First, thanks are in order to whomever gave me the recommendation to find an indoor carpet to learn to board on -- I found a place in Bellevue called Mini Mountain and the four lessons I've taken have been like night and day compared to my attempt at Wintergreen back in February. I can actually stand up and side slip on my heel, have decent balance for sort of easy turns (although the guy pointed out that on a real mountain I'd be going way faster unless I can bring my traverse angle a lot closer to perpendicular to the slope), and I can do a heel side 180 from a normal stance (but so far I keep bailing if I try it from goofy).

But the other thing I keep bailing is kick turns -- it's really counter-intuitive to me to kick my back foot forward and then smoothly end up on my heel edge, so on the carpet I'm constantly starting the turn and then either pitching forward or panicking, overcorrecting, and tumbling backward. Any logical tips about how the weight is moving that might help, or is this just one of those things that I'm going to have to do a lot/fall a lot until I work it out?