Tcrook671

Hello, I have been reading on here since i started snowboarding, which was about 2 months ago. Since then I have gone 12 times I believe, some days half days and so forth. I finally realized that my main interest is park and freestyle snowboarding. Anyways I guess my question is does riding crazy features and big jumps happen over time or is just fear holding me back or is it i just dont have enough time on a board? I feel comfortable hitting 20 ft jumps, started to attempt 360's(I can on the ground just not off a jump). I got 50/50s down on rails/boxs/etc as well as BS boardslides, not on anything crazy though just striaght rails/boxs. I know you cant get good overnight but i keep stressing and telling myself I suck but i have no idea how long shit takes... What are some tips to master in park riding, any input is awesome!!

brucew.

stop stressing and have fun. everyone learns at different speeds so theres no "how long shit takes"

if your doing 360s and hitting 20 ft jumps after 12 times out then it sounds like your progessing just fine

Efilnikufesin

Just as some stress over going from blue to black, and black to double black/tree runs etc. you will eventually get more comfortable in the environment/style of riding you put yourself in, it just takes time and learning the muscle memory/coordination you need.

Eventually things that seem out of reach now will be easy as you put more time in, and things that seemed unobtainable will eventually be within your sights with more time and practice.

Jed

As far as progression speed goes, you're doing fine. Don't get caught into the 'bigger is better' nonsense that many kids get stuck with. Bigger is not better - more stylish and stable is better because you learn basic techniques like 'how to create rotation' that you can apply to bigger tricks while the idiots who progressed too fast are still hucking ugly, unstable rotations and end up injuring themselves.

The guys who push progression too fast are the same guys who end up in the hospital and miss 6 months of the year unable to walk. The key to fast progression is to progress without injury and get the basics mastered so you can use them to learn bigger tricks quicker than morons who try to skip past the basics to impress their friends with bigger spins on bigger jumps.

Think of the basic snowboard techniques like a jigsaw puzzle made up of 1-5 pieces. If you master the 5 pieces you can learn almost every trick in the world in a short amount of time, but if you push past them too fast you're trying to shove wrong pieces together and you end up progressing slower.

Some basics I'd suggest focusing on for your first season (roughly in order of what you should learn):

- Carving at speed and riding the whole mountain smoothly
- Decent level of switch riding (up to blues at least)
- Popping off a jump while straight airing (20 foot and under)
- Stable straight airs with a grab
- Basic 180 and 360 technique and rotation on flat ground (aka green learner runs), focusing on creating rotation using carving+pop+timing
- Taking those 180 and 360s to the smallest jumps you can find after mastering the technique on green runs

That list should be more than enough for a full season if you truly work on mastering them and not just 'kinda' learning them. Heck, most people doing full seasons won't be able to master all of that (particularly spin smooth 360s in all 4 directions - that is HARD).

Those basics are skills you will use for every single trick in the future, so it pays to get them mastered early.

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aiidoneus

Agree with snow wolf and jed completely. Focus on progressing so you are a consistent rider and not someone who thinks they can do every trick but looks like shit doing it.

Tcrook671

Wow guys, thanks a lot for all the tips! That is definitely my nature of things, which is to completely master all the steps and then moving forward. So many people that i ride with love to just hit a 15 ft jump 5 times then move to a bigger jump, whereas I like to hit that jump all day and master the little things on it. I feel like snowboarding is just like when you first started. The first day you couldn't make it down the green runs, once it was mastered the rest became easy. Im guessing its like that for most of the basics and dynamics of the sport.
But good point jed, although I can 360 reg, I can only do it frontside. Never thought of backside or goofy yet...

Master and fine tune all aspects of that dynamic before moving on!

Thanks!

FireStarter451

Thanks for the progression list.

One question about the 20 foot comment...

Does this 20 foot reference mean 20 feet of forward travel while in the air, or does it mean that the lip you are jumping off of is 20 feet above the ground?

poutanen

OP, a good rider on the rest of the mountain has the riding skills necessary to control speed and land properly in the park. Park landings aren't always clean and clear, and you need to know how to land on rough snow and then control your speed on rough snow. Savvy?

I'm pretty sure they're measured from the lip to the knuckle. Although somebody once told me they were measured from the bottom of the kicker (on the lip side, not the start of the kicker) to the knuckle.

Tcrook671

I meant 20 foot of forward travel from lip to landing. Thats how I interpreted it. All my buddies call them 20 foot gaps or 30 foot foots gaps etc..

poutanen

Not from the lip to where you land though, because that would be different every time somebody goes off it. It's from some point to the knuckle (the START of the landing area).

What it means is to safely land a 20 footer, you have to go AT LEAST 21 feet or so in the air (better to fly 25-30 feet)