11 days on a Japan airbag: 720s, and one 900

The deal was kind of famous on our Instagram: my mom said if I hit 100,000 likes I could go to Japan for airbag training. The internet did its thing. So I went.

Eleven days on airbags. Here's why that matters more than eleven days on snow: on snow, a crash on a big trick can end your day, or your month. On an airbag a crash is just a try that didn't work. You climb back up and go again, right away. I got more big-trick attempts in eleven days than I'd get in months on real jumps.

What came out of it:

• 720s. Before Japan I'd never done one. By the end they were happening for real.
• One 900. One. On the bag, not snow — I want to be exact about that because it's a totally different thing to put it on snow, and I haven't. But I know what it feels like now, and that changes everything. Before, a 900 was imaginary. Now it's just... homework.

The thing nobody tells you about airbag camps: your legs die before your courage does. Hiking back up over and over is the actual workout. By day eight I was landing tricks tired, which honestly might be the most useful part — contest runs don't happen on fresh legs either.

We're going back in August — a way longer block this time, around 64 days on bags through October. Then Austria, on snow, until November 18 — my last day of the season. The goal for all of it is one sentence: take the 900 from the bag to snow.