Get Better at Getting Better

One thing snowboarding has taught me that carries into everything else:
learning itself is a skill.

We spend so much time thinking about what we’re learning — tricks, movements, tactics, technique — but not always how we learn. And that “how” is one of the most valuable tools you can build as a rider, coach, athlete, or just a human trying to improve at something.

If you’ve spent time in CASI (or any other certification), in coaching, or training toward a level, you already have a framework for learning. You have ways to break things down, refine, reflect, and adapt.

So why keep that skill limited to snowboarding?

Take the way you learn to ride and try applying it to something else:

• Running

• Making an edit

• Working on a car

• Rehab for injury

• Pottery

• Finances

• Cooking

• Skateboarding

• Call of Duty/video games (yep, even that)

• Writing a blog

Whatever it is — give it the same attention you give learning a new carve, a press, or a spin.

Don’t just practice the activity. Practice the act of learning it.

Learning is repetition, attention, feedback, and curiosity.
It’s not separate from the sport — it is the sport.

And here’s the fun part:
When you train your ability to learn, it compounds.

You don’t just get better at snowboarding.
You get better at getting better — everywhere.

One of my recent favourite sayings is:

“Success isn’t a breakthrough moment.
It’s a tipping point” — built from stacking small cycles of learning, habits etc. until momentum kicks in.

Fall in love with learning… then practice it!

For Coaches & Instructors

As coaches, we shouldn’t just study teaching — we should study learning.

If you understand how people learn — how attention works, how motivation builds, how confidence grows, how the brain wires patterns — you aren’t just helping someone ride better…

You’re giving them tools they can take anywhere in life.

To me, that’s the real win.

— Cam

How to Practice the Skill of Learning

When I’m learning something new — whether it’s a snowboard trick, filming, or something totally different — I try to approach it the same way I’d build a lesson or session plan.

1. Start with the outcome.
Ask yourself: What’s the end competency?
What would “doing this well” actually look like? Once you define that, the path becomes clearer.

2. Break it down into core skills. (Reverse engineer it, CASIfy it etc.)
Every outcome is built from smaller, trainable parts.
If it’s a spin, you might isolate takeoff, rotation, spotting, and landing.
If it’s editing, maybe it’s storytelling, pacing, and how the music gives the edit mood.

3. Use structure to scaffold your learning.
Someone has probably already mapped out what you’re trying to learn.
Borrow that structure — whether it’s a course outline, a coaching framework, or even a YouTube progression — and use it to give your practice direction.

4. Reflect and adjust.
Check in with what’s improving, what still feels inconsistent, and what needs more focus.
That loop — try, reflect, adapt — is learning.

When you start treating learning itself as a skill, you realise how transferable it is.
You can apply it anywhere — sport, work, creativity, business — and it all starts to compound.

Try This…

Pick one thing outside of snowboarding this week — running, skating, filming, whatever.
Apply your snowboard learning process to it. Reflect, adjust, and notice what transfers.

You might be surprised how much better you get at both.