So much bullshit in this thread. Skiing is not about your clothes, the size of your poles, or the size of your skis. With that out of the way...before you head straight to the park, get your fundamentals DOWN. Learn how to carve well forward and switch and make sure you have full control over your skis and your body before you start hucking yourself off jumps or at hard metal objects. Start out slow, you're not trying to win the X Games. Straight air small jumps until you feel comfortable in the air, then move up to bigger jumps, then start trying grabs, spins, etc. Try to learn stuff both ways early on. Don't worry about any fancy rail tricks for the time being. Find a nice flat box to get the hang of sliding sideways, then move to rails and other obstacles. Make sure you pop with both feet and land square on the rail instead of doing that awkward one foot hop-step on the rail thing, that's a bad habit to start. Once you're confident sliding rails I'd try front 2s out. Easiest rail trick to do by far. Umm I didn't really read most of the thread but...if you're not skiing 100% in the park, don't center mount your skis so you can actually use them outside the park. Not sure what else was covered. Hope this helps a little...