Suggestions?

Coop said:

Hey, I've been snowboarding for a few years now, but have never really attempted any tricks. I'm pretty sure this is mostly down to fear. I want to learn some tricks that are pretty easy, but also look good.

If you've got any suggestions of good begginer tricks or tips to combat fear it would be much appreciated.

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Flat land jumps. On mellow and slower parts of a run, start practicing flat jumps. When you get good at these, you can start to do Ollies and Nollies. Then you can progress to natural features. Hit the small bumps throughout the runs and get some air. Take it slow and work your way up faster and higher. Tail presses are also a beginner friendly trick that can look steeze when you dial it in.

Get a helmet, and some padded protection if you can. I'd say a helmet is a must when learning and the padding will help reduce the pain from falling which in turn will build confidence.

Most importantly, have fun. Oh, don't forget to work on your switch riding. Start on the bunny hill and when you can ride that out switch the whole time, start moving to bigger runs. Good switch riding is important for when you start doing bigger tricks.

jputtho2 said:

One thing I tell myself when I want to try new things is something I picked up from a friend that I ride with and that is that the fear in most cases is greater than the trick.

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Indeed. The fear is always greater than the trick. Well, almost always I'm afraid to do 3s, even though I landed my first few attempts. Don't know what it is, but I need like a perfect jump setup otherwise I chicken out.

jputtho2 said:

You just have to not be scared to fall because it's going to happen.

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And 9 times out of 10, it doesn't hurt anywhere near as badly as you thought it would. I busted my ass a few times last Thursday frontboarding this rail. Got up and did it again. Didn't stick any of them, and got a real nasty bruise right on my ass crack, but honestly, it never really hurt. I've washed landings on jumps, I've caught edges over-rotating a spin or coming down off-balance or whatever, and you think it's going to really hurt. It almost never does.

I'm not saying your bulletproof (none of us are) but the psychology is what's keeping you scared. physically, you're not likely to really hurt/injure yourself until you start throwing yourself off 30+ footers and inverting and kinked rails over 20-stair sets on concrete. When you get that good, you won't be worried about getting hurt

jputtho2 said:

But yeah, now when I want to try something new I just picture how I want it to go in my head and just hit it. Most of the time it doesn't work out how I picture it in my head the first time but I just keep at it until it does.

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Dood. If you can get yourself on video, even crappy video from a digicam or cell phone, it helps. you can usually watch it and watch one of snowprofessorrick's videos or the guys from snowboardaddiction.com etc., and you should be able to see what you're doing wrong. From there, you gotta force yourself mentally to adjust and overcome the bad habit(s) that you've built up over the years, but it's a great place to start.

j.gnar said:

make some friends and ride with people that are better than you....its the fastest way to progress your riding ability

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god, this 10000x over. aside from private lessons that is the best way to get better, fast. And i dont mean people that think they are better than you, or are more confident than you, or people that have been up 5 more times than you. Its people that are at least 2-3 years ahead of you. When me and my friend first got into it by the end of our first season riding together we could do the black diamond groomers confidently and with little to no falls. Fast forward 4 years and we bring up another friend, first time on the mountain, he takes a private lesson and we start riding with him. After his 5th day up with us he is at the same level it took us an entire season to get to. If you can find some friends at an advanced enough level that are willing to put up with your slower pace, you will get better very very fast.

oh, also have balls. The only reason he progressed so fast was because if we told him to hit something, he hit it, and if we told him you better take the blue run and we will meet you at the bottom, this section is pretty difficult, he ignored us and followed us anyway.

I agree with the go slow way of learning tricks and start on regular runs using little natural bumps or side walls.
You don't even have to get air at first, just get used to the feel of the board as you go over bumps and terrain with little transitions. That way you start getting used to how you need to change your posture and your foot pressure on the board to keep your balance.

If you find a nice little natural jump landing is powder you can hit it small to start and slowly increase speed and pop off the jump. The beauty of powder landings is when you get it wrong its like falling into a big fluffy pillow. You get it badly wrong in the terrain park and you will be going to the hospital.

I've seen it happen many times and I barely go through the park. Must be the place with the most injuries by far (IMO).

When you have some basics down you can hit the park if thats your thing.
I don't bother with it because I don't like the posing/showing off element. I prefer to hit natural features and I get the satisfaction of landing a sweet grab or a 360, no one else even sees most of my tricks apart from maybe my riding buddies.
I do it for the pleasure not the props.

Each to their own.