A Day with the Snowboarding Staff

This summer heat has been oppressive lately, so how about a little reminder of colder days?

Near the end of last season, the snowsports instructors got together for a day of feeding our faces and sliding down the snow one more time.

We started out with a potluck breakfast. The snowboard instructors joked about whether we would let the ski instructors eat our food. A few did, but mostly they had their own food. Chalk it up to people seeking out the familiar.

After breakfast, we went out to try some tricks. The snowboard leader gave us a lesson in doing porpoise turns. I certainly didn’t get it–for one thing, my board is far too stiff; for another, my body is far too stiff. But it was entertaining to watch everyone else.

We spent a lot of the time in plain old follow-the-leader: ride the lift, pick a line, and go.

We also did a few drills, such as “the human gate.” In that exercise, person A rides a short distance down the hill and stops. Person B rides to the side of A, goes a bit further, and stops. C weaves between A and B and stops. And so forth. It’s both a trust exercise (as in “trust that the person coming down the hill won’t plow into you, or alternately, that you can get out of the way”) and a precision maneuver.