Our Camp

Wonder what a camp week is like, if people come alone, or if the standard is out of your realm?
Please write and questions you have about Our Camp here, we're happy to help. : )

Not all Our Camp camps are Girls Only, but the majority are and in the first year we set up as a female specific camp.
Here's a post I just put on the Blog, it's something that I get asked a lot, and something that is interesting to know people's thoughts about-
What do you guys think????

I'd add to that that guys I've seen often tend to be all about throwing themselves at something without necessarily thinking about how to go about it. In my experience they have less of a sense of self-preservation than girls, and believe they can do just about any trick they fancy (whether they have 1 week or 10 years riding behind them) Girls seem to be much more about understanding the theory before trying to put it into practice, and we need something (or someone) who can encourage us to go beyond our normal comfort zone because we don't have all the alpha male stuff going on that pushes us to try new things.

You have it spot on, we (us at the O.C) all grew up riding with boys, it's an inevitability part of being the minority I suppose. But our first time riding together as a crew was one of those 'lightbulb moments' we were all on the same page as far as ambition and interest went, some better than others, but still all working on things (some were better at switch tricks than others etc) but we'd all ride down the hill and try the same tricks, some bad weather days we'd spend all day just riding down the piste trying spins of all sorts, and the fact that all the others were doing the same felt such great fun.
I think those bad weather days were as good for our riding progression as perfect days in the park were. We'd set goals for ourselves or let the others set them for us, we were progressing in a unit which felt so empowering, we all had slightly different ways of doing tricks and if one of us had some trouble with something then we would try using someone elses technique (for example some of us concentrate a lot on the take off in a trick eg. not sliding out on the edge, then forget about the landing which can make you fall for no real reason, if you really think about the landing and where you want your shoulders/arms to be when you come into it you can land it every time!) it really helps to try thinking from a different angle if things aren't going right.
We all progress at different rates, but when you see a girl land a trick you want to do it seems so much more acheivable than if you see a boy do it, especially if that girl can then come up the lift and tell you how she did it, what she needed to concentrate on and how it felt (like, for instance, how a cab 5 feels a lot like a bs3, just get good speed, hold your edge when you take off switch and 'wang it' a little bit more, once in the air it's almost as easy as a fs 180!!)
One of the most important things for me was realising that it's not important that the jumps be massive, the important thing for girls is to learn small and then take their skills to the bigger kickers once they know exactly how to execute the trick, it's the best way for us to feel safe and in control.
-We're control freaks, especially when fear might rear it's ugly head, the only way we can deal with fear is to rationalise things, if we've done the trick 100 times before there is no logical reason we can't do it on a new kicker (once we've tested it with a few straight airs of course)

God, ramble over...for now! hehe
let me know you're thoughts on this girls, it's something I talk about a LOT, as you can see! hehe

I can illustrate the point for you as it happens. Season before last my friends and I went to Avoriaz and my other half decided he was gonna have a go in the super pipe. I think he actually used the phrase "how hard can it be?". Then he discovered that the top of the pipe is blocked off so you couldn't ride in, you had to drop in, but this did nothing to deter him (well, actually he did say afterwards that he got to the top and thought it was a stupid idea but with all of us watching he couldn't possibily wimp out). The result was captured on video, as we were all being ever-so-supportive of his efforts and hoping to capture something for that £250 from You've Been Framed prize

You have to wait about 40 seconds to see it and it was filmed on a helmet cam so the aim isn't always perfect, enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocP7xqiEfeM

ahahahahaha, that's hillarious!