TR JF 02-25-10

[Robert2]

Today was a teaching day for me and my student had been on slush once last year , and now snow as her 2nd lesson.

She road down Snowflake, fell once, jumped up, road to the lift and then lapped Powder Puff

TEN TIMES without ever falling down again.

Nice to get deep sticky "no go" snow for her first time out this year.

It had just enough slip to it to ride all the way down the hill...even where its almost flat.

Snow fell...no... it wasn't snowfall... it was definitely a blizzard with hard winds blowing snow sideways a lot of the afternoon.

If I didn't have the kid I would have explored the black diamonds today.

This is real superhero snow.

Deep enough to fly like superman and if you screwup you just end up soft landing in a snowdrift.

 

This snowstorm isn't going away.

Go play if you can.

 

JADIP

[toast21602]

how old are your "students"?

[Robert2]

how old are your "students"?

Any relative over the age of 12 gets handed to me to teach snowboarding.

Its sort of expected.

And with the Irish thats a lot of kids.

This lesson was a 16 year old anorexic girl.

No muscles. Just a twig of a kid that barely filled out the snow clothes.

Its one thing to teach athletes but these city kids really worry me sometimes.

One fall and they twist like pretzels.

Or even something as simple as a shoulder roll to go from sitting to knees to stand up seems like

a whole battle to get flipped over.... even with real expensive lightweight snowboards.

They are house kept...like pets... no physical exercise.... no muscle tone...

real pros at nintendo, WII, xbox, but take them outside and you would think they were vampires and would burst into

flames under the sunshine.

I teach them balance on fusion scooters and healies on blacktop before they get to the mountain.

If they can't ride a fusion scooter (4 big outboard wheels and handle bar) and

do S curves to check speed then I figure why waste $32 on a lift ticket.

I gave this kid a fusion scooter last March.

This kid passed her blacktop balance and S turns testing before hitting the slope.

Wrapped up in armor... wrist guard mittens, knee pads, elbow guards and a helmet....

she had no fear of falling and took the ride... in the blizzard... until they kicked us out at 4PM.

[Robert2]

Wow Robert2 getting a lesson from you seems like quite the experience!!! Do you mind giving up slope time to teach????

 

Since the Timmy bus cancels any time there is big snow I welcome the chance like yesterday.

The more relatives I teach how to snowboard the more snow time I'll get when they visit DURING

snowstorms.

Do it right the first time and you can teach anybody to be a snowboarder.

Its not like babysitting like other ski classes.

None of this potted plants sitting in the snow all day waiting to be told what to do.

My number one instruction for anyone I teach is if you fall you get up, as fast as you can, you get the hell up and ride to the lift. If you ain't bleeding you are riding. And if you don't want to ride down the hill, take off the board and go home.

None of this wait to be told what to do next.

So...like yesterday.

I just followed the kid all day. Just in case she fell. I'm not going to walk up the hill so I

always stay above the new rider on the hill.

We would have gone again today but their minivan got snowed in. It took hours for them to dig out and then they still spun wheels on ice and gave up.

We'll go tomorrow.

[method9455]

One of my room mates family are all twigs, and his brother just broke his wrist at Blue this weekend. First timer on a board and didn't wear wrist guards like I recommended.