When you’re first starting off snowboarding there’s a lot of things that make you worry. However, most of these things don’t actually have a huge effect on our snowboarding, at least not during the early learning stages of snowboarding.
Here’s 3 of the most common beginner snowboarding worries and why you shouldn’t lose too much sleep over them:
1) Binding angles / board settings
Snowboard gear settings like binding angles and stance widths matter, however, getting them perfect right away isn’t that big of a deal.
Try out settings that roughly fit for you and go snowboard with it. Even if you mess things up you can always do a quick settings change on the mountain.
It takes maybe 10 min on the slope to change your binding angles or stance width with the free tools that any ski resort will have available, so it’s not a big deal even if you mess it up at first.
It’s far easier to just set a rough setting and go test it out on the slopes to see how it feels. Don’t loose sleep worrying about getting your settings perfect when it’s a simple fix to change it later.
I’ve got an entire page of tuning tips here to get you started: Snowboard Waxing & Tuning Tips
2) “I need new/better gear!”
We often worry that our snowboard/boots/bindings aren’t the right piece of gear for us or even worry that we need new gear to improve our snowboarding.
In reality, you can become an amazing snowboarder on pretty average, non top end gear. In fact, I doubt having amazing top end gear with the best technology will even help you learn to snowboard much faster.
The fact is nearly all snowboard gear will do a perfectly good job of helping you learn to snowboard pretty quickly if you’re determined and willing to go put the time into learning and falling.
That little extra performance boost you get from getting better/more specialised gear only becomes noticable after you’ve learnt the basics of snowboarding.
This is why I usually recommend that most people buy a nice all-mountain setup for their first snowboard because they’ll be able to take that snowboard everywhere while they’re still discovering which parts of snowboarding they prefer.
3) “I can’t try this yet, what if I get this wrong?”
One common problem is a lot of people will put off learning a new technique or trick because they’re worried about getting it wrong.
The fact is if you’re trying a new snowboard technique or trick, you’re probably going to get it wrong the first 2-3 times anyway. However, each wrong attempt is a chance to figure out what you can fix to get it right.
I’m not saying go out there unprepared and land on your head, but rather I’m saying don’t put off having a go at a new technique just because you’re worried you can’t do it right on your first attempt.
Do you have a good idea of how to execute a technique/trick? Do you think you can land it or attempt it without getting injured? If you answered yes to both of these then you should consider giving it a go!
Remember, some of the best snowboarders are the ones who are willing to jump in there and have a go (safely!). Worrying too much about every little thing can actually slow down your progress instead of helping your snowboarding.
Getting out there to get first hand experience and time on snow can be far more valuable than constantly fixing tiny worries that probably aren’t even affecting your riding.
- Jed
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