Firstly, hi… I’m still alive, I’ve just been busy behind the scenes with our private snowboard freestyle members answering questions and adding more video tutorials to our members only trick tip tutorial library (if you’re not a member you can check our some free video lessons and join here).
I did record episode 2 of the Snomie podcast, but someone *cough* JP *cough* has a habit of tapping his hand on the mic constantly and I had to scrap that recording due to constant loud tapping sounds throughout the whole podcast, so we’ll be recording that session again.
Anyhow, I thought I’d do a quick blog about a snowboard topic that kind of annoys me… the lie about snowboard trick tips.
Why 9/10 snowboard trick tip videos are worthless
Since I got into the trick tip tutorials niche, I get asked a lot about why I don’t create more advanced trick tip snowboard tutorials beyond our current snowboard trick tip videos on basic tricks.
After all, current members will notice I always stick to the basics in my tutorials.
- 180s, 360s, basic butters, 50/50s, boardslides
Everything else I teach is just drilling down even more into those tricks and teaching other aspects of snowboard freestyle designed to help you land those basic tricks better.
There’s the reason why… you don’t need advanced trick tutorials and advanced trick tutorials are worthless to 99% of snowboarders learning freestyle.
1) Advanced trick tutorials do nothing for 99% of people who can’t even land consistent 360s
How many people reading this now will benefit from an advanced jib tutorial teaching you how to 270 onto a box, switch up 180, switch up 180, then 270 out of a box? Not many. Most people can’t even land a 360 consistently on a 10 foot jump, much less do fancy rotation combos on a box.
And yet those type of advanced tutorials are what more and more sites popping up everyday are creating.
They realize that to get more hits, more sales and more traffic, the easy route is creating more trick tip tutorials… but the problem is those tutorials rarely benefit the people watching them.
They watch them and think “That’s cool… but I can’t even do the basic tricks leading up to this yet” or “I want to do that one day, but not yet..” Screw that, what good is wishing you can do something when you’re still struggling with learning the basics.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather learn and focus on basics like 180s and 360s and get that mastered first instead of watching tutorials I can’t use and wishing I could do those bigger tricks.
I’ve probably said it a hundred times on Snomie, but the percentage of freestyle riders who can even land basic tricks consistently is so small that most trick tip videos are just clickbait that won’t help you at all because you’re still struggling with the basic tricks.
2) If you’re ready to do advanced tricks you’ll already know how to do them
Here’s a big thing most beginner freestyle riders don’t realize… everything beyond those basic tricks are just a combination of the same basic tricks.
Want to 270 on and 270 off a box? Great, just start the same technique as a 360 rotation, then land on the box, continue into another 360 at the end of the box… and if you have basic jibs and basic 360 spins mastered I bet you’ll actually be able to land 270s on/off within a day or two of trying them.
You simply don’t need advanced tutorials if you master the basics properly because the basics are what make up every advanced trick and you’ll quickly realize that once you move past a certain level in your snowboarding.
Do you think pro snowboarder Torstein Horgmo needs someone to tell him how to add another 180 to his latest trick? Of course not, he takes the same technique he mastered for basic 180s and 360s and puts together another 180 at the end of his current trick.
That’s why advanced trick tip tutorials are useless. The people they are designed for already know how to do the advanced trick and the people who can’t benefit from them are the ones watching them thinking it’ll help them while they still struggle with the basic tricks leading up to the advanced trick.
Why Snomie tutorials refuse to go ‘advanced’
So here’s my goal with trick tip tutorials. I’m not aiming to pump out a ton of tutorials you don’t need. I’m aiming to be laser focused on the basics and combining it with what you need.
The only ‘advanced’ tutorials I want to do are advanced tutorials for mastering BASIC tricks.
For example, with most snowboard spin tutorials, people create them like this:
- 180s
- 360s
- 540s
- 720s
- etc. etc.
However, number 3, 4 and 5 aren’t useful when most people get stuck at 180s and 360s and just dream about learning those bigger tricks.
Instead, with Snomie tutorials I always aim to build them like this:
- Detailed tutorials on basic tricks (eg: 180s/360s)
- Advanced tutorials on skills that aid you in mastering basic tricks
- Feedback and ability to ask questions on basic tricks
- Coaching and rider analysis to get you landing those basic tricks
To me it seems pretty obvious that helping people with the basics is far more important than cranking out another tutorial on an advanced trick that no one is ready to do yet.
If I make a new trick tip video, it always has to pass the test with me. I have to be able to say “Yes, this is a trick tip people will use, not just watch and wish they could do the trick.”
I aim to make it so that when I’m done, you won’t need me anymore because you’ll KNOW how to move on to the advanced tricks. You won’t need that advanced jib tutorial when I’m done because hopefully if I did my job correctly you’ll know how that advanced jib breaks down from your basic tricks.
There’s zero point having 500 advanced trick tip tutorials when 99% of riders can’t use them, so why not focus on actually getting people mastering the trick tip tutorials they do have and master those basics properly.
I’d rather have 1,000 snowboarders able to stomp smooth 360s, then 10,000 snowboarders still stuck on 360s while watching advanced tutorials they can’t do yet.
– Jed
ps – If you are interesting in joining the Snomie Snowboard Trick Secrets member’s area with all our trick tip tutorials and training + coaching, you can get started here with our free snowboard tutorials.