I learned
to ski when I was in college and it was a sport that I knew I would love before
I even tried it. My first ski experience
was at the ski resort in Galena, Illinois. Freestyle skiing was just starting back then and
was becoming a popular new event with Wayne Wong as one of the favorite skiers
in this new freestyle skiing sport. I
really enjoyed skiing but living in Missouri limited my opportunities to ski
frequently, which sometimes made me think about moving out west. Since my first ski experience we have gone to
many different resorts in Colorado, Nevada, Vermont, Missouri and Iowa.
Due to cost
and convenience we started going to Sundown Mountain in Iowa for winter skiing
for a few years and one year I decided I would try snowboarding since my son
(Pat) preferred that over skiing. I
figured that snowboarding in Iowa would be an ideal place to learn since
Midwest skiing is less intimidating than some of the bigger resorts out West or
in the Northeast.
I was
anxious to try so Pat & I made sure we were first in line to get our
snowboards. Now, Pat had already been
snowboarding a few times and he did quite well so in this case I was the
beginner not my son. Another difference
between us was that Pat had a skateboard that he used at home and even though
snowboarding is different there are some similarities, whereas I never messed
around on his skateboard very often. However
I was a skier and had been for many years so I was confident that learning to snowboard
would not be a problem plus I intended to take lessons. After picking up my board and boots I headed
over to my first lesson and not to anyone’s surprise I was the oldest one at
the snowboard lesson by about 30 years including the instructor.
The almost
20 year old instructor gave us verbal instructions on how to get started, the
first question being are you regular footed of goofy footed, Huh! Well, I have occasionally been called goofy but
not sure about my feet, each has 5 toes pointing in the same general direction. As it turns out he wasn’t making a judgment
about my feet just wanting to know if I put my left foot forward (regular
footed) or my right foot forward (goofy footed). I chose regular footed. I didn’t want to
start off with the term goofy attached to my snowboard experience.
He
explained how to put the
board on which was pretty easy forward foot first (regular foot in my case)
then the other foot. You could do this
sitting down but you had to get up without sliding don the mountain. He then showed us how to turn and transition
from right to left. Which turned out to
be more difficult because while transitioning from a right turn to a left turn
meant you had to rotate the board from right to left leaving you on the slick
flat surface of the board for a short time.
My idea was to rotate quickly from right to left to minimize my time on
the unstable flat surface. I found I
turned right very well but my transition was poor and my left turns not so good
either. Basically what I needed was a
round mountain that would always allow me to turn right and still end up back
at the chateau.
We also
learned how to get on and off the ski lift, which is different process than it
is with skis. You unhook your back foot
before getting on then just rest your back foot on the board when getting
off. I fell frequently getting off the
lift. I also fell frequently while
trying to make left turns. The one thing
the instructor didn’t teach us was how to fall.
Although falling came naturally to me I made a big mistake by trying to
break my fall and ended up in the First Aid station about 10 minutes after I
started my lesson.
At the First Aid station all they could really do was put an ice bag on my shoulder,
which I had wrenched badly (torn rotator cuff) and send me back to the clubhouse. So here I am sitting in the clubhouse with a
bag of ice on my shoulder and the rest of our ski party comes in all asking how
could I get injured so quickly, they hadn’t even put their skis on yet. How is that possible? Well you just have to
work at it.
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