. Plow, aka Chuck.

• 1:46Gary O'Reilly?

  As long as you get to a Simpsons reference, you can't lose. All right, enough, enough of that. Dr. Skateboard, Professor Bill Robertson. Hi, Bill, how are you, sir?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Hey, Gary. Hey, Chuck. Good to be on the show again.

• 1:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, you are more than welcome.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  So great to have you back.

• 2:01Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. Let's just clear this up. Difference between skateboarding and surfing and snowboarding, and is snowboarding somewhere between the two, or is it just completely unique?

• 2:12Chuck Nice?

  And, and, and on top of that, do you do either, uh, snowboarding or surfing?

• 2:19Speaker 02

  So my background as a kid, you know, I I grew up not too far from the beach. So I first started surfing and water skiing as a kid before I got into skateboarding. So that was kind of my first background into that. And then I started snowboarding in uh in the mid eighties in Flagstaff, Arizona. And uh and so it I did figure out the differences uh between the three quickly.

• 2:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Is it quite simply take the wheels off the skateboard and head downhill? Or is there a lot more going on?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, th- there's a lot more going on. In some ways, uh the the main difference, I would say, is that, of course, you're strapped into a snowboard and you can freely jump off of a skateboard.

• 2:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  And in the other sense, what you're gonna land into primarily in snowboarding is something softer than concrete. So the uh but I think the big thing is a lot of times with skateboarding, the general way you're moving is you're sort of directing it with your front foot, whether your regular foot or goofy foot. You're sort of pointing your front foot or moving the front truck uh to get to where you're going. And then, you know, moving off the back one, but you're directing with almost with your front foot. In snowboarding, you actually do the opposite. You direct more with your back foot. So because you're going downhill the whole time, your back foot and the edge of the board acts like a rudder, if you think about it on a boat or something like that, where you're you're driving that in.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  So you really drive almost snowboarding with your back foot in some ways. And you dir- and you direct it with your back foot, whereas in skateboarding, you direct it with your front foot.

• 3:49Gary O'Reilly?

  If I were on a skateboard, which will not happen, just in case you're thinking that'd be a great idea, um your center of gravity is fluctuating to do the tricks or to do all the sort of maneuvers. And as you said before, you've got freedom away from the board. Now you are tethered, if you like, to the snowboard. How are you adjusting that center of gravity to make it work for you?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, so since you're locked into your stance, you're really having to drive your knees together. That's one of the things you do in snowboarding a lot is you kind of pinch your knees together, um, which you don't always do in, in skateboarding to keep that center straight. The other thing is you're gonna, you know, you're gonna lift that, as I mentioned, that back foot. So I'm a regular foot, that would be my right foot, and I'll, I'll throw that back foot out, you know, far away from my body, if you will, and counter it with my upper body to the, to the right or to the left to try to make turns. And so that part of, of keeping your center of gravity, you gotta keep it over the middle of your board, but sometimes, um, it's easier if you can pinch your knees in some ways together,

• 4:53Speaker 02

  um, that will help you lock that, uh, that center right over your board.

• 4:56Gary O'Reilly?

  When you're turning, you, you, if I'm turning to my right, am I not mistaken, I've seen guys, they lean right into the turn, and they're at, I don't know, almost like a forty-five degree angle. That to me just sounds wrong. It should, you, normally I'd be leaning away from this issue, but it's not. So can you explain the physics of why, when you start to carve and you lean into that turn?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, well, you gotta think about it first. You're, you're going downhill. So, you know, leaning back would be, uh, a really bad thing. In some ways, it's not as, it's not super bad because it'll just slow you down. But when you're going into a turn, you, yeah, you dig that edge of this, of the snowboard in by driving your toe side into the mountain, and so into the snow. And so you're, you're in a sense riding on the steel edge of your snowboard and, and lifting, if you will, the contact from, from the bottom. So at some point, you're, you know, you're riding as much on the steel edge as you can to go as fast as you can through a turn. And that's where you'll see people sort of, you know, turn and, and dip and get closer. Um, and, you know, that, that was the old phrase you

• 6:01Speaker 02

  used for snowboarders is, when they were turning, they were, you know, their hands were getting so close to the ground, people, you know, skiers affectionately called us knuckle draggers, you know?

• 6:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And it wasn't, it wasn't for the, it wasn't for the way you made your turns. Skiers, skiers hate snowboarders.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. It was, we looked at the mountain completely different, you know?

• 6:22Gary O'Reilly?

  So true.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  But the big thing here was that you are kind of, you know, counterbalancing, you're throwing your, your weight and, and leaning on your toe side, let's say to make a turn, and then you're counterbalancing with your arms out in front of you. So you are leaning into it and, and you're going downhill the whole time. So that's a part of how you're managing your speed.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Well, we started off, Gary asked you this question about the difference between the three. We, you know, we, we never really got to that from a physics standpoint. You're looking at traveling on three different mediums, uh, two of which are the same, just in different physical forms, and then the other being concrete. But what is the physics of the mediums upon which you're traveling for the three different sports?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, so start with surfing. I mean, and you have a, a medium that's never the same, right? So it's always changing. You're always adjusting. Um, that's sort of the, the beauty of it. You know, you're trying to lock into something that is, if you will, alive all around you. So you're, you know, the, the, so the physics are you've got something that's in, you know, chaos, right? It's changing all the time. And you've got to manage yourself with micro-adjustments or, you know, or find that flow within, uh, within that changing medium. Um, for a skateboarder, I think, you know, you can really count on, uh, the, the, the concrete. Once you understand what you're riding on and sort of the hardness or, or whatever the slickness of it, you can sort of count on, um, what

• 7:47Speaker 02

  you're going to do and, and how that's going to behave. So you can, uh, it's a much more predictable, uh, in terms of how you're going to adjust. So you probably have to make small, less small adjustments and can be more predictive in, in what you're going to do. And then snowboarding is probably a little bit of both, you know? I mean, in some ways, the, the mountain stays the same and, you know, but the, the depth of the snow and the conditions of the snow can change. So if you go from, say, powder to ice, um, you know, things can change pretty quick. So you have to be a little nimble on that. So I think in terms of the mediums, um, Surfing being the most organic, uh, snowboarding probably being the one that has the next amount of change and then skateboarding being much more predictive and then consequently you

• 8:31Speaker 02

  have probably less minor adjustments you have to make as you're moving through those sports.

• 8:36Gary O'Reilly?

  That's interesting because we're talking here about an environmental awareness. So if you go onto the water, it's not just the water surface and the changeability therein with currents, et cetera. You've got wind. Right. You've got every sort of atmosphere around you, similar with snow, similar with skateboarding, that you have to know your environment really well and intuitively before you actually get into all the rest of the enjoyment of that sport.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's for sure, you know, and when I started snowboarding, I had never snowboarded or been on the mountain at all and uh, my friends told me all about it and we drove to the mountain and rode up in the chairlift and they dropped me off at the top and said, see you at the bottom kind of thing and I had to figure it out. Um, and but what I figured out for myself was that, you know, really, snowboarding has elements of, of surfing and skateboarding completely. And so when you're driving on the mountain and you're carving, you know, in many ways it is a lot like surfing, you're trying to drive that edge of the board and use the turns and stay over your board. Um, when you're in the air, it's completely skateboarding because all your grabs are named after skateboarding grabs.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  So your mute, your Indy, your front side, your backside.

• 9:48Gary O'Reilly?

  That's right.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  And I was very comfortable when that would happen. And then when you land, it's unique. And so that was always the challenge is because suddenly you're actually landing on something that, you know, has a, is, is, can be soft or hard and then you, you're, you're in a sense going downhill. So you have to learn to react quickly, uh, either by driving your edge in front side or backside to, to gain a, a turn. So, so in some ways, you know, having started as a surfer, it helped me being on the mountain as a skateboarder, it helped me in the air, but when I landed, the only thing that helped me was practice on my snowboard.

• 10:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Nice, nice. Uh, stay with us, please. Uh, we're going to take a break. So Dr. Bill, or no, Professor Bill Robertson will be with us when we come back, AKA Dr. Skateboard. Also further forward in the show, we have Othello Clark. Yes, that man from Bold and the Beautiful, he'll be on the show too. So if you like snowboarding, this is the place to be. We will be back very, very shortly.

• 10:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back, I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. This is Playing with Science and today we're exploring the science behind snowboarding. Shoo. Just like that, that's my carving, that's me carving a mountain right there. And that's from a man who doesn't like snow. That's right, like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. As with skateboarding, it started with, let's go to the top of the hill and get to the bottom of the hill and we do a bit of slalom and everything else, but the tricks came in. How, did you get involved in the trick side of things when you started to snowboard?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely, because you know, the fun thing about snowboarding and being kind of in your bindings the whole time is you didn't really have to worry about, you know, your board getting away from you. So if you got in the air and could, you know, control yourself and control your centre of gravity and then deal with the, the lack of friction when you hit the ground, um, you were, you know, you could do a lot of things. And, and really for me, that's where my, my skateboarding background came into play because like I said, when you got in the air, you know, you could do all sorts of grabs, uh, maybe that were much easier than doing them on your skateboard because your, your feet were stuck on the board. And then going, doing things going forwards and backwards or for me going, you know, regular foot to goofy foot was a lot of fun. So you could hit a bump, you know,

• 12:07Speaker 02

  style 180 in the air, land goofy foot, go, and then hit another bump and come out and, and do that all the way down the mountain. So yes, skateboarding and the, I mean, excuse me, snowboarding and the tricks were a big draw for me in, in doing the sport.

• 12:21Gary O'Reilly?

  How did you change with the fact that you can't flip and move around the board as freely as you can on a skateboard in terms of the physics that are applied therein?

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think the main thing is you know, you're bound to your board, even though people at times will, you know, they might unhook from their board to do a, a certain kind of trick. But, you know, you, you weren't going to be able to say, do the things you do on a skateboard, like a shove it or a kickflip in, in a sense. So you were going to do things that, that did things rotationally. So we talked about centrifugal and centripetal force and moment of inertia. And so when you were spinning and Circles was sort of the the way you would do that. And so you see a lot of people doing maybe three sixty airs. You saw, you know, five forties, seven twenties. I mean, people like Shaun White, who could do ten eighties. You know, those were, that's, that's incredible. Uh, but that was another way you would do that.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  And then you also learned, people learned they could do things like flips, um, where, you know, they could spin the three sixty rotation. You know, throughout. So, so I think that was a big part of, um, you know, being able to manage the forces of centrifugal centripetal. And then keeping your arms either in or out.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  To manage your moment of inertia and to control the rate at which you spin. That's a big deal in skate, in snowboarding.

• 13:38Chuck Nice?

  So they have these great big air videos. I mean, they're just gorgeously shot. Uh, where there are two types that I've seen though. So one, the half pipe itself is built on the mountain.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:53Chuck Nice?

  And the half pipe itself, and you see this in the Olympics as well, is going downhill. So the half pipe is you, is utilizing gravity. So the half pipe becomes the gravity. But then I've seen these other videos where there's guys doing big air tricks. And it's like a regular skateboard half pipe. And they kind of get their speed up going downhill, then they go into the pipe and then they stay in the pipe going back and forth.

• 14:24Chuck Nice?

  What is the difference from a physics standpoint of the stationary, I won't call it stationary, because they're all stationary. Of the half pipe that is level and the half pipe that uses gravity. And how the, do you lose energy every single time you go back and forth in the one that is level?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  So I'll start with the first one, the, the half pipe that's at a slant where you're going downhill or something like that. You know, so you, you are, you're using the, the, the gravity pulling you down the hill. Um, it's at an angle. It's much easier for you to, to maintain speed or even to accelerate as you're going down. And if you watch riders, you know, they'll try to go cleanly on the walls, but the other thing is if they're going too slow. Um, they, they have to point themselves straight down to get up some speed again. So, so. I would think those kinds of half pipes, which were very traditional, you build it into a, a hill and you ride down the hill. You hit, you know, five times on each side and then that's your run. Um, on these other kinds of ones where they're more flat like you would on a skateboard,

• 15:28Speaker 02

  half pipe, you're gonna have to be much more efficient with your transfer of energy. So you're not gonna be able to be, if you will, sloppy in how you pump the transition as you come down and then as you pump the transition up because that's going to be all your, your momentum. So, um, so I would think that, you know, uh, riding downhill in a half pipe, much more, uh, much more rider friendly. And the other side is you're just losing so much, uh, energy each time because you're trying to, you know, generate so much power as you're going up the wall. So, uh, you know, I think moving side to side on a snowboard, um, would be very difficult, uh, if it was flat versus going downhill.

• 16:08Chuck Nice?

  Would it be possible to get a pump in a level half pipe on a snowboard?

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:16Chuck Nice?

  Where you could indefinitely maintain the back and forth? So coming out of the pipe, making your turn, okay, 180, coming back into the pipe, pump at the bottom, coming out of the pipe, i- i- would it be possible or, or do the laws of physics say no, that you're only gonna get so many out of that?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  W- well, I think that's, that's the beauty of science, right? You would say, you know, hey, is it possible? Let's give it a try and, and test a hypothesis. But my own personal opinion would be that would be extremely difficult to manage and to, to keep up because, you know, you're tending to lose so much energy, um, uh, you know, through the medium. And if it's flat, you know, you can't really pump it in the way that you do on a skateboard, um, with your snowboard because you have these edges that are driving into, that'll slow you down as well.

• 17:06Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  So I would think that, you know, uh, you know, if you watch a guy on a skateboard who can pump and go back and forth, I would think that that's much more efficient because you can, you can, again, the medium, you can kinda count on it, it stays the same. And whereas the medium on the snow, um, you know, it, it, it changes and, and your edge will change and the, your body position will change. I think if they could make a, a medium that would, you know, take- Wouldn't you wouldn't lose energy on transfer from your snowboard that it might be more efficient, but it might be really difficult uh to do to do that.

• 17:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Would you need a specific type of snow? Would it be more ice and therefore harder? Or is it is it something as simple as that with the natural condition?

• 17:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that's a good question. And even outside of that, um, what's better, ice or powder?

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, in in my mind, you know, when you're when you're riding on a snowboard, um, you know, ice can be a very difficult thing to deal with because not only is it, you know, you know, something that, you know, you think you could go faster and all this, but the the ruts that get into ice can can cause you to lose an edge. And when you lose your edge, you know, gravity takes over and and you slam and you can slam right to your knees and to your face, or you can go the other way and kind of land on your backside, which is is equally painful. So um, so ice sometimes I think is, while you might think because it has less friction, would be a more ideal um way. And half pipes, they have this sort of, you know, they they

• 18:37Speaker 02

  they get sort of a a happy medium, I think. Sometimes they don't want too much fresh snow. They want it to be kind of slick, but they don't want to be too grooved. Um, for snowboarders, though, I think people like myself, you know, if you're not riding in a half pipe, the whole attraction is uh in the powder. And so free riding and working through the trees and things like that is is more akin to, you know, powder riding, which I think in some ways may be less visually appealing to uh the general audience, but more appealing, I think, to to traditional snowboarders.

• 19:09Gary O'Reilly?

  It's interesting. Yeah, go on.

• 19:11Chuck Nice?

  I'm still holding my face, man, when he said you go to your knees and you slam your.

• 19:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  I'm like, not the face, man, please.

• 19:16Gary O'Reilly?

  All of a sudden, your face became the break.

• 19:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm like, oh, God, this is the money maker, baby.

• 19:21Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's it's interesting, Bill, because you're saying that you're one of the few sports that I think I can encounter that actually incorporates friction as part of the the whole sport itself, rather than saying we hate friction because it slows us down. You're saying we're embracing friction because we need it to do the things that we're trying to achieve.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I think that, you know, we talked about that in the sense of, you know, when you're managing the forces of thrust, you know, or your momentum with friction or drag, you know, that's how you you gain speed and by having an unbalanced force in that general direction is how you you go fast. And so in some ways, yeah, you'll see people, you know, you want a sharp edge, you want a slick bottom, and you want it to be as as high a level of of lack of friction, if you will. So there's less friction when you're working on your snowboard. And then you are managing it between sort of driving that edge, either, you know, pointing the edge into the mountain, or turning your board

• 20:22Speaker 02

  and and using the other edge to slow yourself down. So, yeah, you're right, I guess, you know, moving between moments of of high friction and low friction is how you manage yourself. So you have to really embrace friction to be successful at snowboard.

• 20:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Is there a certain board design that allows you to do that? Or is it just basically get the nearest baking tray, take it to some of the mountains, head south?

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I think they're they're generally, you know, the the snowboard industry and the designs are are quite elaborate, you know, but the basic, I think, idea is that, you know, you want something, it depends on the type of riding you're doing. But generally, let's say someone like myself, you know, who wants to be a center stance, that means I'm in the middle of my board, so I can ride equally forwards and backwards. I'm going to have a board about the length of, you know, 160 centimeters or or less, with a contact edge throughout that's a that allows me to to do turns and and things like that. So in some ways, if skateboards are kind of this general popsicle shape that they call it, snowboards have that general kind of way, too. Now, people who want to go fast,

• 21:30Speaker 02

  you know, just like in skateboarding, they're gonna, you know, make a different design that's gonna lock themselves in, maybe spread be longer so that they're they can go faster. But for the general snowboard enthusiast that who's riding maybe a center stance, they're gonna ride something that is, you know, kind of clipped at both ends, or or looks like a big skateboard with a long contact edge.

• 21:52Chuck Nice?

  Well, all I know is this, from this point forward, I am never going to look at snowboarding the same until I see Shaun White in a half pipe on a bacon sheet. So.

• 22:05Gary O'Reilly?

  Bill, you're probably familiar with the fact that Chuck likes to reinvent every single sport we bring into the show.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Every sport we bring to this show. I try to find a way to make it more interesting. And Gary just gave me the greatest idea for the Olympics ever. It's just one event within, kind of like the same way we have the decathlon. We have our half-pipe, we have our downhill, we have our slalom, we have the moguls, and now bacon sheet. Damn right.

• 22:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Absolutely. A little shake and bake on the mountain. Dr. Skateboard, he's gonna stay with us, but we are going to talk to our old friend, Othello Clark, former professional skateboarder and snowboarder turned actor. Playing with Science is back with more snowboarding. Don't go away. Welcome back, I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 22:53Chuck Nice?

  And I'm still Chuck Nice.

• 22:55Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is still Playing with Science, and this is a special treat, not just for Chuck and I, but hopefully for you. We have both Othello Clark, former professional snowboarder and actor from The Bold and the Beautiful, and of course, Dr. Skateboard. We've just been chatting before this section, and the two guys realise how much they've got in common. So, Othello, welcome back. Bill, glad you didn't go away. Thanks so much, Gary. You're welcome.

• 23:21Chuck Nice?

  Since you both do each sport, and Othello, we may have touched on this before, but I'm gonna give you guys the Sophie's Choice.

• 23:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh.

• 23:34Chuck Nice?

  As of today, you can no longer do both. You have to choose one. You can either snowboard or skateboard. And that's it. I'm an evil witch in a Disney film casting a spell upon you, and if you step on either the snowboard or the skateboard, after you make the choice, you disappear forever.

• 24:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Have you been binging on the Disney Channel again?

• 24:03Chuck Nice?

  I love the Disney Channel.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  I love the Disney Channel, what can I say? Alright, so which one? Here's your selfie's choice. What do you choose, guys? Who wants to go first?

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Doctor Skateboard, why don't you go first?

• 24:17Chuck Nice?

  Yep, okay.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  I'll go first, I'm happy to. So, thank you, Othello. So, great question, easy one for me to answer. So, I'm a skateboarder. You know, I'm gonna continue to skateboard, I'm gonna choose skateboarding. I enjoy snowboarding, you know, I lived in Colorado for a while, I lived in northern New Mexico. I live in the desert now, so skateboarding is a big part of it. But skateboarding is something I started when I was 13 years old, and it's been sort of a lifeline for me throughout. It's how I see the world, it's pretty much, you know, I look at things around the world as a skateboarder. And so, if I had to make a choice, I would always choose skateboarding, and I continue to do so.

• 24:57Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, very definitive, quite, quite decisive.

• 25:02Gary O'Reilly?

  That's a commitment.

• 25:03Chuck Nice?

  Othello, Othello, your turn to play the game, my friend.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I think I'm gonna have to agree with Doctor Dave. Oh, Doctor Dave, that's my chiropractor. Doctor Skateboard.

• 25:15Gary O'Reilly?

  You can agree with Doctor Dave if you want.

• 25:17Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  You're gonna love that plug right there.

• 25:21Chuck Nice?

  As a professional snowboarder and skateboarder, I can understand why your chiropractor is top of mind.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  He's always there, I drive past his office every day, hey, Doctor Dave?

• 25:32Speaker 03

  So, yeah, I probably agree with Doctor Skateboard. I'm a skateboarder for life.

• 25:36Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, he's got the tattoo right there.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  So, skateboarding to me, everything that I've started stemmed from skateboarding. My whole life is from skateboarding, everything, all the opportunities that have come my way have been from what from skateboarding has brought me, you know what I mean? My snowboarding I learned from skateboarding. TV shows I'm on, skateboarding brought me there. My son now skateboards, that's all I think about, so... Pretty much skateboarding, don't get me wrong, I love snowboarding, but at the end of the day, when you think of snowboarding and skateboarding, snowboarding, skateboarding, excuse me, is... What everything stems from and at the same time skateboarding. You don't need a mountain.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  You don't need five hundred dollars snowboard, thousand dollar outfit. A hundred and fifty dollars ski pass. You don't need any of that skateboard. You just need your board and wheels. And some concrete anywhere. So. To me, I think it'd be skateboarding a hundred percent.

• 26:34Gary O'Reilly?

  First love, true love.

• 26:36Chuck Nice?

  First love, true love. There you go. Okay, I want to play a little game right now.

• 26:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Another one.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Since this is a show where we marry sports and science. Don't worry, guys. I'm not going to marry you guys. You, okay, even though, thank God, we live in a country where that can now happen. Um, let me just say this. I have the sports in Othello. I have the science in you, Dr. Bill. And so what I want. Othello, you to do is give us your favorite snowboarding trick, whether it's one you can do or not. Your favorite snowboarding trick and then Doc, I want you to break down the physics behind that trick. All right? Can we do that?

• 27:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Chuck Nice?

  All right, Othello, what's your favorite trick?

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Right now, my favorite trick is probably a switch. Backside underflip.

• 27:24Chuck Nice?

  Holy crap. So go ahead and explain that, please, because I know what it is. I'm just saying.

• 27:32Gary O'Reilly?

  I'll tell the truth. I haven't a clue, but I'm gonna learn by before the end of this show. So go on, Dr. Bill.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead. I mean, go ahead. Othello, explain the trick first and then Dr. Bill, explain the physics.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  A switch backside underflip is I come up to the last jump. Um, in the part, the money booter. Um, which the money booter is where you win the money at in a big contest. So it's called money booter.

• 27:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's something. It's something else in the adult films that I watch, but go ahead.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  So I go to that last jump, you know, coming in pretty hot. And then right about twenty yards, twenty feet, twenty yards before the jump, I jump switch. Which switch means backwards.

• 28:16Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  And then I go into the jump backwards, going full speed. And then I do a back underflip, which is a front flip, but under. So instead of.

• 28:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Instead of going forward and doing the flip, I'm going backwards. So I'm doing the flip still, but I'm doing it backwards. So it's under. And then in the air, I do a one eighty and I turn back and I land forward.

• 28:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. All righty. All yours, Dr. Bill.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Um, so real quick, I wanted to ask Othello, are you regular foot or goofy foot going in?

• 28:47Speaker 03

  I going in after I hit switch, I go in regular, but I am goofy, but I ride. Most of my tricks are done switch because regular is kind of too easy now. I I try to challenge myself with everything backwards now.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Okay, wow, awesome.

• 29:01Chuck Nice?

  Little humble brag going on right there. Hey, this is what it is. It is what it is. I'm just saying, like, you know, I mean, you know, goofy is a little too easy, so, you know.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  I think that echoes also a progression that goes on in skateboarding where you're really trying to master that you can go in both directions. So I can applaud Othello for taking that approach in his snowboarding.

• 29:27Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Uh, so when he talks about it, he's he's goofy foot, he's riding down a mountain. He said he was going really fast. So he's he's pointing himself straight down, lowering himself, getting as much speed as he can. And then he says about 20, he's about 20 yards away from the jump. He does a hop, he does a 180, so he switches to a regular stance. So he's got to maintain a speed while he's making that transition, keeping that center of gravity right over the board so he doesn't hit his edge or or wobble his board so he can go right into the the money booter, as he called it. So he he rides into the money booter and then as he hits the lift, you know, he's he's lifting off of that. So he's using the lift, uh, he's gonna deal with gravity, which is gonna pull on him. And as he's flipping, you know, that's when we talked about the spinning.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  So he's managing those those forces, that centripetal force, which is, you know, pushing in on him and that centripetal force which wants to flee out, um, by probably adjusting his arms to to hold his uh, his moment of inertia intact, um, that he can go through it. And then as he comes out of the spin, he's again switching a 180. So so he's using both sort of a rotational, um, axis as well, uh, you know, up and down as well as one from the side. So he's he's making it very complex. But the big point I bet is if you watched him spin, uh, doing the flip and then doing the 180, you're gonna see that his center of gravity is very close to his board and that he can manage that,

• 30:52Speaker 02

  um, as he goes through. So if he's in a tight area with his center of gravity, you know, over his board, then then he he makes that trick every time.

• 31:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 31:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey, Othello, does that sound even better once it's broken down with the science?

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's exactly right on. Um, it it comes to a point where you get so. So used to that trick and it's so embedded in your brain and your feet and and muscle memory that I feel more comfortable going upside down than I do going straight um because I can close my eyes when I'm in the air and through experience and through doing it over and over again I can just close my eyes and do the trick and know where to land and then open my eyes and land the trick just because I've done it so much.

• 31:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Incredible. Doctor, what sort of talk is Orsello getting involved with because he's on a multi-axis here for these two tricks or this whole trick?

• 31:47Speaker 02

  So um so I think the thing he hit on that's really important is, you know, he's he's he's he's doing all this complex physics, but the other side of it is he talks about how he's just entering into this flow, this space where he's actually able to do this. And and what you see there, I think, is, you know, he's he's putting all this energy into this trick, but he's also, if you will, once he's in the trick, sort of conserving his energy um and making uh making his moves uh quite defined um and quite natural. So um this is kind of an interesting thing about the science of sports is you can break it down with all the the the physics you can, but in some ways, the guy or girl who's managing the physics, they find sort of a a way of flow, or he termed it muscle memory as well,

• 32:32Speaker 02

  but I would use the term flow, where he can kind of go, he knows the feeling and the feeling is what he's striving for rather than breaking it down through the science.

• 32:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, wow. Is that it? Go ahead, Othello. Go ahead.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  You know, you know, if I don't land the trick, I knew that I wasn't gonna land it within the millisecond after I left the ground because it wasn't right. My body tells me if, oh, my gosh, I'm about to eat it, or I got this, just because of the flow you, like Doctor Skateboard was saying, it it's a it's a a memory thing and when you got that flow going, nothing can stop you.

• 33:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Holy Max. How often do you complete a whole course feeling exactly as you've just explained?

• 33:13Chuck Nice?

  Do you ever get a perfect ride?

• 33:14Speaker 03

  I try. Do that nine times out of ten.

• 33:17Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  You know, that's the whole, you know, I just put my, I put my music on and I flow.

• 33:24Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  I tell people, you know, if there's something that you're skeptical about in your snowboarding or skateboarding, the only thing that you really can do is take a deep breath and flow like water.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Hey, man. Wait, did I just hear you say that while you're doing your run, you're actually listening to music?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I can't, I really can't ride without it.

• 33:48Chuck Nice?

  Dude, that's awesome.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  It helps, it helps for that flow. So now I'm in a zone and I forget about the mechanics of everything that I'm doing. I'm letting my body take over because I'm in that flow. And if there's a good jam on, you can expect some big banger tricks for sure.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's hot. That is hot.

• 34:04Gary O'Reilly?

  What works best, what works best in the cans for you, Othello? What works best?

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  What's your favorite song? What's your favorite song?

• 34:10Gary O'Reilly?

  What works best in the cans for you to get your?

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Oh, man. You know what? Just depends. If it's a, if it's a powder day, um, I don't know. I like to listen to some electronic music because I'm going through it fast. If it's a sunny day and everybody's out having a blast, then more than likely I'm listening to some upbeat reggae music.

• 34:30Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Got that vibe going on. I don't know if you noticed, but I have dreadlocks.

• 34:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  So.

• 34:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, now you mention it.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  That's a part of my whole life. So that's mostly what I listen to. But if I'm charging it, I go through the whole electronic scene.

• 34:44Chuck Nice?

  Well, get up, stand up. My man is doing it.

• 34:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:47Chuck Nice?

  I love it. I love it. And by the way, my song, um, when I'm going through my run, uh, I am woman, hear me roar by Helen Reddy. Thank you.

• 34:55Gary O'Reilly?

  And if it was, and if it's me, it's definitely the Beatles and it's gonna be help. Right, guys. So, thank you. We put the band back together.

• 35:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man, this is great.

• 35:05Gary O'Reilly?

  What a great snowboarding show. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Dr. Snowboard, AKA Professor Bill Robinson, and of course, the one and only Othello Clark. What a pleasure. What an absolute pleasure.

• 35:17Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 35:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Guys, thank you.

• 35:18Chuck Nice?

  Thanks so much, guys.

• 35:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 35:21Gary O'Reilly?

  You're welcome. All right. That's been Playing with Science, Chuck.

• 35:23Chuck Nice?

  Another awesome show.

• 35:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it just?

• 35:25Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm about to go hit the slopes right now.

• 35:27Gary O'Reilly?

  You do that and I'll tidy up the studio. Uh, right. That's it from our snowboarding show. Look forward to your company soon. Bye, bye, bye, bye.