LEARN FROM THE PROS BEFORE YOU SPEND THE MONEY
8 min · Free lesson · written from fifteen years in the terrain
After this lesson you can study experienced riders deliberately enough that you waste fewer days once you are actually on the trip you paid for.
The Technique
- One of the highest-leverage things you can do before committing serious money to a snow trip is study the people who already do it well.
- Why it works: when we started, we did not have regular access to highly experienced riders. A huge amount of what we learned came from watching pros, slowing footage down, and absorbing the tips they shared. You can do the same from your living room on the other side of the world, and it means fewer wasted days once you are actually there.
- Watch with intent, and do not just watch the sends. There are four things worth looking for, and the send itself is not one of them.
- Line choice: where they enter, where they exit, and what they deliberately avoid.
- Body position and weight transfer: usually the whole difference between a rider who looks smooth and one who does not.
- What happens before the trick: the setup, the speed, the commitment point.
- The unglamorous stuff: how they get unstuck, how they read a slope, how they set up a group.
- Social media has a deserved reputation for rot, but there is also an enormous amount of high-quality riding and decision-making information in there if you pick the right accounts and watch deliberately. Be a sponge before you arrive.
- How Unspoken Union fits: this is exactly why we built the platform the way we did. The goal is that you arrive as prepared as possible, so the expensive, hard-earned days get spent riding well rather than learning the basics the hard way.
Common Mistakes
Watching only the highlight moment. Fix: watch what came before it, the setup, the speed and the commitment point.
- Watching everything at full speed. Fix: slow the footage down and go back over the same few seconds until you can see the weight transfer.
- Letting the feed choose what you see. Fix: pick the accounts deliberately and watch with a question in mind.
- Skipping the unglamorous clips because nothing impressive happens. Fix: that is where slope reading, group setup and getting unstuck actually get taught.
The Drill
Twenty minutes, one clip, four passes. Pick a rider in your discipline doing something you want to be able to do, then watch the same clip once for line choice (entry, exit, what they avoided), once for body position and weight transfer, once for what happens before the trick, and once slowed down as far as your player allows. Write one sentence per pass. Repeat weekly with a different rider until you fly.
Footage is preparation, not permission. Nothing you watch qualifies you for terrain, a feature or a trick you have not been trained for, and the call on the day belongs to you and your guide rather than to a clip.
LET'S BUILD
YOUR
ADVENTURE
Whether you want to surf Japan's legendary powder, ride the Old Telegraph Track to the tip of Cape York, or chase a New Zealand winter - tell us what you're dreaming about and we'll build the trip around you.