Part one – once upon a time
Snowboard and I, we started writing our history quite a long time ago – in the year 2017. Being spring already, the snow was not so great… it was wet and mushy. On the other hand, we began as we shall – with an instructor.
If you’ve had the honour, you probably know what marks the beginnings. Falling. At first, one has no idea how to stand on it so that gravity does not pull him towards it. When you finally detach your ass from the slope and find some kind of balance, the time to move comes. That’s the harder part. Meter … two … and you don’t even know how, it suddenly knocks you back to the ground. Your back is usually pointing down, which is especially annoying.
If you take it from the other (whistle the harder) side first, your knees will remind you how it feels to have them. Roller skate protectors are a good idea (this advice came too late in my case). Don’t forget about your wrists, you’ll tend to slow it down with your hands.
What applies in life applies to snowboarding – first times are not revolutionary. Still, I left the lesson with a smile on my face. I wanted to try it for a long time, so I was satisfied just because of the imaginary ticked item in my head.
The things the instructor was saying didn’t really make sense to me until in the evening in bed. There I understood that I should focus on either the left or the right side. In my imagination, I immediately started snowboarding as a master, but the snow gave me a second chance only four years later.
part two – what’s better than trying it drunk
Yes, you have read it correctly. But no worries – I sobered up at the first moment when my knees remembered what awaited them.
[Background story:] teambuilding with other ski instructors. Under the supervision of the only participant who has papers on this invention, we got going… and the boys overtook me with both experiences and courage.
When we got down from the cableway; the piste I’ve been teaching on for a month seemed about ten times steeper than usual. After four years, I had no idea which side of my body is more dominant [UPDATE: left, can you believe it?]. And so, death present in my eyes, I slid behind them (not on my ass! standing up nicely). When talking about skiing, the right technique came at a higher speed … but that evening, only snow that seemed like concrete to my knees came.
As I am reading this after myself, my first two experiences sound quite scary. Still, they must have left something in me. Maybe I liked the adrenaline of something new, maybe I wanted to prove that I can do it, but anyway, I suddenly started clicking on videos of snowboarders – beginners in the evenings. You will find out in the next section if they have taught me anything.
part three – here we go!
Or you won’t… because I myslef don’t know. Actually, however, I think they lured me rather than put something technical in my head.
I can’t describe how to snowboard, but when I tried it a few days after teambuilding, it suddenly worked. And here I finally come to what this article is about.
Being a skier has helped me from the beginning. I wasn’t so scared of the idea that I would end up scattered on the ground, and I was able to roughly estimate how fast was I going to move.
Furthermore, it will help you more significantly – you will work easier with the center of gravity, you will understand the principle of weight transfer and even the edging will feel familiar somehow. All this knowledge, as well as some self-confidence, occurred to me on the third attempt.
The falls in which I saw the stars above (real stars, since we were skiing in the evening) sometimes surprised me… but I already understood the most basic principle – that one should look where he wants to go. And then it really goes in the desired direction.
This time I was accompanied by a friend with similar [in]abilities (I hope she doesn’t kill me if she reads this) and another friend on safe & stable skis. We made him laugh from time to time, but I have to say that when it seemed that I would greet Mother Earth again, he caught me nicely for a few times.
So once again: if you ski, try a snowboard! Don’t let even a higher age discourage you… unless you’re 70 and have rheumatoid arthritis 😀
And don’t forget to read the first part of my snow experiences!
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