Snowboard Training Day

SNOWBOARD TRAINING FOR SNOWPROS INSTRUCTORS

In our quest to continually improve our team’s teaching, we recently had a snowboarding professional development session.

Because it’s always good to refresh your ideas, we had Stefan from Real Snowboarding in Morzine come over to give us the latest info on snowboard technique and how to teach it better.

Don’t say it too loud but I used to snowboard a lot in my 20s, having originally skied and then gone back to skiing as I got older. What I used to love about snowboarding was the counterculture aspect to it and I used to love to read snowboard and skate magazines.

In my life, I’m generally a bit of a rebel, I don’t like rules and I don’t like being told what to do, I never have. Everything to do with snowboarding in the early years was cool, rebellious and different to skiing which was very rigid and mainstream at the time.

Although now I’m more into skiing and lately more so into telemark, snowboarding still has a place in my heart and I’m always very envious of just how cool the snowboard teachers who I see on the mountain are. So once or twice a year I dust off my board and go ride with the guys.

The first couple of turns are always a bit sketchy but I soon relax into it and realise that snowboarding is a more chilled out way of getting around the mountain. It feels odd at first not to have the poles, hard boots and just generally all the ‘stuff’ that the skiers have, almost like you feel like you’ve left something behind.

We got Stefan in to give us some fresh ideas and he delivered us a really great session with a refresh of our knowledge on how and why a snowboard works and how we can make it work.

I think it’s fair to say that it’s less complex than skiing because there are less moving parts but it has some intricacies all of it’s own which makes it quite unique. There are also many similarities to skiing that once you see them, are very relatable back and forth.

Max was particularly interested in how it related to surfing because that’s what he does in summer and the movements to get a board on water and snow are quite different apparently. I went surfing once and basically spent 3 hours lightly drowning so I wasn’t quite able to understand this.

I think what is interesting is just how crossoverable (if that is a word) skiing and snowboarding are. I think if you do one, you can do the other. Most of our clients have done some form of sliding about on snow and one of the great things about our session was cementing that understanding of how the two relate. That makes it easier to teach for us.

After a couple of hours I had to get back to the office and do boring office stuff. I left the guys who were by that time getting into a session on eurocarving, freestyle and switch riding.

On my way back I got a lovely combination of perfect snow and just the right pitch to lay the board over on my toe side edge, relax into the boot and feel that feeling of what I imagine a good surfer might feel when they are riding a wave. It’s a similar feeling of when you are on the inside of a carved turning in skiing but because you are side on it just feels so cool.

I was transported back in time to when I was younger, even more rebellious and had less responsibility. It was a time when I was free.

Dave Burrows
Director
SnowPros Ski School