Meet Emma, our first snowboard guinea pig. A complete beginner, Emma is currently working her way through the snowboard lesson programme. Along the way she’ll be blogging about her journey and giving you all her insights, thoughts & feelings about learning to snowboard. Today, lesson 1 & epiphanies… “An epiphany. Today I realised why snowboarders always look so freakin’ cool. They literally relax. You’ve kind of got to sink into it. As soon as I tensed up I would start to lose control, but when instructor Martin reminded me to relax my body & I actually looked where the hell I was going, instead of down at my feet (which sounds easy but is totally counter-intuitive for a beginner by the way, but really works!) something just clicked. God, I love the click. That beautiful moment when you start to believe that you can truly do something. Ooh & my ass! Another epiphany. I would never have thought my ass would become so important to me. Up until now I’ve always just thought of it as the thing that follows me when I jog, but now it’s so much more. My ass is to my snowboarding what my gearstick is to my car. It’s also a great wee buffer between me & the slope when I go A over T. In fact, one of the most important lessons I learned today was, that at all costs, I am to avoid a thing called GSA (Girl Snowboarder Ass) a phenomenon particular to females where you permanently stick your ass out – apparently very common but deeply, deeply un-cool. All I can say is, I’ll try my best, but it’s incredibly hard to fight millions of years worth of evolution that has taught us girls that it’s a good idea to stick your butt out when boys are around. I’m also trying extremely hard not to swear. I do tend to have a bit of a dirty mouth on me in general & a lot of what comes out has kept me off Santa’s ‘good’ list for years, but I’m aware that there are children on the slopes too & don’t think it’s a great idea to give them an education in expletives that could very well get them expelled from school – so currently doing a great line in “Mother Fupper!” and “Ooh ye baxtard!”. That said, I think I might be a little bit in love. My sport of choice is usually surfing, but after the click today, I think snowboarding has definitely entered love territory. My pupils were dilated, when I think about it I get butterflies & as soon as my lesson was over I just wanted to be with it again. What if surfing finds out that I’ve been seeing snowboarding behind it’s back? Ahh, fupp it! It’s worth the risk.”
