Cam Bolton: I have so much to explore
Triple snowboard cross Olympian Cam Bolton sits down to provide an insight into how he is approaching the next phase of his career, with thanks to Snow Australia.
I’m actually not that good at snowboarding. I’m not that strong and I’m not that powerful either. I’m slow in the first metre out of the gate, I get passed a lot and I’ve had my fair share of injuries. Why am I telling you this? Firstly, because it’s true. Secondly because after far too long, I’m finally doing something about it.
The first time I saw footage of snowboard cross at the top level was at the 2010 Vancouver Games. I watched Chumpy Pullin and Damon Hayler compete for Australia and I was hooked right away. A far cry from the courses I had competed on in Australia. The excitement! At 20 years of age, I ventured overseas for the second time in my short life and have been doing back-to-back winters ever since.
Three years later I was leading the semi-final at my first Olympics but succumbed to a season ending injury in a racing incident. I still felt on top of the world and I was optimistic about the future. Over the following five seasons I had four season-ending injuries – a quick way to pump the brakes on any progression. After the fourth, in the semi-final of the 2018 PyeongChang Games, I decided that something needed to change. I was sick of being injured, sick of crashing, sick of losing heats and sick of sucking. I needed to change something; I needed a new approach.
My thesis was that I needed to go back and work on the fundamentals of snowboarding I had neglected. All my injuries were from racing incidents with other riders. I needed to be better in close quarters, better at staying on my feet and better at crashing without being injured (yes, this is a skill). I needed to seek out my weaknesses and work on the part of snowboarding that I knew nothing about - freestyle snowboarding. If I could improve my freestyle skills and awareness on a snowboard, I figured I would crash less frequently, crash less severely and improve faster because I was staying healthy.
During my younger years in Australia I never spent any time riding freestyle. Instead I was busy changing between ski boots, snowboard boots and cross-country boots. I was getting exposure to a lot of different skills, feelings and experiences which was great, but I was more of a generalist and was rarely on the podium at Interschools.
To learn freestyle fundamentals I needed to ride in the terrain park. As a dual Olympian who should know how to snowboard, I can assure you that turning up to the park, day after day, and always being the worst rider was an incredibly humbling experience. Magnified by the fact that I knew almost everyone on the mountain – cue another lesson about ego. On the flipside, it also reminded me of times when I was the worst snowboarder on my team and that being surrounded by people who are better than you is by far the fastest way to learn. In the terrain park, that was my reality – perfect.
At 28 years-old I did my first 180 while grabbing my board for the first time in my life. “How pathetic!” you might be thinking. It was. I’d hit 80ft+ jumps while surrounded by other riders and had felt comfortable, yet I couldn’t spin a 180 or 360 off a 10ft park jump.
Fast forward to the next World Cup season in Feldberg, Germany. In a training run another rider accidentally ran me toward the fence as we went up a blind double. I stuck my hands in the fence early, spun a 360 in the air, got my feet down first and then slid out but avoided injury. All my fears of another season ending injury came flooding back but, on this occasion, my very basic and newfound freestyle skillset had actually saved me. This was the first example of my plan seeming to work! The next day I qualified first, and the following day I won my first World Cup. It was a sliding doors moment for me – my crash in training would normally have been a broken bone but I only had a bruise.
I went on to podium at three of the next four World Cups. My life would be very different without that string of podiums.
As I started to freeride more and improve my freestyle skills, I fell in love with snowboarding all over again. My growing skillset meant I could have more fun because I could be more creative and enjoy more varying terrain. More fun meant more snowboarding, more progression and it’s no surprise that my results had started to improve too. These were added benefits that I didn’t see coming when I set out to learn basic freestyle fundamentals. Learning can be a powerful and long-lasting drug.
It’s ironic it took me so long to realise that I needed to become more of a generalist than a specialist to progress faster in the multi-skill discipline of snowboard cross. After all, it was my multi-discipline approach that allowed my rapid progress in snowboarding to begin with. All along I should have gone back to work on fundamental skills if I wanted to progress faster. By ignoring these skills I created bigger obstacles for myself down the track. There comes a point when lacking a fundamental skill will stunt progression. This manifested as injuries and time off snow for me. The low hanging fruit had been right in front of my eyes the entire time.
Despite actively working on my many specific weaknesses in snowboard cross and snowboarding, it recently dawned on me that my generalist approach to foundational snowboard skills could be applied at an even more basic and human level. I believe this is what will put me in the best possible position to excel through my sport. It’s a simple concept – movement.
New thesis: I need to become the best mover possible to realise my potential as an athlete. If I can work towards complete mastery of my movement, which involves both mind and body, then I believe I can consistently be on the podium in a sport that is notoriously hard to be consistent. I have had a couple of ok results so far, but all have come whilst being a novice mover. I see this as my greatest opportunity for improvement. So far, I’ve discovered that this approach has given me more ‘meaning’ behind my training. This has led to greater awareness, presence, and engagement whilst training – which has led to greater learning. I can already see these three key elements spilling over into other areas of my life, including into a social setting. I’ve realised that awareness, presence, and engagement are actually skills, not traits. They require constant practice. In a society with a shortening attention span, these can become weapons and provide us with a competitive advantage.
If I can become better at developing force and generating power through boxing, improve my strength and balance through gymnastics, my range of motion and balance through dancing, spatial awareness through skipping and juggling and then improve the understanding of my own body - then I can massively boost my potential as an athlete. I want exposure to as many different yet simple movement patterns as possible. I’ll then be able to understand more complex and specialised movement patterns because I’ve effectively done the required reading. This translates to being able to tackle features on a snowboard cross track with varied approaches and techniques, as well as making it easier to copy other athletes who are the world’s best over particular features after watching video review – because I KNOW I can move in the same way.
How am I doing this? I’m getting exposure to as many different forms of movement as possible. The less I understand about the activity, the better. I want to explore various martial arts, gymnastics, athletics, skipping, juggling and dancing to name a few. Some of these things scare me as a 31 year-old as I step back to being a complete novice, but I believe that is where the magic is. Yes it takes time, yes it requires hard work, but it will also be a fascinating journey of self-discovery, learning and it is an investment in myself.
I’ll still be working hard in the gym with a focused and specialised approach at times, but I see these extracurricular activities complementing my preparation in the same way that freestyle skills have complemented my snowboard cross. I’ve only just started down the path, but I’ve already fixed multiple old injuries and unlocked flexibility and movement that I didn’t know my body was capable of. I’m already enjoying my off-snow training more. I feel inspired and empowered because I can feel myself moving better and without pain for the first time in many years as I move more efficiently and the way my body was designed to.
I often hear people say, ‘this kid is a natural’ or ‘they’re naturally good at everything’. While this may be true to an extent, I think it is for entirely different reasons to what many think. Most people I see believe that as humans we either have this natural ability or we don’t. I completely disagree. Those moments where we make split second decisions and it all comes together, or we figure out a skill faster than those around us are simply examples of when we’ve had enough prior knowledge or experience from previous tasks and situations that we can adapt to new and ever changing stimuli or at least take an educated guess at what our current situation requires. It takes time and effort for us to get the exposure to enough skills and tasks that we then appear to have this ‘natural ability’ when attempting new activities or executing a skill in pressure situations. Talent isn’t binary and you certainly aren’t born with it. Thinking so is a cop out and a convenient excuse for mediocrity in my eyes.
My plan is to learn as many unfamiliar movements and skills as possible both on and off snow, so that when it comes time and the chips are down, I have the tools and experience to adapt and execute the skills and moves required in my snowboard cross competition environment. Worst case, it will at least help me make split-second educated guesses.
As I pursue movement, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot that I don’t expect to and won’t learn some lessons that I do expect to. However, combining this with my exploration of freestyle snowboarding, I have complete faith that I’ll improve my snowboarding, improve my strength, improve my power, improve my range of motion, improve my speed out of the gate, help me lead heats and stay in front whilst also helping prevent injuries. All this while chipping away at my other weaknesses and continuing to work on my strengths. Frothing.
When I was younger, I always thought I was at a competitive disadvantage because my friends would all go overseas to train and compete and I never did. I didn’t realise that being active and participating in so many different activities and sports over summer was helping with a more generalist approach and laying the foundations for me to become a better athlete. Funny that it took me another 15 years to realise how instrumental it was to my development as a young athlete and to shift focus back in that direction now that I have more time and maturity.
I have so much to explore and this room for improvement is highly motivating and fills me with optimism for the future. I’ll continue to be a student of the sport, continue with the beginner’s mindset and I’m looking forward to riding this wave with my teammates.
Don’t stop playing, don’t stop moving and don’t stop learning. That’s when you start getting old.
Cam Bolton
National Snowboard Team
