Newschoolers, oh, Newschoolers. I return to you after a long hiatus to ask for your help and advice. I'm an advanced skier (I'm not trying to brag, especially since many of you would blow me out of the water) who feels most at home in the trees and in the backcountry. Basically I like jumping off of stuff and finding my way through natural, technical lines. I'm not scared of any of that stuff; cliffs, chutes, pillow lines in dense forest, I never get scared by any of it. But I'm from the east coast, where that stuff is near impossible to find. At about 13, I tried to get into park, since that seemed to be the most fun thing on an east coast mountain. And six years later, I'm still god awful.
Park terrifies me. As comfortable and fearless as I am standing on top of a 30 foot cliff, put me in front of a 30 foot kicker and tell me to do a 3 and I literally will start shaking. I went to Momentum at 16, I built a summer setup (which didn't work very well), and I tried to force myself to hike the park until I progressed; none of it helped, really. I freeze up and cop out at the last second so, goddamn, often that it's almost comical.
I want to get over this fear. So my question: how do I make it so that I can be comfortable trying new things in the park? How do I get over my fear of all things park and make it so that I feel that same positive, life-enhancing adrenaline that I feel when I'm dropping into a cliff line on the run-in to a kicker? How, put simply, do I nut up?
If anyone has any advice for getting over this mental block, because that truly is all it is, I would appreciate it immensely.
Here's a puppy trotting through water for your troubles.
