Snowboarding at intermediate level
Grandvalira. Andorra. Aka home.
It's been around two years since wrote about my beginner experience around snowboarding. The 25-26 season just finished with a beautiful 40cm dump, so I decided itās time to do a follow up on my Lessons learned after my first long snowboarding season post.
At this point of my snowboarding career, I consider myself at intermediate level. I still do not do the tricks I thought I would by now, but I figured that I donāt really know if I ever want to. I discovered that freeride/off-piste is my jam, not park. I can ride pretty much any condition, I can carve and rarely do a skid turn. I can go fast when the conditions are perfect, but wonāt when they arenāt. There are still too much to learn, but I think I finally left the beginners space.
With around 6Y of experience under my belt, I materialized a few more observations around snowboarding.
Just spend as much time as possible in your snowboard
Simple as that. I used to watch a million videos on technique, how to improve this, how to do that, but the reality is that practice alone will make you ride better. Having a coach or someone giving you tips is important, but nothing beats learning by doing. Doing a parallel, I was trying to learn how to play guitar by watching tutorials.
Iām still not sold on strap-on step-on / easy-entry bindings
I see the need for a product like that and I understand the target audience - I aināt part of it. While I still have knees I see no problem in spending 10 seconds strapping my boots. To be honest, by the moment I canāt, I donāt think snowboarding will be something viable for me to do anymore. I reserve my right to change my mind whenever I see a pro using one of these systems in a Natural Selection Tour.
Jerry stereotype is real
I thought this was American linguo and a bit of exaggeration, but I started to pay attention to some creatures in the mountain and noticed some patterns. If they are doing stupid shit, they are probably wearing a full dope kit, they have clew bindings and they are blasting music in their Chinese JBL rip-off. āNot all dope-wearers are Jerries but every Jerry wears dopeā is my take.
A few examples of Jerry behaviour:
- Stopping in the middle of a run where no-one canāt see them
- Zero awareness of people around them, specially in the the liftās line
- Full sending in a bunny hill
Try to support snowboarding
Snowboarding is now popular + everyone wants a cool picture to put on instagram. The perfect scenario for culture vultures looking for a quick buck. Or worse, expensive brands trying to be cool. They sell products of questionable quality and people who donāt know better think: why not?
Well, as with every other interesting culture, the reason snowboarding is cool is because of the people in it. Iām trying my best to avoid gentrification and making snowboarding getting the coachela treatment. This sport is already expensive as fuck, I donāt need entitled brats ruining my day with that soulless influencer energy.
I try to spend my money on things & places which somehow give back to the sport. Buying from local shops & buying from brands who sponsor my favourite riders. It is not much, but itās honest work.
Nothing more is in my mind, after the little accident I suffered during the last day riding I got a bit slow. Just kidding. I hope to write another post when I eventually reach āadvancedā level, if that ever happens.