Girl Gets Board

Note: I am having the best winter I have had in a long time since I decided to get back into snowboarding. I’ve realized how much I missed it and how much happier it makes me. I hope you’ve had some epic days on the snow too and have had a fun season riding with friends.

A couple weeks ago I was saying that I felt like I had reached a point where I wasn’t progressing. Well, riding with Mercedes at Pillow Fight and then riding with Frank (also an instructor) on Saturday changed that. Now, I can’t go down a run without my head feeling like it’s going to explode with all of the things I am trying to remember. (Really a good thing, I haven’t felt like this with snowboarding for a long time.)

Since I know you are dying to know what goes on in my brain…

When going down a run, groomed:

• turn with the front foot, then follow with the back foot
• when further into the turn, pee like a girl (heel turn)/pee like a boy (toe turn) (thanks Mercedes…that is burned into my head)
• when doing a heel turn, really bend your knees and squat low
• stay light on your feet and absorb any bumps/random snow piles

When hitting a jump:

• keep your knees soft
• on the wedge, keep your board flat and knees bent
• do a little pop off the jump to stay in control
• in the air–do a grab, do a dead man–just stay stable
• land flat with soft knees

I could keep going. But my biggest problem is doing way too many speed checks before I hit a jump. With everything else, I can just remind myself and fix when I start to turn with my back leg, or ride too straight, or whatever, but the speed checks is all mental. The thing is, is that I know that speed is my friend, but I don’t know it, really.

I’m ready to land, but look how much more I could clear if I got more speed…

I was talking to Mitch about it in the car ride home from Stevens and he suggested I work backwards in my head. He said he used to do it when he was trying to get over the fear of speeding through a turn while racing motorcycles. So, he said, where do you want to end up? I said, on the down-slope, riding away clean. So, he said, work backwards from there. How do you get to that point?

So I worked through the perfect jump in my head, backwards:

Land flat on the down-slope, riding away clean; in the air do a grab; at the apex of the jump, pop; approach flat with knees bent; and (gulp) get enough speed approaching the jump. With the vision of a clean landing and a smooth air (no crazy window rolling or leaning to far back and landing on my tail), it started to feel a little safer to go faster.

Looking at the size of just the wedge, it’s small, right? But to me, the approach makes it seem huge!

Then he suggested that I just focus on doing one or two jump really well. Hit the other jumps, but for one or two, get really comfortable on the approach doing it right with lots of speed. Then, when I’m good with those, start focusing on doing the others right too.

Tuesday, when I’m back in the park, I think I’ll pick one or two jumps where the approaches aren’t huge and long (giving me too much time to think) and work perfecting those. Before I hit the jump, I’ll run through it backwards in my head and allowing myself only two speed checks, then one, then none.

On Saturday we also hit up the pipe a couple of times. I’m still working on smoothing out my turns, riding up the wall, bending my knees on the flat. I’ve also started trying to do a little pop at the top of the pipe, but that still feels a little weird and awkward. Just more to think about…

Having new stuff to work on and (hopefully) get better at makes a day out snowboarding so much more fun. Instead of just cruising around the groomers day after day doing the same laps, same kind of turns, upping the game makes the day a challenge. So when you do land a new trick, the stoke comes back and you remember why you started riding in the first place.