Can you really improve over 40?
Adventure Magazine|August 2020
Annabel Anderson explores the case for training camps for adults... and why you’d be mad not to.
Annabel Anderson
Can you really improve over 40?

Snow sports are hard. Try learning to guide two planks downhill with a reasonable amount of control and style in plastic boots resembling something out of RoboCop as an adult and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

The question is, we put our kids in ski schools, often for days at a time and we see their improvement happen before our eyes, but why don’t we do the same for ourselves to keep our own progression and learning continuing like our kids?

There’s a multitude of reasons and they often sound something like the following:

“But I can already ski, why would I go back and learn all over again?” “I grew up skiing, I’m, good…?” and the all too often response from women; “I’m not sure if I’m good enough for something like that?”

Let’s just say it’s time to put all of these beliefs to bed and re-write the way we look at skiing and riding as we move into our forties and beyond.

Just to put you at ease; I’m not talking hucking cliffs and sliding rails. There are some things that are simply best left to young bodies yet to get to full frontal lobe development and don’t need to think twice about how well they bounce when missing a landing or two.

What I am talking about is changing the way we look at the time we spend on snow and treating it as a chance to evolve our technical abilities purely for our own pleasure.

In technical sports, the improvement of our fundamental skill base allows us to get more out of our equipment meaning more enjoyment doing that thing we love to do; carve turns regardless of radius, mountain or snow conditions.

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