Blackie

Hey guys, I've decided to haul my arse from freezing Melbourne to somewhere even colder, namely the mountains for a bit of powdered fun.

I've only been to Mt Buller once before and tried my hand at skiing. I was completely hopeless at it and found myself consistently humiliated by tottlers.

Anyway, this time I've decided to go boarding, mainly because I have less things to pick up when I crash and fall (which is often). Any tips for beginners? Either in boarding technique or things to do while I'm not horizontal on the slopes?

Austblue

Hey blackie,

I was going to start a similar thread myself but it looks as though you've beaten me to it. This is my second season so I've got the hang of boarding but I was going to see if any NSW people were heading down to perisher or even just Jindabine because Im down most weekends.

Id suggest that you get a lesson on your first day and take it from there. You really need to have someone show you the basic balance and how to use your rails otherwise you'll spend most of the day on your butt (still might!)

When you're learning concentrate on standing with your legs slightly bent and weight almost centred with a bias towards your front foot so you can pivot off of it. Raise your arms to a little below shoulder height and roughly in alignment with you board's length. This will help you keep your body straight inline with the board also. Hope that helps for now, its a bit hard to put it into words over the net but I'll check it out again tonight and see if there is anymore that I can add.

AusS2000

What he said!

Definitely get a lesson to start off. I spent a whole day at Heavenly (Lake Tahoe) hurting myself before admitting I needed professional help. Once I was told what I was doing wrong (it ain't skateboarding) I quickly picked it up and have been having a ball since.

You may look dumb in a class, but you look way dumber on your ass!

And remember that snow boarding is 70% attitude. Grow a goatee and practice snarling and giving the finger to ski-cripples and you're off to a good start.

naishou

I learned to ski as a kid, and tried boarding for the first time as an adult. Most people seem to think boarding is easier, but I didn't. I got quite confident after 2 days, even taking some small jumps, but all the falling on my backside on the first day shook my brain too much and I had an almighty headache. It's an unrecognised danger of the sport in my opinion. The dopey look on boarders' faces might not be from grass after all. When you come off skis you tend to slide. Not so on a board. You're going to come to a very abrupt stop, especially if you catch the downhill edge (flat on your face!) and it hurts like buggery. Have a good time, but pack some aspirin.

Blackie

Damn. I don't like pain. I heard you can get some arse protectors to soften the landing. I don't like falling forwards. Backwards on my arse I can live with.

Austblue, I would have thought to centre the weight on your back foot to remain balanced, rather than the front foot. And you say this front foot is to pivot off? That sounds weird to me. Anyway, I will take up lessons as soon as I get there.

While skiiing I found the falls to be tolerable and in fact do slide as naishou mentioned. I just hated my skies clipping off my boots and my sticks left some 10 metres up the hill.

AusS2000, unfortunately I have less facial hair than I do fingers so a goatee, although highly desirable, is also highly unlikely. I will have to make do with my cool hire gear.

AusS2000

The snowboard stance is very strange. As Aust said, you put your weight on your leading foot. You steer with your leading shoulder. Everything you've learnt from surfing or skateboarding just works against you. One trick is to point the way you want to turn and hey presto, it happens. And just like skiing, "Bend zee knees!".

Falling on my but wasn't the problem. It was falling forwards and hurting my wrists. I wore wrist guards my first few times just in case.

naishou

I second the wrist guards recommendation. Everyone in my group wore them. They won't protect your head though. You don't actually have to whack your head on anything for it to hurt. It's the sudden deceleration that got me. If it's any reassurance none of the people I was with had the same problem though. Maybe I was going too fast too soon or something.

potfish

That's interesting. I'm a boarder who was never into skateboards and I only ever tried surfing once several years ago as part of the obligatory backpacker events in Byron Bay. It's since then that I learned to board (since I relocated to about 1 hour from the big resorts in the French Alps ) and assumed surfing would be similar.

The stance and weight distribution is quite a lot different when boarding in powder (weight much more on the back foot to stop the front digging in), is that similar to surfing at all?

Anyone tried wakeboarding? Much more suitable for me this time of year - it's 35 degrees outside.

Austblue

I wakeboard all summer out on the nepean in penrith and brisbane waters on the central coast, my brother has a really nice malibu boat so its pretty convenient for me to ride whenever the weather permits.

Falls on a wake board are often as painful as snowboarding but I think that with the water being a slap type force the pain is more of a short term until you start getting into bigger jumps etc.

I haven't ridden powder yet but I imagine that it is more similar to wakeboarding since the powder acts like the water that you have to stay on top of and you can use that uplift to help you slide your back foot to turn etc. Both sports are similar in that the fundamental concept is your edge awareness I suppose.

The reason that you have to keep your weight biased towards the front foot is that you rotate your board on the same axis of the snow in a V shape if you can picture wtf Im on about. The base of the V is your front foot the two legs are your board position on your toeside and heelside edge respectively. Withh too much weight on the back you can't slide it from edge to edge. If you panic and lean back you force your back foot down and prevent any turning which will in turn make you go straight down the mountain and gain speed

Sorry I shouldn't really try and explain this because its going to confuse the hell out of you and if you're getting a lesson then your better off starting out with a blank canvas so to speak.

One priceless tip that I will pass on.... remember that a few bevvies can give you that extra confidence boost that will help you and it'll also dull the pain if you should fall.

If you're heading down this weekend you will be getting some of the best snow conditions that Australia has ever seen, there was already a 150cm base last week and this week has apparently dumped another metre of fresh snow to pad your falls.

Make the most of it and be sure to snap up some pics for show and tell next week