This is just my two cents/a warning about the upcoming epidemic as freestyle skiing grows more and more mainstream.
Ten years ago, you were either born skiing, or if you were going to pick up a winter sport in your teens, become a snowboarder. There was undoubtedly a lack of "coolness" in the freestyle skiing sport. The only people doing it were dudes who had been on skis since they were fetuses and ventured into the terrain park, there weren't people just becoming park skiers out of the blue. With the X Games and extensive media coverage of skiing in todays world, for teens, picking up skis and becoming a freestyle skier is equally as attractive as becoming a snowboarder. What has me in distress is those 13 year olds who are picking up a pair of twin tips to be like Bobby Brown do not learn how to ski first. I've seen it all too much, these kids learn how to make it down the bunny trail and call it good as long as they can ski to the park. From then on only their 270's on matter, not their bowleggedness or pizza-style skiing to the park matters. It's a disgrace. To add insult to injury, I see these kids hiking a jump in the park on a pow day in the east coast, a rarity. While they should be taking advantage of the faceshots, they're in their true park rat form hiking a shitty jump so they can do they stupid penciled 360s on their undersized skis.
I have no clue what's it like out west but I'm assuming this is lesser of a problem as more people tend to start skiing early on there, but this new group of 13 year old wannabee's is destroying this sport, and our reputation as skiers.
Kids, learn to ski the mountain above adequately and then go to the park, you're creating a bad image for yourself and frankly are doing it wrong.
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