Tonight was my first snowboarding experience.
I decided that this year I had to make the most of living in a snowy country, and since there was a ski hill just 15 minutes from our house I would go the whole hog and buy myself the snowboarding gear. So I have a board, bindings, boots, pants, goggles, etc.
I took a lesson for my first outing (VERY sensible), and it was fun, exhausting, and I'm very sore from falling a lot. I'm sure my body will be fighting back tomorrow. I haven't quite "got" it yet, but I'm a lot closer than when I started.
Have to decide which pass to buy now. I suspect I'll just go for the full season pass due to having a good set of holidays coming up.
And you can tell former skiiers on snowboards from snowboarders whom had never skiied pretty easily. (I'm in the first group.) Watch the way they are most comfortable on a long diagonal traversal. Former skiiers will ride heel-side, because it's most like what they were used to doing on skiis (facing the space in front of them, not the hill). Never-skiiers will ride toe-side, because it lets them fall forward down to the snow. It's very consistent.
Re:my first experiences
Matts on 2005-12-15T21:22:42
Haha, that is so accurate it's scary. Also though it differs so radically from my skateboarding experience (skiing is different enough to skateboarding to not tickle those parts of my brain) that I think that caused some issues - like turning into the hill isn't just a matter of leaning towards the bottom of the hill - that way lies disaster - it's all about turning your body in the direction you want to go. Weird.
Well I've f*cked my wrist up doing it so I'm waiting for that to heal. Next time I'll be wearing wrist guards.
