The Snowboard Jedi Program is a download-able course designed to improve your abilities as a snowboarder. The key difference to this program is that it’s all about mental training – understanding the role your mind plays in snowboarding and then working out how to use it to make you better.

This review is an assessment of the course material, my reaction to reading and listening to all of the information, and how effective I think it could be for snowboarders. I will follow this initial review by putting the methods into practice. There’s a lot of material in the Jedi course; this review includes an overview of the program and my general feeling.

Snowboard Jedi Program: Overview

The course is a mixture of audio files and pdf documents that you download – the mp3s fit easily onto your player. Visiting the site, I don’t think it has a super-polished feel to it, and some of the presentation is very “sales like”. But you’re not supposed to judge a book by the cover – it’s the content that matters, and there is some good information inside…

There are ten primary audios:

• Understanding and Applying the Power of Mental Training (Introduction to Course)
• The Peak Performance Pyramid
• How to Harness the power of Imagery and Visualisation
• Dealing with “FEAR”
• Instant Self Relaxation Techniques
• Guided Park Visualisation
• Guided “Pro Takeover” Visualisation
• “Flawless Switch Riding” Guided Mental Programmer
• Snowboard Hypnosis
• Personal Power Visualisations

There’s a description of each of those on the Snowboard Jedi Site. There are some bonus audios too. Of them, the best in my opinion is Harnessing the Power of “The Law of Attraction”. I had earmarked that as one of my favourite parts to the course.

As for the documents, this is what you get:

• The Pursuit of Snowboard Excellence
• The Four Week “Snowboard Excellence” Mental Programming Course
• How to Get Sponsored “Tips and Tools to Getting Notices and Finding Sponsors” (bonus material)
• 33 Mind Power Techniques and Strategies (bonus material)

It’s worth reading over the Introduction and the Four Week Course Guide before diving in for the audios (which is what I did). It will only take a few minutes and it outlines the approach quite nicely. One of your primary “tasks” is to read The Pursuit of Snowboard Excellence. It’s kind of like a summary of the course material with a few extra pointers. I skimmed it the first time, which was useful. After that you’ve got it as a reference.

As for the order of the audios, after the introduction, I think the Peak Performance Pyramid is a good place to start. It identifies the required aspects for a complete approach to snowboard improvement – things you probably haven’t thought about. Following that, both the Relaxation and Visualisation audios lay foundations for using the other audios. First, how to relax and get into a state where your mind is more receptive. Second, how to visualise effectively. These are both tools that you will need.

The bulk of the other audios have snowboard-specific topics: dealing with fear, riding the park, confidence via “pro take-over” and switch riding. They’re all guided sessions, in which Matt helps you to use visualisation to improve.

As per The Four Week Program, you go through all of the material, listening to it and trying the exercises. The aim is to work out which methods you like and which ones seem to work best for you. The learning/experimental approach is built into the guiding document. Rinse and repeat, expand your mind and improve your snowboarding…

Snowboard Jedi Program: Opinion

If this package was £5, I’d tell every snowboarder who’s interested in getting better to buy it straight away, which means just about everyone. Even if you’re just a bit interested in freestyle, there are tools and ideas here to make all of your snowboarding better, even for beginners.

You might not find it all useful; you might not have the time or commitment to put the entire program into practice, but I’m confident you’ll benefit. There are also a bunch of positive suggestions that you can take to other areas of your life too: it’s both interesting and useful.

Note: it is worth bearing in mind however, that if you want to give it a try, that’s exactly what you need to do, try it. A skeptical approach isn’t going to work well, this course requires you to think a little differently.

But it’s not $5, it’s more like $97, which is expensive. Matt suggests that the Snowboard Jedi Program is for people who are serious about getting good. At first, I thought this was a sales technique to lure people in. But I actually think it’s an honest appraisal that’s worth remembering. Following the bulk of the program and investing time in mental training, alongside your physical training and snowboarding practice, is aimed at snowboarders who devoting significant time to getting better…

If you’re serious about getting better, if you want to get good at snowboarding, to go to the next level, to compete or get sponsorship, and you don’t already have a mental training plan for how to achieve that, you should definitely consider this program. It is good and I’d recommend adding mental training to your snowboarding.

So what about everyone else? Take me for example. I want to get better at snowboarding. I want to learn 540s, I want to be confident hitting kickers and I want to do tricks around the mountain that I find impressive. Stomp frontside 3s with a nose grab, get front boards on lock down and don’t get scared. I want to get better!

In my position as a holiday snowboarder, plus summer sessions, there are a lot of methods covered in the program that I can (and will) put into practice straight away to help me with my desire to get better…

Is it worth £60? I guess that depends on how expensive £60 is to you. To me, the price tag seems expensive:

• On the plus side, the Snowboard Jedi Program wraps up a bunch of mental training, visualisation and relaxation techniques into a package, with specific snowboarding guidance and examples. There’s a decent course plan that will get you thinking about and using the material. Almost all of this was new to me. If you invest the time, my feeling is that you’ll get positive results.
• There are a couple of factors working against the high cost. Theoretically you could do the research yourself, admittedly that would take some time. There’s also the chance that you won’t be interested in putting the full program to use, you’ll just use parts of it.

Final Word

If you are interested in the techniques and accept that you can use your mind to improve your snowboarding, I’d say you would benefit from this program, even just a subset of the tools and ideas.

But at $90, you should think twice, it does seem expensive and as such I can’t recommend it outright. It might be a good idea to club together with a few friends, share the cost between you. Or do some research first, to see if this is the type of thing you’d be willing to give a go – because my feeling is you need to approach it with a positive outlook.