Snowboarding Lessons

Snowboarding is a very challenging sport. One which involves good balance and control; I learned that this Sunday when a few friends and I decided to learn how to snowboard at Mt. Brighton.
It was Kelly Glynn, her sister Katie, Taylor Cieslak and I who had made plans to get up early Sunday morning, meet at Kelly and Katie's house and get out to Mt. Brighton around the time it opened, which was around 9:00. And that is pretty much what happened. I woke up at 6:30 (we had to be at Kelly's by 8:00), ate some breakfast and rushed around getting ready and gathering all my snow gear. I threw my hair into two braids and put on some comfy/warm clothes: yoga pants, a tee-shirt and my fleece North Face jacket.
I was at Kelly's house right on time and we arrived at Mt. Brighton a little after nine. Kelly, Katie and I all had to rent boards and boots; they also had to rent helmets, I did not because 1.) I don't exactly like to put items on my head that have been worn by many others and 2.) I was borrowing a spare and slightly too small, too tight helmet from Tay, but it worked nonetheless. I found the boots to be a tad funny looking though, they made your feet look short and stubby; I bet Shaq's feet would even look small in them! The boards we got were very simple, wither black or white with an unknown logo stamped in the middle of the board.
Soon, it was ten o'clock and time for our lesson. The first thing we learned how to do was “glide” or “skate”, which is how you get around while you're not speeding downhill. I learned that you always keep your front foot locked in the bindings and the other foot can either be placed in front of or behind the board and then you just use the loose foot to push yourself along, almost like on a scooter or a skateboard. First I was really slow at this, but I got the hang of it after a while. We then proceeded onto riding in a straight line down the bunny hill. Now, these straight lines, I could do. However, stopping and turning not so much. Those are probably the most important or useful areas, and I thought they were the hardest. This was because to turn you had to either slightly lift your toes or your heels, and almost always I didn't lift them enough, or I lifted them too much and lost balance. Stopping was the same thing. If you stop on your toes, you can lean too far forward and fall head first into the snow and if you stop on your heels, lose balance and fall backwards, you take a hard fall on your bottom. I've experienced both and I can tell you falling face first is the way to go...because my tail bone still kills to sit on.
After the lesson and a couple practice runs on the bunny hill we all moved onto the intermediate hill; much bigger than the bunny hill. And the tow rope was much longer! We also had to go up “backwards” because the left side was not working. And I actually found that to be more comfortable than the normal way. We all took many falls on this, but I did have a few smooth runs....after I made sure there would be no one in the way. I had a very good time and definitely want to go back again!