3 Reasons Why Being Scared Is Good For Your Snowboarding

Being scared is good, if not great for your snowboarding. This isn’t because being scared instantly makes you stomp 1080s off 70 foot jumps, but rather because being scared means you’re on the right path to becoming a better snowboarder.

Now, I’m not saying that being so scared you lose concentration and injure yourself is good, rather I’m saying that being scared is normal and healthy for you and can be a sign that you’re doing things correctly.

Here’s what I mean:

1) Being scared means you’re outside of your comfort zone

You remember that scared but excited feeling you had when trying to go down your first blue run? You don’t get that anymore. Once you’ve mastered something and become comfortable, there’s no fear.

If you’re feeling fear, it means you’re learning something new or something that you haven’t mastered. This is good. Now, don’t go out and do something too far above your skill level, but you should be feeling scared once in awhile if you want to improve.

2) Conquering fear breeds confidence

How did you feel the first time you landed that one trick or the first time you made it down a blue run? It felt great didn’t it? That feeling is confidence and the more you conquer your fear the more confident you’ll become of your own abilities.

Guys like Shaun White wake up every day knowing they can stomp that magical run because of all the fear and obstacles they’ve conquered to get there. They’ve faced hundreds if not thousands of scary situations and they’ve come out on top.

That’s how you build real confidence and you can’t conquer fear without feeling fear first.

3) It lets you know when to concentrate

Compare the concentration it takes for you to go down a mellow green run versus taking a lap through the terrain park. You concentrate a lot more when faced with potentially dangerous and scary situations.

If I put you in front of a park feature that makes you scared, you’re going to concentrate far more to make sure you don’t screw up. Fear is healthy. Fear let’s us know that we need to have our head in the game or we’re going to get hurt.

At the end of the day, it comes down to how we use that fear. We ALL feel fear when we snowboard. Don’t let that fear overcome you and hinder your snowboarding.

The key is to take that fear and use it to know that not only can you overcome it, but you can use it to make yourself a better rider.

- Jed

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