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First time snowboarding...

Originally posted by: spidey07
wear the proper clothing, don't go faster than you can control, take lessons.

learn how to stop.
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Yup, and some ski resort has wrist guards for beginners, use them.

stay low, and don't lean backward (ie, always keep the majority of your weight on your front foot).
 
You're butt is really gonna hurt.

Mine hurt for days after the first time I went snowboarding. It was alot of fun though😉

Enjoy yourself 🙂
 
tomorrow, you're going to be sore as hell. You're going to fall a lot. There's no avoiding it. Unless you are talented in snowboarding from the start, you'll fall, and not have a good time.

The first time I went, I felt like hell as well.

After that, it was fun. Now I can do some jumps and traverse.

When you turn, turn w/ your body, meaning turn by twisting your upper body, then waist first. The legs will automatically follow. Do not try to force it w/ your leg muscles, or you're in for cramps.
Stretch a ton before you head up. Stretch stretch stretch. Wear wrist guards, or before you go up, practice falling on your butt. Do not use your hands to brace your fall. When you fall foward, do not extend out your arms. practice falling by crossing your arms in front of you, so your forearms are getting the force of the fall instead of your hand/wrist/elbow.

Falling backwards? Just fall, do not use your arms. land i guess in a sitting motion? Well, make sure you land on your butt.

Wear a HELMET. <---- phokking important.


never be flatfooted against the snow. you'll fall. Never have the board be flat on the snow while going down, you'll fall. Always have the board's blade areas touch the snow. This is best done by leaning foward a bit on your toe side. It feels as if you're almost tip-toe'ing.

I take it you're going nightboarding or going to a cabin/hotel/motel/resort first, then heading out in the morning?

If so in the morning, hit the powder EARLY in the morning! best conditions are in the early morning hours, and that's actually the best time to learn, since no one's there, and it's easy to traverse through the new snow (assuming they'll be snowmaking overnight).

 
Wear a helmet! Heidi Klum was on Leno the other night. They showed a clip of her wiping out on a snowboard. Awesome!
 
Make sure you dont lean back too far where your board will get caught.
That's a great way to crack your head open.

Learn to stop first! If you know how to stop. Everything else will fall into place.
Oh yea, you're gonna get raped by the slope. Get some astroglide ready.
 
Originally posted by: Baked
Wear a helmet! Heidi Klum was on Leno the other night. They showed a clip of her wiping out on a snowboard. Awesome!
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ughhh talk about unprepared.. I only have a pair of waterproof pants.. not snowboarding pants.

I've got the proper jacket from REI, but everyone tells me it's gonna be hot once I get up there, so all the heavy equipment may be useless.

No wrist guards, but I guess i should learn just to fall.. I hope I don't break anything....
 
Originally posted by: DLeRium
Originally posted by: Baked
Wear a helmet! Heidi Klum was on Leno the other night. They showed a clip of her wiping out on a snowboard. Awesome!
Click to expand...

ughhh talk about unprepared.. I only have a pair of waterproof pants.. not snowboarding pants.

I've got the proper jacket from REI, but everyone tells me it's gonna be hot once I get up there, so all the heavy equipment may be useless.

No wrist guards, but I guess i should learn just to fall.. I hope I don't break anything....
Click to expand...

Depending on the Outside Temp. Waterproof pants will be fine.
Also if it's anything above 50, you probably only need a Hoodie.

 
i normally only wear good (read expensive) long underwear and then my pants over that.

you should be able to rent some pants - they will keep you dry. Nothing more miserable than cold AND wet.

just take extra clothes and layer if you need them. A warm hat or helmet is always a good idea.
 
If you are reasonably athletic you don't need lessons, maybe just a friend to tell you some basics. Just make sure all your gear is on correctly and tuck the snow skirt in your jacket into your pants and put your gloves over your sleaves well because you are gonna eat it ALOT! Stick to the greens, "bunny hills" suck. First thing to learn: Stopping. 2nd: "Falling Leaf" where you board side to side on just one edje of your board (ie you are always facing down the mountain your butt is facing down the mountain." 3rd: work on making turning to heal side, then work on turning to toe side. Pretty soon you will be sick on the slopes.
 
Wear warm clothing.

Practice how to stop until you can do it everytime. Saves injuries to yourself and others. Basically you put the weight on your leading foot and swing the back around so you're going perpendicular to the hill, while putting pressure on the back edge of your board. Not that hard, keep trying. 🙂
 
I've never been on skis in my life, about 7 years ago i tried snowboarding (damn its been that long now). First couple of times were fun, but painful. My big thing to tell people who are trying out is avoid the jumps the first couple of times no matter how good you think you are. I never really found the need for a helmet if you avoid the jumps.

I think its best to learn to go down and carve on your heels, keeping your toes up. When you get out there on the slopes you'll know what I mean. This allows you to fall backwards on your ass if you need to instead of falling forward and faceplanting. This will help to prevent yourself from trying to put your wrists out to stop yourself from falling. Biggest thing I've seen is people dont learn how to stop and they can get going down the hill and can't stop so they run into people. Stick to the less steep slopes and dont worry about the lifts just yet. Those won't be fun until you get a little more accustomed to the board and whatnot. Just walk up the hill (if its not too big and steep) and try to get a feel for going down and just moving with the thing. By the end of the night you'll probably be able to handle most of the slopes there if you are able to get any technique down at all.

Just dont get frustrated.....

As far as clothing, I'd be sure to wear layers so that if you get out there and its too warm, you can take something off and still have a good outer shell of a coat on. The pants will only be an issue on the seat of your pants because you will typically find yourself sitting down a lot to hook up your bindings. waterproof will help. I've never worn anything underneath my snowboarding pants or windpants that are waterproof because I get too damn hot. I think you'll be alright..

Biggest thing of all.... BRING EXTRA DRY CLOTHES for ALL THE WAY THROUGH so that you dont have to sit around the rest of the night or the ride home with wet clothes.

Borrow some googles if they are blowing snow in the evening or you wont want to be out there.

Hope this helps, it sure made me jelous that you get to go boarding and I haven't been out for over 2 years now.
 
All of everyone else's tips, and try not to lean towards the front. Try not to turn at first, and go down the bunny hills. Ummm... good luck?
 
I only got to snowboard one season (last season). I was lucky I picked it up pretty fast (being a former skateboarder helped me out). I'm going through withdrawal now because I live in the part of the country where it is out of the question as an outside activity.

If there is a jealousy emoticon I would use it here.
 
got back.. i'm slightly bruised, but really sore =/. clothing was fine. i was sweating in my t-shirt and one of those columbia 3-in-1 jackets. even had to take my beanie off cuz it got too hot.

Yea I can go down straight down the bunny slope but it gets too fast and all the ppl who sit down on the hill piss me off. Can't really turn but I know that you can just spread your arms out and turn them to slowly turn a bit (that's how i avoided a few people), but I can't slow down =[ so I end up flying across the snow like 20 feet.

yea im really sore now =/. but i hope to learn more (especially turning and slowing down).
 
Originally posted by: Jittos
Originally posted by: spidey07
wear the proper clothing, don't go faster than you can control, take lessons.

learn how to stop.
Click to expand...

Yup, and some ski resort has wrist guards for beginners, use them.

stay low, and don't lean backward (ie, always keep the majority of your weight on your front foot).
Click to expand...
No No No

When you get better your going to have pretty much all of your weight on your back foot to make nice powerful turns, but we'll get into this later. Also you have to have your wieght on your back foot to really stomp though jumps... landing with weight on your front foot makes for some funyn 9 yet painful) falls.

Anyways for a beginner your going to be pretty much scraping down the hill on your healside ( meaning back to the hill leaning back ) what you want to do is try to get from healside to toe side (to to hill) and back without falling. Make sure to always keep weight on the edge facing the mountain or else you'll be in for some nasty faceplants. Just keep going healside toe side healside toeside untill you get the motion down.

You are most liklely going to have to spend the day just doing this but the whole idea is to spend less and less time scraping your edge and mosre and more time in between your turns going straight down. If you start going too fast you just turn to the side most natural to you (healside or toeside) and you will stop. If this fails just fall.. its much less paintful then flying into a tree.

So pretty much practice makign turns and get how you need to throw your weight as to not fall foward. Other than that have fun 🙂 ANd for putting weight on either foot i'd say try to keep them about equal seeing as though you are going to be scraping downt he mohtnain msot of the time. putting too much weight on a foot is going to make you go straight down and loose control. 😉


EDIT: looks like i was too late lol
 
Originally posted by: DLeRium
got back.. i'm slightly bruised, but really sore =/. clothing was fine. i was sweating in my t-shirt and one of those columbia 3-in-1 jackets. even had to take my beanie off cuz it got too hot.

Yea I can go down straight down the bunny slope but it gets too fast and all the ppl who sit down on the hill piss me off. Can't really turn but I know that you can just spread your arms out and turn them to slowly turn a bit (that's how i avoided a few people), but I can't slow down =[ so I end up flying across the snow like 20 feet.

yea im really sore now =/. but i hope to learn more (especially turning and slowing down).
Click to expand...


Yeah its easier if you start as a kid 😀
Turning is all in your back foot. Its hard to explain, but you need to just kinda throw it out there with an edge to the mountain. Eventually your going to be turning very little and just going straight down while throwing your back foot out a bit once and a while. Keep it up and you'll be shreding in no time.
 
I tried snowboarding 3 times. It just didn't work out for me. I'm still worse than most people are on their first try. I guess 10 years of skiing habits destroy ability to snowboard... =/
 
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