Young_pattySpirit mountain runs USSA comps not USASA. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a part of the entry fee but comps aren’t very cheap, the judges get compensated, and the hill needs to be reserved. Even if he did get a cut of the USASA kids entry fees USASA has such a small presence in Midwest skiing that after all of the expenses for the comp he wouldn’t be walking away with much.
Aside fromm that I saw where you were coming from and that TAFT was one of the most fun days of skiing I had, but making a rant about how “those comp organizations don’t care about you, or skiing” in front of ~20 kids who had just finished their competition maybe an hour or two ago (some were still wearing their bibs) was pretty poor timing, not to mention the coaches who put tons of time and effort into running those comps. I would imagine it kind of felt like a “fuck you” to all of the coaches and competitors who put so much of their time and money into competing.
As for OP’s question, no it isn’t a waste. At least I didn’t think it was but you learn a lot competing like how to put a run/ line together,or how to improvise and adapt. It definitely made me a better skier and most of the “anti-comp” preachers have never skied in a competition and simply like to ride the hate wave so they can feel C O R E . So compete if you want OP, you can definitely learn a thing or two. But in the end competing isn’t for everyone and if you would rather follow your homies around with a dad-cam and film back swap to switches then power to you, there’s never a right way to ski so just ski whatever discipline floats your boat.
/macro-rant complete
I disagree with a few things here. First, I don't believe any of the comp skiing organizations care about the type of skiing I care about. Do they care about slopestyle competitions and the olympics? yes, for sure. But a FIS official literally told a bunch of the top comp skiers that they do NOTHING and that the officials are doing everything. They don't care about ski movies, which will always be the biggest inspiration to young riders. Nobody remembers who got third in some official comp last year, but everyone remembers legendary segments. The only memorable comp moments I can think recently all involved dollo.
Slopestyle skiing is becoming increasingly divided from what your average park skier is doing. Most park skiers ride wider, rockered skis in the park now, which are rarely seen in slope comps. Just like Halfpipe, Moguls, and Aerials, slope is gradually becoming a totally different sport, separate from what your average park skier does on a day-to-day basis.
But I'm not anti competitions at all. I think comps like rail jams TAFT and SLVSH are great. The thing is, I've never been in a comp because the entrance fees are so high, not because I'm trying to be core. When I too young to be in comps, anyone could enter the annual big air or slopestyle for like 10 or 20 bucks. By the time I was at the age where I could start competing, all of the bullshit registration and membership fees had kicked in and it didn't seem worth it to pay more for essentially the same experience. Snowboarding has tons of creative competitions like SKOLF and Methodology that I would love to see replicated in skiing.
Finally, I think it's totally fine for andy to give off a "Fuck You" vibe to competition officials. Newschool skiing was founded on breaking the rules by skiing in the snowboard park and doing inverted tricks with grabs that were banned from mogul competitions at the time. It's all about riding the mountain in new and creative ways. If you have a coach and a bunch of officials making up rules and telling you how to ski, you're not freeskiing.
