So somewhat in response to the ridiculous number of updates from summer ski camps on the NS homepage, I've been thinking about where skiing is going. To me, it seemed like it used to be a sport that people would do just in the winter, then move onto other things in the summer... but now, it has evolved into a sport where practically any 15-year-old who is serious about progressing not only owns a trampoline and a summer setup of some kind, but spends HOURS on them. On top of that, the attendances at the summer snow camps out in the PNW show, if anything, that people are able/willing to go to those as well.
If that sounded like a rant, its not, because it really got me thinking about the future of skiing. We are already the fastest growing sport in the world (cite: Schmuck's article on sessions x scullcandy), but it really seems like skiiers are more dedicated to practicing the necessary skills to really progress quickly.
Take, for example, lacrosse. You can condition/lift/train all you want, but you aren't going to be any better of a LACROSSE player unless you get out on a field and shoot the ball, practice dekes, etc. You'll just be a better athlete in general. With skiing, I'm not going to make a claim if people are by and large lifting/conditioning or not (I'm sure pros do), but the amount of time spent perfecting skills is just raising the bar so much faster than in any other sport.
Example:
-True doubles only were really take up by a few pros a number of years back, but now nearly every pro skiier has at least one dub in their bag (yes there are exceptions). To try and compare this to any other sport -- or even any other action sport -- just doesn't find any comparison to be made. It's not like every pro in basketball is now suddenly going triple-double in every game.
I dunno, I was just reading one of the summer skiing news articles on the NS homepage and just got to thinking: with the ridiculously high level of skiing already, compounded with the rate it's advancing, where will we end up? Are quads really in the future? Because if the past repeats itself, most pros will have triples down in the next few years. Not to mention style -- think about watching winter X even 4 or 5 years ago (I'm thinking 2006 specifically). Grabbing mute for a left 10 on the money booter at the bottom was the go-to trick, iirc. Now, if you don't have some kind of unique grabs with immaculate style in your run/even in your video segment, it isn't really up to "average". THEN think about outliers like Casabon or Wallish who seem to have perfected "style", and my mind blows up. Thoughts?
Anyway, I'm stoked. Skiing is going places, and its happening at a visible pace. /rant
