The Top 5 Reasons You Aren't Progressing As a Rider 

Ride switch until you can't remember if you are riding regular or switch

"If you're not falling trying new things, then you ain't progressing." I always try to ride with people that are slightly better than me so I can progress at riding.

ride a skateboard in the off season, improves your switch like nothing else

Tough, but fair. For me…gonna grind on switch ollies. My brain says “go” and my body says “who are you talking to”?

Awesome video & tips!!! I am nearly 49 and only began snowboarding last season with my son. I have fallen in love with the sport and not planning to look back. I am already hyped for next season and cannot wait to get back out there 🤟 cheers from Western CANADA 🤘

Totally on board with the scaring yourself. I fully subscribe to the "if you're not crashing, you're not trying hard enough" school of thought

All solid points.....I've been riding for 35 years ...but I get out there every chance I can to show people how much I suck at snowboarding...

#4 is the word. I committed to doing this last year and hit a ton of small, non crowded spots and at 43 and after riding over 20 years had one of my best progression years. Also #2 👌👌

Thank you for this, I’m 52 and starting riding again after 25 years off a board. I ride alone 95% of the time and it’s easy to get complacent and not push yourself. This video alone has given me the inspiration to scare myself instead of buying a new board.

Following a local rider on social media will open you up to lines and natural features that you never knew existed, at least it did for me

Saving this to watch again when the season starts to remind myself. Great advice.

honorable mention: your scared of looking like your learning.

This one is great, and hope you still make that top 5 on regressing. Thank you so much for your content!!

Great video, agree on everything. Backcountry riding and night skiing at the local resort (Snoqualmie) have really helped push me forward lately. Got me back to 50+ riding days a year while working a full time desk job. My legs can't do 150+ anymore but 50 is good, I don't get so fatigued like when I rode every day until June in the 90s at T-line and Meadows with Floodo building the parks and so many powder days. When you had it good like that, it's easy to stagnate, it's easy to think it's not worth riding if the conditions aren't epic. That's the kind of crap that does you in. I was bored and thought I was done riding. Really I was in a rut. Different ways of riding and approaching the hill gets you thinking differently. Riding the bunny slopes with a beginner every week this spring helped progress my riding in unexpected ways - my legs were stonger on the big spring pow days because of that. Getting back to basics can show you things. Whatever gets you out of whatever rut you are in - whether you know you're in one or not. Also trying different boards and gear can get the stoke going. The Rome Party Mod that you recommended was pretty instrumental in getting me out there more often last year because it's so fun to ride and it encourages me to ride differently. Going to different resorts with new terrain pushes you. Riding alone can push you if you don't normally do it, especially if your friends aren't great riders. I do ride park almost every riding day at age 45 - the smaller lines - but always trying to push new tricks, get more pop, switch takeoffs, different grabs, more rotations, etc. Set a goal for a trick I haven't done yet but know I'm capable, or get back a trick that I haven't done for 15 years. Or see how many 360s I can land in one run. Maybe I'll get back onto medium-size features this year. Sometimes I bust out the snow skate. It all pushes you forward.

20K subscribers... Fuck yeah! Rock On Avran Being honest about your own abilities is key, both to progression, and avoiding injury.

Totally agree with all of the above. Wiping out is sometimes my and my family's favorite part. I would like to add that demo'ing a bunch of different boards and different style boards really helped to get me out of my comfort zone. Would like to see more demo days on the mountains.

Awesome vid and I think you're totally right... this applies to many sports and situations as well in life I guess.

Couldn't agree more about having a scary run. Used to force one early and it made my whole day so much better.

Avran this is funny while driving to golf today, I was thinking why people don’t get better at riding. Bam I go to you tube and there you are saying it, makes sense to me!

excellent stuff dude! eh new gear can sometimes help... but for most people it won't. Nothin' beats finding out your undersized rocker board was holdin' you back

#1 is definitely well positioned! After a few injuries 10y ago I stagnated. I was scared of not feeling comfortable while riding and going faster. 🙈 So this year I surrounded myself with local instructors. Improved my carving, overcame fear of riding in fog and blizzard, went into deep pow, learned switch, went into woods, even started hitting some jumps. I advanced past season more than 10 years all together. I scared myself every day and it was a win!

#4 is key. I'm making a commitment to ride more this upcoming season. When 10 days a season is a good season, it's tough to progress.

I understand that scaring yourself.with out that u don't get that adrenaline rush that feel great hand shake ing knees get weak.love ur advice man u are spot on

No 1 for me. First three years of snowboarding I just stuck to what I knew, which were blues on keystone. Up and down, over and over again. 4th year i started on blacks and eventually did some dbl blacks, and last season trees, switch and small progression park. This year looking at medium jumps and boxes/rails. You gotta scare yourself.

I can honestly say just riding more is so true. Have purchased a season pass from Snowshoe inWest Virginia for the past 4 years, but can only go on weekends, and the resort is a 3 hour drive from my house. Said screw it last year, went every chance I could and got 45 days, have never progressed as much as last season. It's definitely all about muscle memory and working on your technique.

Love your top 5s , pissed the RU-vid algorithm hasn’t been putting ur vids in my feed I had to look you back up

Hear hear, this was a VERY solid list. Scared the shit outta myself by riding a recently restructured, full camber (not modern camber - this deck is 13 years old, full camber and has TWENTY ONE carbon stringers from tip to tail) deck down an icy firm groomed run yesterday, riding switch. I'd forgotten what full, old school camber was like, having ridden 2D RCR, CRC, Camber2.0 and 3D shapes for the last 9 years.... I almost put myself in hospital a number of times. 3 hours later I was getting familiar again, understanding the need to take control rather than counter-rotate my upper and lower body like I do when party carving a 3D board (Rome Stalefish). To any other "complainers" out there (who, like me, are a little bit crabby when the conditions aren't relatively soft, bluebird, comfy etc) - as an extension of Avran's list, find ONE THING to gain, on days that aren't perfect for you. Be that getting your switch game on groomed dialled, to air awareness off cat track lips, to extension/flexion (and reverse extension/flexion unweighting).... Don't spend the whole day side-slipping down the run (too many people call that "turning", but it's not - it's merely washing off speed here and there) to the medium park to do tindies and talefishes. Slow down, take time, get ONE thing per day, and you're solid!

Oof! That hit me deep 😅. All so true. I'd say #1 and 2 hit me the hardest. Probably need to just send it more again and remember most falls don't even hurt at all.

I"m in my 40's, don't nearly have the stamina I had at 18 but I'm a much better rider now. How I would love to have the stamina and ability to recover from or avoid injury now like I did back then, with the skill set I now posses. Not pulling 180's and 360's like I used to but my overall skills have advanced far beyond where they used to be. Really surprised riding more wasn't #1, but there's some really good advice here. Challenge yourself everyday and on every run even if it's just something small. Become a snowboard bum for the winter, work and live at a resort and your skills will increase dramatically! Not only will you ride every day but you will be pushed by other, better riders and coworkers. If you don't crash every day you're not pushing yourself. There are plenty of youtube teachers out there who can suggest small things to work on on even the easiest run. Wish I had this resource 20 years ago.

What a great video. Been riding for 25years. Totally agree with everything. I mostly agree with riding with people that will push you. Also shit your pants once a day thinking that could have ended badly on trying something you have not done before.

Totally agree👍🏾 I forced all 3 of my friends off the main trail down under the chairlift or into trees when we went snowboarding or skiing, now they don’t even like the main trails😂

I think you nailed two reasons I am not progressing. 1. I thought the only way to progress was to learn to do tricks. 2. I do not ride enough. Usually these videos are just something I can laugh at, but not today. Nope, this one hit home Hard!!

I totally back the riding the local hill tip. It's better than going to the gym and a lot of them near me have evening sessions. 3 hours sessioning a rail or a kicker is better than nothing.

All true . I’m 55 and lost weight and working out . All helped my riding

54 and been riding since 1997, and I feel like I've gotten pretty good at this snowboarding thing. I often joke to myself that at my age 'progression' is actually keeping all the sharp skills I've honed to this point in my hopper. I will say that wearing my mtb enduro pads under my clothes really makes for a lot more confidence for continuing to tackle questionable lines. Confidence, repetition, and scaring myself (on occasion - and surviving) is where it's at!

#1 is my biggest problem. Its tempting to be complacent when you ride solo in the poconos and everything is super easy unless your into park. I just started doing a week out west every year since im finally not a broke schmuck. Next season ive gotta try some bigger lines while im there 😎 you guys have more pow to catch my dumbass when i fall..

Sometimes the truth hurts. Buying new gear didn't make me better, it showed me how my 15 yo beginner full rocker snowboard was allowing me to ride without all the fundamentals. So I regressed for a time, didn't understand why I couldn't ride. Made some adjustments (if you buy online, make sure you setup your snowboard well...), it's a bit better, but I'm re-learning how to position myself on a snowboard to be able to handle speed without being uncomfortable every heelside turn. In the end, I just wanna be happy on the slopes. But turns out it was a good choice, I'm actually progressing now.

Nailed it. These are all so true. I love riding with people better than me, I feel like I try way more shit than riding with the same old crew.

Tore my acl jumping off a hut and have barely scared myself since then. Good call out in the honrable mentions.

Somehow I felt this is one of your best five👍👍👍

I force myself in the beginning of the session to go in the trees And steeps... as a 56yr old dude I can't jump &do tricks...just like to blast..get low & carve..I've progressed somewhat, cause I could keep up with fast skiers...but at the end of the day I just wanna surf the mounds that house the jumps ...get low & touch the snow....I thank you 🤙

#4 hits home, completely wrong climate to feed my addiction. Damn kids and responsibilities. I aspire to one day move to the mountains and live a simpler life of spraying fat skier kids and tourists, paying extremely high rents or mortgages and freezing my Floridian balls off. All worth it, to get more days on hill. Side note, taking your recommendations on Powder Mountain this year. Place looks amazing and seems like a larger version of Loveland. Thank you for the recommendation Avran.

Yep I'm in a comfort zone I like the scare yourself advice

Just to expand a little on a few of Avran's points: There's no substitute for riding a lot. That said, "a lot" might be less than you imagine and not as insurmountable as making it your whole life. Even if you only go for 2 hours in any given day because you're old and out of shape and gonna hurt yourself if you push it for 4 or 6 hours, put those 2 hours in the bank for as many days as possible and you will naturally progress, and crucially: you will learn how your equipment setup can be improved. You can't understand your equipment without riding it a lot and eliminating the natural bias of individual scenarios and how you feel about certain incidents. A super common problem is ill-fitting boots, and it's hard to identify as a noob. Too small or too big and your feet and ankles can't do the job right, so your legs will not learn to move right! You'll actually be counter-training yourself and have to unlearn some subtle and nefarious bad habits that, besides making you suck, can very realistically lead to injury. If you aren't willing to spend the money on good boots fitted for you by a real boot fitter with a good reputation and buy the season pass and take your ass up there over and over, you aren't ready to progress. 2 or 3 days a week is a lot, by the way; you don't have to ride every single day. But if you set a target of 50 days for the season (a lot for normal mortals, even living in a ski town), and you get 30 or more days, you're going to be super confident and comfortable riding by the last third or half of your season. The awkwardness doesn't last forever. And you will still eat shit sometimes, because the inner ear and gravity and our image of ourselves do not always agree, plus shit happens. But, proportionate to your dedication to making any incremental progress, even if it's painfully realistically small, you WILL progress. By the way, taking it easy is a good way to prevent injury while having a great time instead of being on some ego trip mission, not to mention being safer for others who might be nearby. Also, being scared all the time doesn't count as scaring yourself. First, get comfortable. Then venture outside your comfort zone. But keep it fun: just go play in the snow, and don't worry if you aren't launching the biggest gaps. Being able to walk away at the end of the day and do it again soon is the key to ever getting there. Relatedly: only incrementally progress with jumping. Start small and work your way up to bigger ones. Many of the worst injuries are from "just sending it" when you could have had the humility to realize you're not there yet and send something a little smaller. Also, pro tip: always be carving. If you can't carve literally everywhere, that's what you need to work on the most. Period. If you carve like a sumbitch but can't do it switch, it's a worthwhile pursuit and will sort of unlock other abilities, so do it, even if it feels like trying to sign your name with your non-dominant hand. That feeling passes, mostly, eventually.

That was actually good!

Number one is me. I had a head injury when I was young and I know my brain holds me back. I am working hard to overcome that.

Very thrue and fair!!! Wish i could ride daily!!I ride every second week end now!! 1 week end is for me , 1 week end to teach my 2 daughters !!! Wen i go i have a friend that is way better rider them me and i try to keep up and push my self to get better!!!

I just dont snowboard often enough to progress much more, also related to my shit cardio lol. But when i work out before the season comes i always do better.

Spin in every direction or at least try it. Try to ollie and nollie simple butter tricks. Try the tricks in different terrains.

Real talk, love this list Also “You’re too proud/cheap/etc to take a lesson”

Great video! I'm 46. I skied as a kid, but started snowboarding in 1995 when I moved to the base of Mt Baker. Due to MTB and BMX racing injuries, I've developed arthritis in my knees, so the park is pretty much not an option these days. But, hitting bigger, steeper lines on pow days, and working on railing carves on groomer days are now my new progression goals.

Dude congrats on 20k.

100%. I’d also consider taking lessons.. IF you don’t have someone to follow on the resort.

God damn it you’re right I need to get in shape 😅

Increasing days on my board was the biggest thing for me. Riding with people who are better than you is a game changer as well. And always remember we are just sliding on pieces of wood down a slippery hill don't take it too seriously.

I’m an old fucking iron worker who decided to snowboard later in life to “bond”😂 I laugh my ass off so fucking hard!!! I love it!! Just a straight directional rider, replaced bicep, and multiple crushed discs. So…I get to ride a lot now!! It was the Forum destroyer 154 for the first four years. Ride the Rossignol Sashimi 160 now. Love the surf. You are so funny l!! I love it!! You would have done well on beams!!

So many of these hit so hard. Trying to push myself, harder when there's no one to ride with. Just have to start scaring myself more often.

The fear after the surgery is/was the biggest one for me. But I've found the riding team that is pushing me hard to develop and I love it. Even if it hurts sometimes ;)

1. What would riding enough look like? 2. What do you see as the fundamentals? ( maybe a top 5 fundamentals vid?)

4 hits hard... The debate in the head now is to move closer to real mountains, or figure out a sabbatical someone in the next 5 years to ride for few months. But I totally agree with pushing yourself 2 years ago for the first time I rode in a pipe, I suck at it. But it was sooo fun, totally need to do more of it But I wont do rails, too high of a chance to break bone.

Holy shit that @2:58 corner meme is straight savage

Nice Han Brolo....real nice bro

Whatever a “snow curb” is, it sounds fun!!

The 7:08 pop-up 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. He said he's a pro-rider and I started to 🤣🤣🤣.

Thanks for the slap in the base.

I am getting back from 2 injuries: concussion (had a helmet) and broken ribs. Cause? Not in a good physical shape! I am better now, but fear is strangling me. The sound of my ribs cracking still haunts me…

I'm so happy you called out Buckhouse

Dude I watched this video went for the best powder day of my life and learned bs fs and half cabs all in a half day

Your awsome buddy

Snowboard regression camp 😂😂😂😂😂

Switch helps alot

These are great. I'm guilty of a couple of these

If you’re a weekend warrior and can’t ride everyday, it does also help to wake up early and ride all day, no day drinking and just messing around. Also, properly fitted boots are a must, foot pain really held me back. Riding with equipment that works and doesn’t cause pain has really helped me focus on improving my riding. Now I gotta stop worrying looking like a noob riding switch and just put the reps in.

I almost fell in a creek last winter... That was terrifying.

doing a sw backside trick once a day always keeps you humble

i lucked out when i moved to bear and linked up with a chick and her bf as riding friends. She was a bit more advanced than me and he is way more advanced than her. So hes pushing her to progress and Ive been nipping at her heels. Went from the guy who falling leafed down all the blacks from feeling comfortable enough to charge them on a geltab of acid. I mean I only did that one day but point is I progressed fast in like half a season.

I've been riding for 30+ seasons and I'm well into my 50s now so I peaked long ago. I'll never be able to charge as hard as I did when I was 25 (ankles wrecked playing football and I think I have the spine of a much older man after numerous MTB injuries) so now I focus my improvements on my technique - as a result my snowboarding form is better now than it was back then. My kids are skiers (yes yes I know......leave it) and they are improving RAPIDLY so I guess being able to keep up with them as I get older will be super important to me.

Get to know the park show them your trying then ride with em and you’ll progress so fast

46 years old. Been riding since the late 80s. I run 20 miles a week. Still skate and downhill mountain bike. Doing everything I can to not regress as I get older. Now if I could only quit drinking.

I am in shape. "Round" is a shape. On a serious note though, I did miss "you're not taking classes" somewhere on this list. Yes, there are many clown instructors out there, but there are also many really good ones.

What boots is that you have displayed from K2?

You never stay the same. You are either progressing or regressing. Stagnation is for ponds.

I am 5'7" 81kg and been told a Nitro SMP 155 is too small, really, the next size is 158. approx nose height - really !!!. Can you please tell me whats the min. size. Would really appreciate it.

Where’s the stay fit vid that was mentioned

you don't need to learn freestyle, but you do need to know how to jump. it can save your life in some situations

Trying ski(snow) patrol for the first time this year. It should be interesting

"Fear does not exist in this dojo, does it?"

Scare yourself once a day is perfect. Im a beginner so getting used to this rule.

How you have 815 likes and only 32k subs is beyond me.

I let fear of reinjury keep me from snowboarding for 15+ years but i pushed myself over the past year. Went from falling to switch riding and having fun. Yes i had to have surgery again but fuck it. Progression leads to success and happiness. Fear is good and catching an edge builds character. Another reason for not progressing is that you ski and dont snowboard.

How about scaring the person you are riding with once per day? Did that a lot last season...it was fun 😃

Honorable Mention: You spend more time at the bar than on the slopes. Getting that twisted Tea is not tricky.

Also dont get drunk everytime you ride

Funniest snowboard content creator on RU-vid easily.

Which mountains do you usually ride?

I got in 145 days this last season but it wasn't enough! 😒 How can I get more days in??

honorable mention: it's summer

I started working at a guitar factory and I stand 9 hours a day. My legs are gonna be solid by the time the snowboard season rolls around. The main reason I don't progress is that I am mostly always riding alone. For one I'm not riding with too many people past my ability level to get that next level myself, Plus I am always road tripping alone and I don't go at it full force in the park because I know I will get hurt and I'll be stuck in Vermont 500 miles away from home alone...I did just get health/dental/eye coverage with my new job so I'm not as scared to slam now.

Whilst this was spot on and i think its great, I'm not sure this was angry enough... The angry angry is the best angry.