The great skiing shortcut

These days, learning how to ski is easy. The same could be said – even to a much larger extent – about snowboarding. Both sports now offer a much faster learning curve than they used to. However, when the newcomer has enough autonomy to go everywhere, stagnation creeps onto the scene in a big way. The skier (or snowboarder) has to put in even more time and miles in order to keep on improving. Basic skills like edge control (the holy grail of skiing) take years and miles on the slope to fully master and this can be very hard, for the newbie, to fully comprehend and accept.

This said, it's wonderful that new equipment and impeccable slope grooming can give a head start to all these new skiers. The industry needs it badly. But to becoming good and very good, still takes the same amount of time, work and dedication; the problem is that, with an introduction so fast and so easy, getting really good can be seen as much more frustrating and almost unattainable. In skiing, like in any other life endeavors for that matter, even the best shortcuts are never a substitute for running the entire course...