How Can Intermediate Snowboarders Go To The Next Level

You’re out with your mates, doing okay and keeping up with the group but you’re wondering…are there a couple of things that would make a big difference to your riding?

Dan Burton from Camp Three and Rookie Academy is also a former snowboarder instructor for NZ SBINZ and former trainer for British BASI. With 36 seasons under his belt teaching in Canada, Andorra, France, Japan, Switzerland and the USA, he sees many intermediate snowboarders stagnate in their progress and shares a couple of tips to try this winter.

Realistic Progress Expectations 

“The little bits of info can be the difference between progress or stagnation but you have to set realistic expectations. At a lower ability level you’re going to see bigger changes but as your riding improves, your levels of breakthrough are smaller”.

Be Specific

Dan believes you have to set a situational goal first; 

“Do you want to ride moguls better, learn to ride ice or ride steeper stuff? This will open up a bit more of the mountain and help you with good decision making. The more you understand what you’re doing in a set circumstance, the better decisions you make. Set one goal at a time and use SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed).

Goals

Back to the realistic aspect, Dan says there’s a lot here to unpack, maybe it’s just one goal that will make a lot of difference to your holiday, to your riding or to your day.

“Is your goal about performance? You have to get clear on this. Is it a technical or tactical focus?  Is it focused on equipment or the environment? Is it physical or psychological? . Set yourself a goal such as – by the end of this snow holiday I want to be able to ride down that part of the mountain switch.  Make your goal a short term one so you feel like you’ve achieved it. Don’t make it long term, like I want to get better, that’s too vague. Maybe it’s something like – I want to improve by 3% every day. It doesn’t sound a lot but if you’re riding for a week straight that’s a huge difference to when you started”.

Dan is coaching at both Treble Cone and Cardrona this NZ winter and in Niseko and Rusutsu in the Northern Hemisphere. Follow Dan on insta at @dbiz360 and youtube at @DANBURTONSNOWBOARDING360. We’ll be sharing more snowboarding tips on SnowAction from Dan so send in your questions to @snowaction on insta and stay tuned.