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By Sam Morishima
Coaches
around the world all preach the same statement; “ what
are the 3 most important things you can do that will make
you excel at a sport?”
The answer, “Practice, Practice and Practice some
more!”
I
would like to add, “if you are going to practice,
practice properly.”
This is where proper coaching and lessons are
critical to your safety but also to proper development and
accelerated
successful outcomes.
The last thing you want is to establish bad or poor
habits through improper training or learning.
When
it comes to lessons, the more lessons you take, the
greater your accomplishment level will be.
To
ski or snowboard correctly and well has a high entry
level that one must overcome.
I
recommend taking 12 or more session programs that
allows beginners and intermediates to overcome any entry
barrier.
Like
any sport it takes proper muscle development and
coordination as well as entrenching what is known as
"muscle memory."
It
is not the first 4 or 5 lessons that one obtains the
needed skills to ride properly but the last 2 or 3
sessions in a series of 12 or more sessions that one
begins to establish the necessary skills as habit.
There
is no magic formula that makes one a better skier or
snowboarder - only hard work through many practice
sessions, in the proper environment with the proper
instructions. The reward is feeling
the ride and mastering the control.
The ride becomes you and you the ride.
Remember,
good skiing or snowboarding is a habit that becomes as
simple as walking as your muscles and balance becomes
naturally reactive to changing riding positions.
If
you have to think about it, it is too late.
Some
experts say it takes a week’s worth of practice or more,
of focused practice and repeated repetition to develop just one new
movement pattern into a solid skiing or boarding habit.
Given
the practice time, the right environment and focused
instruction, beginners can easily become intermediates and
intermediates can become expert.
Learning or training on the Endless Slope at SnoZone is an
ideal way to establish good skiing and boarding habits and
ingrain proper muscle memory. Half an
hour on the Endless Slope is equivalent to as many turns as a whole day on
snow.
Like
any sport, a little commitment can go a long way and
learning before you go is a smart and safe way to
be.
The successful ones are the
ones who persevere, practicing when they don't want to
practice, and sacrificing an easier life for the practice to
be better. It all boils down to practice, practice,
practice and practice correctly.
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