My first time on a snowboard. A beginner’s story about boarding and dislike of elevators

They said it was going to be easy and fun. After watching reels with snowboarders on Instagram, I really wanted to believe it. Looking at the guys flying down the slope so easily, you want to say “I can do that too!”. “Yes, of course I can,” I thought, and went with the company to one of the slopes in Moscow.

Where did it all start?

Actually, it wasn’t exactly my first time snowboarding. I managed to ride a board once last year. Well, how to ride… To sit on the snow with a board attached to my feet. At the time, I thought it was the first and last time.

Well, as you can see, it wasn’t. A year later I returned to the slope, but not to count crows, but to train. A snowboarder friend kindly agreed to teach a beginner how to learn.

Stage 2: riding

We still had a little way to go before the descent. During this time I managed to get used to the equipment, to look at people riding and to be scared of big slopes several times. For a beginner any slide is big, it’s normal. We came to the training slope, and there we started the debriefing.

The first thing my friend started to teach me was how to strap the board to my feet. First I had to fasten the upper bindings, then – the lower ones (these bindings are called “straps”), and then lightly knock the board against the surface so that the boots took the correct position on the board. I passed the first lesson and got a score.

The next task was to get up on my feet. The body, of course, is not used to the fact that the legs are fixed in an unnatural position: it needs time to adapt. After a few up-and-downs, I managed to get upright.

Important: When you try to stand up on a snowboard, you must not straighten your legs all the way out, otherwise you will fall back on the snow.

“We’re going to learn how to back edge and brake,” said a friend. This meant that I had to stand facing downhill and shift my body weight to my heels. When skiing, it’s important to keep your legs slightly bent at all times. It’s kind of like static training in a half squat. I slowly made my way down the slope. Slightly slowing down almost every half meter to get used to the board and the position of my feet. The descent, of course, was accompanied by falls.

Then I managed to ride herringbone – from left to right and then from right to left down the slope on the back edge. At first I thought I was going very fast, but in fact I was sliding. If you’re going skiing for the first time, don’t hesitate to ask your friends to record you on video. And then compare your sensations of speed with reality. You’ll be very surprised!

A snowboarder friend said that when riding, it’s important to relax and trust the board. If you concentrate on every move and tense up all the time, you’ll fall all the time. It may seem impossible, but this approach really works! At least it worked for me. The board started to glide down the slope quite smoothly until I was overcome by the fear of high speed (the turtle speed I already mentioned). When it got scary, I would start waving my arms and fall to the snow. Then I had to get up, fixate and turn my head off from the start.

In total we spent about an hour and a half on the slope. Then it became more difficult to keep balance and control my legs: my muscles were clogged from constant static and my knee injury was starting to make itself felt more and more. It was time to call it a day.

Stage 3: I hate elevators

“I hope we’re not riding the chairlift?”, I asked hopefully. “What do you mean we won’t ride? We have to learn!” – replied my friend and started explaining to me something about how to use this hellish thing called a rope tow. What exactly he was explaining to me, I, of course, did not remember. And what’s more, I didn’t even hear it. While we were standing in line, I was thinking about what to do with this elevator and how not to fall off it.

A rope towelevator is a rope with a tow bar in the shape of an inverted “T”. Two people can ride on it at once.

“Girl, let’s hurry up!” – some skier resented me. I fidgeted, indeed – we should move faster, there was a line. My husband and I approached the elevator: we decided to go on one. “I’ll help you”, – said the worker of the elevator and immediately grumbled unhappily, – “Well, hurry up already let’s go!”.

Somehow we got together and drove off. “Relax and keep your back straight!” – shouted a friend who was climbing ahead. I try, I do as I’m told, I don’t panic. But it didn’t take us long. My husband and I fell off the elevator and stopped the whole line.

More experienced and lenient people will probably say that this is normal. A rope tow is a pretty complicated elevator and it’s not easy to learn how to use it. As they say: get up, shake it off, move on. That’s what I did, having previously freaked out and covered everything with Russian triple-decker. Why is the elevator so uncomfortable?!

But to be honest, I would have liked a little more understanding from experienced comrades in the queues and workers on the slopes. Not everyone knows how to ride and climb up the hill so masterfully. There are beginners like me who panic, blame themselves for stopping the elevator and are afraid to stand in line because they will be scolded. But you want to ride and learn.

“If you don’t know how to ride, don’t ride,” someone will snort. But then how to learn? After all, even the whole process of skating is based on falls and rises. It’s like in life: white streak, black streak. When something does not work out, for example, at work, no one says “don’t know how to do it, don’t work”. Everything comes with experience, and that’s normal.

How would I rate my first time on the slope? In general, not bad. I was able to stand on the board almost immediately, ride on the back edge in a straight line and brake correctly, ride herringbone, try to ride on the front edge with my back to the slope (of course, my friend insured me, supporting me by my hands), I learned how to attach the snowboard to my feet and detach it. Small steps to big goals, as they say!

In the meantime, I’ll give myself some tips to memorize the material I’ve learned. If you need to, take some too.

Important tips from beginner to beginner

1. Wear a bologna jacket and pants to the slope. You’ll get wet in jeans.
2. Wear a helmet and gloves, even if you really do not like these accessories.
3. Don’t run out to buy expensive gear before you’ve tried riding at least once. There is a risk of abandoning this case along with the equipment.
4. If you really want to buy equipment, start with the boots.
5. Don’t straighten your legs all the way out when you stand up, unless you want to spend most of your skiing sitting on the snow.
6. Don’t drop your board on a slope with the sliding surface facing down. Otherwise your snowboard will leave without you. It is better to put it on the bindings.
7. Don’t waste money on an instructor. If you ride alone, you’ll make mistakes.
8. Don’t give up if you don’t get it right the first time. Everything will come with time.