Is technology a tool or a crutch?

The latest innovation in snowboarding is the rocker or reverse camber board. To grossly oversimplify things, if you hold up a traditional snowboard at eye-level and look at it from tip to tale, you’ll see something like a railroad overpass, with a peak in the middle. The rocker board, by contrast, looks more like a banana.

There are a variety of opinions about which board is preferable. Some people say that the rocker makes it easier to learn riding, but more difficult to become an advanced rider.

There are always debates over new technologies in sports: What’s legitimate, what’s cheating? What if a technology helps you pick up the sport sooner but at the cost of developing bad habits? Or is there really such a thing as a “bad habit,” entrenched for all time?

Tennis has seen a similar debate, with oversized rackets coming into vogue a few decades ago. Golf, meanwhile, has seen a transition from persimmon wood clubs to “woods” made of high-tech metals, as well as hybrid clubs. Cavity-backed clubs replaced blades. And of course skis, partially thanks to snowboards, went from straight sticks to having an hourglass sidecut.

My conclusion? Whatever works for you at the moment. The new technology may be “cheating” by the old way of thinking, and maybe it will impede you further down the road. But who knows if you’ll actually get to that point? In the meantime, use whatever is available to you to get active and learn a new sport.