Fear and Fear Response
BY DON MEYER ULLR SKI SCHOOL TD, CLINICIAN, INSTRUCTOR
AND FOREVER A STUDENT

Why am I not the most incredible rider ever? In my mind, I can do all of those things I see and hear. Have you gone to “the edge” (whatever that might be) and can’t make yourself go over it? Have you ever tried something new or even something familiar that you haven’t done in awhile and responded in a counterproductive fashion? Have you ever been able to tell someone else what they need to do to improve some aspect of their riding, have it improve their riding and still not be able to do it well yourself ?

I have been teaching snowboarders how to improve their riding for many years now and myself for even longer. I’ve had lots of lessons myself and have seen and ridden with some incredible riders. I’ve read more than a dozen manuals on teaching and learning to snowboard. I’ve watched lots of commercial videos and instructional videos. I’ve taught dozens of instructors and hundreds of customers. I’ve helped them become more efficient and still at times, I feel like I am just too inept and will never get to the next level. It sometimes feels like I am too wimpy, too afraid, too stupid, too old, or just too whatever, but I think in the end it is always the fear response that locks me up and causes me to become less efficient than I can be and not be able to think, understand, accept and implement what I am being taught.

A number of years ago, a perceptive AASI clinician introduced me to Fear and Fear Response. Fear Response is also discussed in several of the PSIA/ AASI texts as well as a great many commercial books and articles. All creatures, including humans, respond to Fear in very similar ways. Sliding fears are the very real fear of going too fast, too steep, too close to stationary objects with the potential of crashing, hurting ourselves or even dying. The mountain and the things on it including other people become the relentless and overpowering enemy that stimulates our fear and holds us back from our goals.

Response to the Fear is the same all over the animal kingdom. Watch a film about gorillas, bears, elk or most other animals and you will see these responses over and over. On the mountain, we can expect every student at every level to respond to every unfamiliar situation with one or more of these responses as well.

Face the Enemy This is rotating the upper body to face the enemy. Visual - Upper body twisted toward the leading end of the snowboard. This has the consequence of eventually rotating the board sideways, catching the downhill edge and pitching the rider face down in the snow or off a jump landing on your butt. It also causes small heelside turns/skids and big, fast, open toeside turns.

Fight Preparation This is appearing bigger, hoping the smaller combatant will back off after seeing how big the really big guy is. Visual - All joints straight and stiff, arms out and perhaps up. The mountain always wins this battle because getting bigger and taller: a) spreads the center of mass making it harder to manage, b) straightens joints which removes athletic movement potential, c) flattens the board with subsequent loss of directional control and d) moves the pieces and parts further from the snow making a fall highly probable, harder and hurt more.

Submission This is admitting defeat and bowing down to the winner hoping he/she will take pity. Sometimes referred to as knuckle dragging. Visual - Both legs straight, waist bent 90+ degrees and hand(s) dragging in the snow. This is also a losing battle as: a) the board goes flat and typically sideways and downhill, b) the rider is totally bent at the waist disabling any athletic ability and c) the rider can not see or avoid the various hazards that exist on the slope typically causing a hard fall backwards directly on the tailbone.

Flight Preparation This is getting ready to run away from the danger. Visual - Front leg totally straight and standing almost or completely on the back foot sometimes with a bent back leg. This generally has the consequence of: a) the board seeking the fall line, b) rapid acceleration, c) Fear Response #1 kicking in, d) a very fast, highly carved turn and e) finally the inevitable spinning dangerous crash. Any of this sound (feel) familiar? What can we do to help the students overcome this?

Safety, Fun, Learning Remember the Teaching motto — it is like our Boy Scout motto. a) Safety - It is our job to have students (and ourselves) in the right situation to learn the necessary lessons. Smart Style, e.g. Level 1 student learning on a Level 1 hill. b) Fun - If the student isn’t safe, then they are just trying to survive without hurting themselves. They are not having fun. It simply isn’t fun crashing or thinking about crashing. Sometimes we give in to what they think will be fun and take them in terrain that they can’t learn in — Now they start embedding bad habits that we need to help them unlearn before they can learn good habits. Our leadership helps ensure that they really do have fun (being safe and learning). c) Learning - When they are safe, then they have more fun. When they are having fun, then they are open, listening and can learn. When people are not safe and having fun they will not hear, see or feel what you are asking them to do — they are too busy surviving. d) Closing the cycle - When they learn more — they are safer and when they are safer — they can have more fun and when ... Fear and Fear Response Talk with your students about

Fear and Fear Response It is critical that they don’t think that they are just inept or stupid. Assure them that everyone has fears and responds to it the same way they are. The only difference between you and them is understanding, work and experience. Everyone has the fear and responds in inefficient ways because our body is trying to protect itself from our crazy desires! To 98% of the population, sliding down a steep slippery slope speedily is just silly. Repetition and experience cause appropriate responses at higher and higher levels of performance.

Exercises/Tasks/Maneuvers/ Progressions We have them do exercises like a sideslip, traverse or falling leaf. We focus on a fundamental movement in that exercise. Example - Move the center of mass over one foot and between two feet to get the feeling of good/bad stance and alignment. This helps them understand intellectually and physically what movements are effective to get the snowboard to perform. Each exercise should have a very specific movement focus. Each progression should cover each of the fundamental movements in a series of exercises.

Feedback This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I think Movement Analysis along with effective, movement specific feedback is two thirds of an instructor’s value to their students. We start with an exercise but most students are inexperienced and unable to see, feel, or hear how they are doing or even if they are doing what you are asking them to do. The feedback must be very specific. Example - On a scale of 1-5 with 1 being no bend and 5 being sitting on your board, your ankle/knee joints were bent to 1.5. The last time you were at 1.0. If you can get to 2.5, the turn size will be 8 feet instead of 15 (demonstrate flex/extend and have them do it standing still before doing it while sliding).

Mental / Physical Alignment These responses effect our ability to help our students and their ability to do what you ask of them. Muscle memory provides automatic responses to stimuli. We don’t have to think about walking or climbing stairs; our feet, legs, and body extend, flex, and rotate as necessary to accomplish known tasks. These responses become more deeply embedded and harder to change over time. Younger people tend to learn faster because they have fewer learned responses which are also not as deeply embedded. Standing on a hill, we have functions which calculate and automatically align our center of mass to the center of the earth — we have to train our minds and bodies that it is counter-productive and will deprive us of the ability to turn our snowboards well. We have to think, work and eventually build new automatic responses to snowboarding stimuli. A number of experts have said that it takes 70 sequential successful iterations for the body to accept the response to a stimuli as safe and then embed it as an automatic response. A failure on the 69th try and you have to start over for another 70 successful cycles. I often hear, “snowboarding is 90% mental” and of course, our experiences and the stories we hear become filters that inhibit our desire to try new things and our ability to make ourselves do them well. The very real embedded physical responses are perhaps harder to reprogram but we must reprogram mind and body together to meet our potential.

If you allow your students to believe that they are incapable due to their own mental or physical limitations, then you have helped build another barrier to learning. Help your customers understand that fear and it’s responses are normal and something which they will overcome with acceptance, understanding, work and a growing number of successful snowboarding experiences.

Help them improve more rapidly by helping them understand and overcome their FEARS and FEAR RESPONSES!