When you learn to snowboard you make a commitment before you begin whether you will ride regular or “goofy.” Goofy means you place your right foot in front. As the name suggests, goofy footers are the minority. Since snowboard bindings must be fixed in place for regular or goofy foot, somebody who doesn’t know whether they are goofy will more likely start out regular (because its the best guess and because most rental boards will be setup for regular foot.) Even if they are naturally goofy, once they invested a day learning, they are unlikely to switch and try it out and so may never know.
A surfboard is foot-neutral. Anybody can ride any given surfboard whether they are regular or goofy. And jumping up on a surfboard for the first time happens so fast that you have no time to even think which foot is going forward. So a surfer is very likely to find his natural footing early on, unless he learned to snowboard already in which case he will naturally jump to the footing he is used to.
We should be able to see the effect of this by comparing a regular-foot snowboarder who first learned to surf with a regular-foot surfer who first learned to snowboard. The first guy is going to be better at snowboarding than the second guy is at surfing.
What will be the comparison for goofies?
Cheap Talk 
8 comments
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December 11, 2009 at 8:34 am
Brandon
Several points: a) there are several unscientific “tests” to determine a beginning snowboarder’s dominant foot (e.g., push them from behind and whichever foot they step forward with should be the one in front); b) if the test is wrong, it usually takes less than half a run for even the greenest of snowboarders to realize when they’ve selected the wrong foot forward; c) most snowboards are effectively bi-directional – deviation from perpendicular is usually less than 10 degrees – so if you’ve selected the wrong foot forward you can ride the snowboard backwards (known as riding fakie) without much cost (loss of enjoyment) until you reach the bottom of the run (moreover, anyone who would be considered “good” on a snowboard is able to ride it both directions without a third party noticing a difference).
All this to say: the selection of the foot forward in snowboarding actually isn’t much different than surfing. Further, a beginner in both sports is a beginner. A good snowboarder can ride either foot forward, so if she were to begin surfing any differences in “foot selection” would likely be indistinguishable from noise in most measurements. So, in reality, you won’t “see” any difference.
December 12, 2009 at 10:42 am
jeff
if so, then the proportion of surfers who are goofy should be the same as the proportion of snowboarders that are goofy. this could be easily checked.
December 11, 2009 at 10:25 am
Lyle_s
I agree. The question would have been more interesting 20 years ago, when boards didn’t really accomodate riding fakie very well and the front foot angle was more like 45 degrees.
December 11, 2009 at 10:25 am
Tim Randall
I would have thought that skateboarding was a more relevant test for most snowboarders. I’d expect there to be more of an overlap in the cultures, for starters, making testing much more feasible.
December 11, 2009 at 12:11 pm
ABell
You’re supposed to run and jump landing perpendicular to your path, that let’s you know. Also, most left foot dominate people are goofy, footed and otherwise.
December 11, 2009 at 11:35 pm
James Lee
Pick Goofy up by his left ear and spin his body clockwise. If he starts to bark, then he’s really Goofy. But if he starts to quack, then it’s probably Donald in a dog costume.
Ok…to play along…a goofy snowboarder who first learned to surf is going to be better at snowboarding than a goofy surfer who first learned to snowboard. The first guy became goofy because he’s a natural goofy. But the second guy may not be a natural goofy because he could be one of those who happened to learn to snowboard on one of those few rental boards that were set up for goofy. So the second guy could’ve been a regular who was accidentally converted to be goofy.
December 23, 2009 at 12:37 am
Anonymous
I snowboard goofy, however I surf natural. Weird
February 17, 2010 at 6:40 am
New boarder
Boarded for the first time in Japan last week and found goofy my preferred stance when I also surf natural! I agree it is weird!