If you want to get good at freestyle and park riding, you should spend a lot of time in the park right? Well yes, but not ALL your time.
On a snowboard forum, another snowboarder who is very determined to improve his freestyle tricks was asked what he usually rode at the resort. This was his response:
good conditions = park
bad conditions = park
foggy = park
pow = the closest un-groomed run to the park, and park
Honestly, that’s too much park, even for a park focused rider and unfortunately I think a lot of people trying to improve their park skills fall into this trap. They think just because they want to get better at park it means they have to ride park 100% of the time.
However, that’s not how it really works.
Why you need to ride outside the park to improve your park skills
There are a lot of skills that you are far easier to develop outside the park. Steep chutes, tight tree runs, carving steep open runs. Mastering and riding that terrain WILL help a park rider, because it adds to your overall snowboard control.
- It’s possible to practice carving in the park, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to practice it on a groomed run.
- It’s possible to practice small tight turns in the park, but it’s a heck of a lot easier (and more fun) to practice it while flying through a tight tree run.
- It’s possible to practice switch riding in the park, but it’s a heck of a lot easier on an open run.
What I’m getting at is you never want to become a rider that’s so focused on ‘park skills’ that you forget that many snowboard skills that help you ride park are skills that are best learnt outside the park.
Trust me, I’m a big park guy myself. I spend 90% of my time lapping the park. However, I still force myself to ride outside the park on the odd occasion to make sure I’m keeping my overall snowboard skills from getting rusty.
Who knows, maybe you’ll even find out that tight tree runs on a powder day are insanely fun…
- Jed
|
 |
I agree 100%. My second season I just tried to ride park and was disappointed in my progress. The next season I just rode the whole mountain and practicing tricks off natural, less predictable features was the key for me. When I went back to the park, everything seemed easy. It’s like playing a video game on easy setting, then switching to hard, then switching back to easy.
That’s right Charlie, riding natural freestyle features tend to be more difficult because it’s harder to predict how the run-in, the jump and the landing feel if you’re going down those natural features for the first time.
The park is always nicely shaped and the features are more predictable which is good for repetitive training, but bad for becoming all round snowboarder that can tackle various situations.
If you train for weeks/months on the same rail for a trick, then you will probably feel unsure on another rail with a slightly different run-in, angle, etc even though you can do the trick perfectly on the first rail. Mixing it up is the best.
I also try to hit as much natural freestyle features (especially as 180-360 training). One day a section of the slope can contain an amazing jump or lip, and the next day it can be gone or be changed in shape.