Flatland freestyle tricks help develop basic riding skills that can serve you in almost every discipline.

Among the most basic tricks is the wheelie, which, of course, borrows its name from skateboarding. The trick is simplicity itself: The rider shifts his weight over the nose or the tail of the board and balances in that position.

Once the nose and tail wheelie are mastered, you can advance the trick by performing it while riding on a rail, transferring from a wheelie to an "ollie" (boosting off the tail into the air) or a "nollie" (boosting off of the nose into the air). You also can improvise nose and tail spins performed from a wheelie.

To learn this trick, I teamed with Jason Schetrompf of the Vail Ski and Snowboard School.

To learn the wheelie, first find a gentle slope. The first wheelie to practice is the tail wheelie, which generally comes easier. To raise the nose off the ground, you need to stiffen the front leg so that it acts as a fulcrum. As you stiffen your front leg, bend the rear leg and begin to raise your front leg into the air while leaning backward. This motion disobeys a basic rule of riding, that of not getting into the "back seat." Trust that the tail of the board will support you.

As you lean backward, your body tends to twist, causing you to place more weight on the heelside of the board. Moving your leading arm across the body will help to counteract the force of torque that will want to pull you off a straight line.

Your equipment can help or hinder the amount of height you can achieve in the wheelie. If you have a stiff board or a short board or if you are a light rider, you will find it harder to really flex the board and get the nose high off the snow. A flexible board will yield a more impressive wheelie.

Notice in the photo that Schetrompf achieves a very steep backward lean. His spine is curved above the waist, with the body leaning forward slightly to counteract the tendency to weight the heels.

Also, his leading arm is crossed over the body and the trailing arm is backward and relaxed. Eyes are forward, looking in the direction that the board is traveling. Once you've got the nose up in the air, the trick is to try to extend the wheelie for a long distance - that's where balance and practice come in. Work to go 10 feet, then 20 feet or more.

Once you have the tail wheelie down, you can practice the same stunt on the nose. Because the nose is generally shorter than the tail, it is a bit harder to get a good flex to the board, so don't expect to get the board as high off the ground.

In the nose wheelie, you will keep the rear leg straight and bend the front knee. Again, the forward arm comes slightly across the body to compensate for torque and the rear arm acts as a balancing aid. Keep the head up and eyes forward to maintain a straight line of motion down the slope.

Schetrompf shows how the wheelie can be adapted into other tricks, in this case a backside tailspin. He sets up for the trick by carving a backside turn, then transferring his weight to the tail as though doing a tail wheelie. In the picture, you can see his forward arm coming behind the shoulder to direct the force of the turn onto the uphill edge. Maintaining the tail wheelie, he brings the nose up and around, spinning 360 degrees on the tail.