How to Learn Freeride as an Adult

You are not completly fucked. I went ski instructing for a few years hoping I would get better at park but I got way too busy with work to focus on learning tricks and stuff. Honestly if I were you, id fucus on instructing for the season to really nail down the ski fundamentals. Next season buy a seasons pass and go full ski bum. Find some homies and learn park the old fashiond way by eating shit 24/7. Go to a public tramp park and just have fun trying new stuff. You will pick it up faster becasue you will already be a good skier from instructing.

If you want to get good and start learning at that age you have to start obsessing about it and working hard on it yourself. There is probably not much opportunity for coaching wherever you are, so i would strongly suggest taking a very keen interest yourself. You can't learn this stuff and get better without falling, if your scared to jeapordise your work through falling, your screwed. Dont be a bitch, your only 20, go for it. Coaching and training will not prevent you from falling.

Watch trick tips on youtube, analyze videos of tricks you want to do and try and copy the techniques they are using. Find a friend or two and get falling! your gonna fall a bunch, and its gonna hurt. Impact shorts and a back protector are really not a bad idea and you wont regret it.

Visualize yourself doing tricks in your head, completely, and then try them on rails and jumps. Tricks are so much muscle memory and repetition, ski switch everywhere you go, flatland 360's and switch 360's on every roll and cutout. Go for it!

and finally, when in doubt, send it!

**This post was edited on Jan 17th 2022 at 4:47:10pm

I was an awful awful skier until I was 24. Maybe had a lesson when I was a kid then I switched to snowboarding for many years. Then my dad “taught” me skiing (he had very 80s straight skis style until I taught him otherwise). I became a ski instructor when I moved to Tahoe and was so worried they would figure out I didn’t know what I was doing (at the time, I did not realize that many instructors do not know what they’re doing 😂). I really focused on what they taught me in training and practiced. I tried fo ski with people better than me and with different styles. 6 years later and I feel confident everywhere on the mountain.


In sum: you’re not too old at all. Also, I must mention that I put many hours growing up on the tramp and skateboard working on tricks. Tramp helps a lot for muscle memory and so does skateboard for rail tricks.

PS where do you ski? Might be a littler harder to push yourself in, say, southern Michigan or Ohio

Nah I only learned to slide rails at like 20 or 21. Don't sweat it. Coaches could speed up the process but you can learn on your own/with friends.

Skiing switch is mostly about practice. Kinda just gotta do it. Practice looking over both shoulders and switch carving on flatter stuff, then try skiing slowly switch on steeper trails. Don't hit any Jerry's. Start hitting mini park jumps switch to find the balance point to jump neutrally.

Air awareness is crucial on jumps. Using trampolines to learn front/back/side flips, 360/540/720's straight, Flat spins, Corks and Misty/Bios will do you wonders in the air even if you can only actually do 1/4 or less of the tricks on snow. Knowing where you are when upside down and how to get roughly back to your feet (even if you crash) can keep you surprisingly confident and safe. I got a $500 trampoline online, its fine for singles, trampoline parks can be good as well. Woodward facilities (if you're lucky enough to live close) are top-tier for this too and frequently have cracked coaches. Youtube has a million how-to's as well.

A nice cheap way to work on rail balance daily is to buy a $10 foam roller, cut it in half, and pretend its a rail by jumping on and off it in your living room. You can do it without cutting the roller in half too but that's hard mode and you might end up on the floor. Great way to dial in balance for swaps, 2 on's, etc. The best way to actually translate to snow is to find yourself a nice, low-consequence fat tube and send everything you can on it. If it helps your mindset, wear mtb armor, hockey pads, whatever works.

Best advice for injuries I can give you is to make sure you are in a good headspace, your body is strong and flexible enough, and you only raise DIN's to what you need.

Finally if you really want to get good fast, ride with friends who are better than you. Its incredibly helpful to see where you compare and where you need to push.

Just ski as much as you possibly can. Set up a rail or in your backyard or somewhere that's easy for you to access when the mountain is closed. If there's any night skiing near you, do that.
Days when you work, put a sandwich or something in your pocket for lunch so you can eat it on the lift and use your lunch break for laps. If you can afford it, take at least 3 days a week off (Mon/Tues/Wed usually works if you're instructing) and devote 4-6 hours of those days to skiing.
If there's something you think you're bad at, work on that skill until it starts to click. There is so much awesome and free skiing content online, instead of watching TV, actively watch ski edits and break down the tricks you're interested in learning.
If you're in school, get any homework done as soon as you get it so it doesn't pile up and force you to spend extra time catching up. If possible, take fewer classes in the winter and go all out in the fall semester so you have more time to ski.
If you drink, start cutting that out. It takes a lot of time and money away from skiing.
Work towards getting certified to be a park instructor or coach. The first level of those certs usually requires that you can slide a rail, do grabs, ski backwards and do a 360. The certification process will teach you some good fundamentals, it will benefit your employer and if you end up teaching intro park lessons, it will make you break down all the steps in progression for yourself as well.
The bottom line is, if you are serious about skiing better you will probably have to make some lifestyle changes to maximize your time on snow.

skiP.E.I.Just ski as much as you possibly can. Set up a rail or in your backyard or somewhere that's easy for you to access when the mountain is closed. If there's any night skiing near you, do that.
Days when you work, put a sandwich or something in your pocket for lunch so you can eat it on the lift and use your lunch break for laps. If you can afford it, take at least 3 days a week off (Mon/Tues/Wed usually works if you're instructing) and devote 4-6 hours of those days to skiing.
If there's something you think you're bad at, work on that skill until it starts to click. There is so much awesome and free skiing content online, instead of watching TV, actively watch ski edits and break down the tricks you're interested in learning.
If you're in school, get any homework done as soon as you get it so it doesn't pile up and force you to spend extra time catching up. If possible, take fewer classes in the winter and go all out in the fall semester so you have more time to ski.
If you drink, start cutting that out. It takes a lot of time and money away from skiing.
Work towards getting certified to be a park instructor or coach. The first level of those certs usually requires that you can slide a rail, do grabs, ski backwards and do a 360. The certification process will teach you some good fundamentals, it will benefit your employer and if you end up teaching intro park lessons, it will make you break down all the steps in progression for yourself as well.
The bottom line is, if you are serious about skiing better you will probably have to make some lifestyle changes to maximize your time on snow.

I endorse this. Should've mentioned summer setups are a game changer for a whole lot of people.

It just takes time, lots of reps and lots of time skiing and working on small things like basic drills and shit, mental fortitude enough to want it more than others, and just having fun with it. Those are some of the biggest things I've learned thus far as a newbie coach that keeps kids skiing. Sometimes it all clicks one day eventually.

Honestly I do have a bit of a strategy somedays that I just rally and see if the kids can keep up, and if they can't, lets work on some stuff so we can get them ripping hard :)

**This post was edited on Jan 18th 2022 at 12:18:20am

Find a cliff and then ski off of it while trying not to die

where are you a ski instructor?

in canada, you need a park certification to bring people into any park.

the park certification goes through the fundamentals; contact spins, cat-twist spins, sliding and locking on boxes, riding switch.
i know people who can barely ride in moguls at any speed who passed their park cert. its a good two day course that teaches you the basics to build up on.

when building confidence just start slow. some additional protective equipment (impact shorts, spine protector, biking elbow guards) go a long way.

I started park at 32. Got my FS1 then left instructing to be a freeride team coach.

Don't be too brave to wear pads or a back protector and you can still progress at 20. Starting spins and inverts at 50, that's an issue that would be less fruitful.

No lmao, I doubt you couldn't learn stuff like basic swaps, 2 on and off, sliding a dfd, fastslide/backslide, 3 and switch 3, etc. You're not going to become the next Edollo, but if you put your mind to it, you can probably do well enough to make an edit. And

Daniel Loosli, who is PRO for Line (not flow/am, literally pro) started skiing at 19. Not freestyle/park skiing--his first time skiing was at 19 years old) and this is what he can do:

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/1015201/Daniel-Loosli---Welcome-To-The-LINE-Pro-TeamHe even made it on the cover of Powder.

He focuses mainly on eurocarve but can do swaps, ski switch, slide dfds, air the superpipe, etc. and he has mad steeze. It's possible.