Boarding

Snowboarding is more than just a sport. It is an experience that enabled the rider to connect not only to other people on the mountain, but also to the mountain itself. After putting in four years at riding, I have learned the types of terrain I enjoy, the obstacles that still to this day challenge my ability as a rider. Everyday I learn new techniques and new skills that improve my versatility and ability. At the end of each slope, I take a moment to reflect on how fortunate I am to be physically able to enjoy the wonderful sport of snowboarding.


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Tilting

Tilting is having the ability to actually completely balance on one side of the snowboard. This is going to be accomplished by increasing the amount of pressure that was initially applied in the steering stage, and then also applying equal pressure with the rider’s back foot. After you have finished tilting your board, you can go on to boarding.


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Steering

Steering is initiated by the rider’s front foot regardless whether this happens to be the rider’s right foot or left foot. To initiate a turn the rider must apply a pressure either by pushing their front heel into the snow or by pushing their front toes into the snow. This is also the initial stage at which pressure is applied to the snowboard. After steering your snowboard, you can move onto tilting or you can go on to boarding.


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Balance

Balance can be obtained by just riding, keeping speeds low, and not worrying about anything else but feeling comfortable on the snowboard. After gaining balance, you can move on to steering or go on to boarding.


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Pressure

Putting snowboarding into words has to start with describing the little techniques that I perform going down the mountain that give me control, confidence, and excitement. In breaking my riding down into individual techniques, I have to make three distinct categories of skills, balance, steering, and tilting.

Snowboarding

As an instructor of snowboarding now (where the snowflake is) I feel as though my entire perception of snowboarding has changed. Before I would just worry about the results of my actions meaning that I would just focus on if I could do a certain trick or get down a certain slope. Now, I not only look at the results, but I more fully focus on my actual body mechanics. By thinking of a snowboard as nothing more than a tool, I am able to understand how I can manipulate this tool into performing the specific tasks that I want. The edges on a snowboard are the keys to making the snowboard turn, slide, stop, and also edges are used to promote spinning in tricks. The secrete to using edges is to understand that all edges are controlled by the amount of pressure a person enforces upon them.


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Learning

As with learning anything new, there is definitely a period of time in which the tasks seems nearly impossible to ever accomplish. Immediately my youngest cousin Addie taking her first steps trying to learn how to walk jumps into my mind. The uneasy feeling, wavering back and forth, not really having true balance yet, but overcoming the fear of falling and taking the dangerous first step, is exactly like learning how to snowboard. I begin to recall my journey through the mental and physical obstacles that I had to overcome in learning how to snowboard. My senses of balance and stability were immediately lost and replaced with insecurity and apprehension. After falling countless times, first on my knees over and over again, and then on my butt over and over again, I began to not only get frustrated but also physically fatigued and hurt. Nothing else in my life has ever compared to the feeling of having absolutely no control over where my body was going. Eventually, I began to understand that to snowboard I needed to apply technique, not just will power. I slowly gained balance and skills that allowed me to make my way down the mountain. The more I practiced the better I got, and the better I got the more I wanted to practice. By the end of the first day of ever snowboarding, I was able to make my way all the way down a trail without falling. Not that I had mastered snowboarding by any means, but I at least was starting to understand what snowboarding was about and how to use pressure to guide and control my snowboard down the mountain.


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