Snowboarding

When I was a kid, my dad used to make us go skiing and I hated it! I hated everything about it from the hand-me-down winter clothes that were never warm enough and never fit quite right to the extra long skis, which seemed to trip me up no matter which way I moved. I hated the cold, my aching feet, the sense of inadequacy that I felt at 8, since all my friends had a 4 year jump start on learning to ski. I was scared of the speed and scared of getting hurt. After one year of classed

Now I am back in Utah, surrounded by avid skiers and snowboarders who have all told me that the only way to make it through this winter weather is to take up one of these sports so that all this snow will just be cause for excitement. This last Saturday, I finally swallowed my new fear of the $60 lift ticket and took a snowboarding class. Lesha and Ty helped me get prepared. They loaned me warm clothes and instructed me on how to layer them. Other friends reminded me that I needed wrist guards and a helmet. Others warned me that I would be aching for days.

I headed up the mountain, credit card at the ready, wrapped in a pile of clothes. The woman at the lift ticket was Czech. The woman manning the desk where I signed up for classes was Australian, the man behind the rental counter who measured me for a snowboard was British, and my snowboarding teacher was Scottish. I was stunned. I had no idea that just a few miles from my house was a completely different community composed of people of all ages from all around the world, willing to do any job, as long as they could ski or snowboard in their time off.

I headed away from the rental place, snowboard in hand. "I don't even know how to strap this on," I confessed. "Don't worry," said my friend Heidi, a pro with one day's more experience than me on the slopes, "they'll teach you that as part of the class." And they did teach me how. We walked over to a practically level surface, surrounded by screaming three and four year olds. We strapped the board on one foot and pushed ourselves around as though it were a skateboard for about 10 minutes. After that, came a brief description of how to get on and off the lift and then, we had to do just that- get on the lift and head up to the top of the run. I was scared to death. I still had no more idea how to snowboard than when I started. I had yet to even put the second foot in. "They stuck me with a crazy Scottish man! He only cares about snowboarding! He doesn't care at all about me! I am doomed!" I made mean faces at my teacher's helmet, plastered with stickers about snowboarding that made no sense to me.

I did such a bad job getting on the lift, they actually had to stop it for me. The ride up to the top was lovely and serene. I stood up on my board when it was time to get off and promptly fell down and then had to crawl out of the way before being hit by a dismounting skier. Doomed.

Then, we strapped our other foot into the board and started learning how to snowboard. It quickly became apparent that our teacher was not crazy. He was excellent. In order to snowboard, apparently it helps to have a downhill slope. Otherwise we would have just stood in one place for an hour. He encouraged us, prodded us, and critiqued us with endless patience. The wind blew, the snow dumped down, but with the warm clothes given to me by my sister, I never got the slightest cold. It seemed like the weather was an irrelevant force, except when the wind blew hard enough that I actually stopped heading downhill and was held in place by the conflict between the elements.

I felt like a champion. I did it! I wasn't afraid. I conquered the bunny hill! On the second to last run, the one where I finally was trying to actually turn, rather than just move from side to side across the mountain, I fell hard. Really hard, right on my tail bone, my head facing down the hill. I laid there, icing my tail bone while my teacher filled me in on what had gone wrong. "That wasn't so bad," I thought. "I can take falls like that." The problem with the fall was that the tailbone is essential to snowboarding. When you move to stand up, all your pressure goes right there, while you push yourself to your feet. I pushed myself up, my eyes tearing from the pain, telling myself, "I'm tough. I can do this." 10 seconds later, I was back down on my tailbone. This time, I couldn't put enough pressure on my tail bone to stand up without crying, which I refused to do. I unstrapped and walked the last 20 feet to the chairlift line.

I made a little chair of snow and iced my butt for 15 minutes, until I couldn't take it anymore. By that time, my class was back down again. The other woman was too exhausted to move, the other guy on the verge of collapse after a few hard falls. I think I was the freshest one of all of us. I was certainly the happiest. I found I could snowboard. I found I loved it. I found that, as Lesha says, the gear is dramatically different than what I grew up with. Most importantly, it reinforced one of the biggest lessons I have learned this year: I can trust my body. I know it better now and am learning my strengths, as well as my limitations. I can't wait to head back up the mountain again.