I like to keep the snowboard tips short and sweet once in awhile because it gives you something you can go out and do right away, so let’s do a quick one today.
If you’re going to practice your snowboarding, don’t blindly practice
What I mean by this is don’t just blindly pick a snowboard technique and try it 500 times hoping to somehow get it to work. That’s a stupid, inefficient way to learn snowboarding, and if you’ve read this blog before you know I’m all about efficient, smart snowboarding.
People blindly practice because it’s easy. It’s not hard to decide “I want to try 180s today!” and blindly huck yourself 100 times off a small jump hoping to land a 180.
Unfortunately, this is what I see most people doing. They practice blindly and see horribly slow progress and wonder why it’s not working.
Practice with a plan and focus
Practice makes perfect WHEN you have a plan. For example, if you want to learn to hit jumps, then go do it, however, do it with a plan.
Decide exactly what part of learning to hit jumps you want to focus on that day. Think about what areas of jumping you’re having trouble with and focus on them.
Stop before each attempt and think through your technique. Think through what’s not working and what you need to focus on to get it right.
Use that beautiful brain of yours to think through and plan through what you need to work on each attempt instead of blindly practicing without thinking.
The bottom line
People don’t practice properly because it’s harder. It’s easy to switch your brain off and just try a random technique 500 times while hoping to see progress.
However, if you want REAL progress that you can see, switch that brain back on and practice with a plan. Think through technique, find your weak spots, practice exactly what you need to be practicing.
It takes effort and it takes time and you can’t blindly practice this way, but it gets results and you will improve your riding if you practice with purpose and a plan.
- Jed
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yeah, totally agree, but also difficult to do when you are alone, and / or not filmed.
it gives a huge help to “practice” with a friend that would be able to understand and give you another point of you of what your are doing wrong.. someting you are so focus on what to do , the technique you must have that your brain does not have enough space to analyse what you did wrong and correctly “see” what you have to improve to master the trick… friends or video is the best way to see your mistakes and figure them out , as you clearly have a better picture of what is wrong…
that is also difficult to manage as everyone whant to have fun in the park , and most of the time, no one want to be the guy who’s on the side , filming or analysing your movement….
Yeah, good help is always a plus. I’m definitely lucky in that most of the guys I ride with are instructors, so it’s a lot easier for us to talk to each other about techniques and snowboard mechanics.
I’m playing with the idea of leaving a GoPro at a certain jump all day as I lap the park – I think that’s one way to get decent self footage to analyse later.
hoping you still find your cam at the end of the day… sadly such products are kinda theve’s paradise, as snowboard when you’re having a drink ( that’s why i always have my locker on me ) , in france… don’t know how what is the beheaviour with canadian peoples… hoping that everyone do respect much more your personnal stuff over there…
Yeah, it’s definitely one of those things where it depends where you are.
Thankfully, the XL park in Whistler is roped off and it’s pretty much just locals and random pros in there, so it’s pretty safe to leave gear around. I definitely wouldn’t do it in a lot of other parks with people I don’t trust though.
This one is off topic:
I also carry a lock, especially when in France. In Austria I’m more relaxed and this year is the first time I left my gear the whole week unattended and unlocked when going for a drink of something to eat. But I’m thinking of using the lock again because I’m starting to grow fond of my little Lucy