The Last Blog from Sweden

The last blog from Sweden. I thought I’d wrap things up with a few reflections and some of my favourite photos from the past four months.

Looking back, it’s hard not to compare my time here to the expectations I had for Plan 8. I definitely undershot that goal, but as I went through the process of learning these tricks, I realised two things: the tricks themselves were far harder to land in this timeframe than I first thought, and the plan had some flaws.

The main flaw was where I put my focus.

I spent a lot of time working on my ceiling (the very limit of what I can do), rather than my baseline (the list of tricks I can rely on at any course, on any day). As I learnt more and more tricks, those two points drifted further apart. New tricks still influenced my baseline, and baseline work still supported new tricks, but I didn’t have a good sense of how close they needed to be.

I think I slipped into the ceiling first mindset because that was the issue I faced last season. I simply ran out of tricks I could safely do on dirt. So coming to Sweden to learn new things on the airbag felt like the perfect solution. And it wasn’t far off, but competitions aren’t won on airbags.

Competitions aren’t won on your ceiling. They’re won on your baseline.

So the last month here has looked very different to the previous three, with a lot more time spent consolidating what I already have. I’m interested to see how that plays out next season.

One thing this trip reinforced is that there’s no handbook for slopestyle. Every detail has to be learned through trial and error. And honestly, that’s something I enjoy. I get to approach it my way, experiment, and slowly uncover what works for me. There’s no single right method, just the one you build through experience.