Snow + Boarding = Snowboarding

Yeah that's right. I finally did it. I went snowboarding.

You know how you say your going to do something, you intend on doing it but you don't intend on doing it. That's what snowboarding was for me. We talked about it. I looked forward to it and figured that was all I was going to do, look forward to it.

But, against all odds, I did it.

My girlfriend, Sister and fellow Kung Fu Student/Office Manager went "snowboarding".

Yesterday we rented boards and boots for $20 for 24 hours. It took us about an hour to get to the slopes and about 45 minutes to get ready. My girlfriend managed to get us an awesome deal for the lift tickets. It ended up being $18 each for an 8-hour pass and a lesson. We had to try once before the lesson for the sake of being manly (or womanly).

Then we hit the lifts. Or should I say: we hit the lifts, then each other, then the ground.

First time down fucking sucked. I hit random objects, went super fast so I couldn't stop, and hit random objects. Everyone else did the same. Yeah, we needed lessons.

We staggered over to the instruction area like a bunch of drunken newborn calves. We met our instructor, Rueben (Not his real name because I can't remember it), and found out he was a nice guy. He taught us how to turn right by pressing toes into the ground and left by pressing the heels. That, of course, turned out to be a 45-minute ordeal. We were falling all over the place and mangling our bodies into positions they weren't made for. Slamming our asses and faces into ice and avoiding people.

Over those 45 minutes I started to feel more comfortable with the board as did everyone else.

Then came the hard part.

Now we needed to go frontward: both legs standing square. If you were to stand with your hands on your hips, legs shoulder width apart, you understand what we had to do, down a freaking hill. This is where things started getting better. You could slow down to a crawl by leaning back or speed up by leaning forward. Don't lean too far forward or you'll end up catching the board in a rut and smacking your fucking head off the ice and torque your body into disgusting positions while screaming.

Lesson over.

Great. Now time to take my newfound ways to continue to bring pain to myself into good use.

The hardest thing of the day overall was to get on and off the lift without killing yourself or others on the lift with you.

The major triumph for us was being able to get off that bitch and managing to stay on the board the whole time without falling.

As you guessed after a while you get used to the speed and you are able to slow down and speed up, weave back and forth, and most importantly, dodge each other.

I had some nasty spills though. Some I thought I wouldn't get up from. Good thing I take martial arts. You learn to fall and take pain differently. Doesn't help much when you run into a fence though.