I've wanted to learn how to snowboard for years. Skiing has never held any appeal for me but snowboarding has always seemed like so much fun. I've been hoping to fulfill this dream of mine for years and it's been in my to-do list for 2014, 2015 and this year.
I decided a month or so ago that enough was enough and I needed to put some wheels into motion. Once I'd mentioned it to a few friends, including my brother and my husband, they all wanted in too so we ended up with a group of 7 all heading to Xscape Castleford for our first lesson together.
One friend had to drop out early due to a previous knee injury but the rest of us pushed on for an hour and a half of wobbles, bumps and falls and by the end we had learnt (well 5 of the remaining 6 had) how to fall and also snowboard backwards down the slope, also known as boarding on the toe edge and to change direction whilst doing it. You can see a video on my Instagram if your interested.
I ached like a bitch the next day and pretty sure I gave myself whiplash from a particularly hard and fast fall but was more than excited for lesson two in a few weeks.
Lesson two came around so quickly and after a quick recap of the first lesson we started to learn how to board on the heel edge. I found this much harder than the first lesson and spent more time hurtling at speed down the slope praying I wasn't going to crash or fall. My horse riding days came in useful for keeping my balance I think. Again we learnt to go from side to side and also got more than our fair share of snow down our pants! Despite thinking I'd done absolutely rubbish we all passed.
I feel extremely excited to progress even further and so proud of how quickly we have all picked up the skills so far. It's so much fun, if a little frustrating at times, and I know already that we will be boarding for the rest of our lives. We've all been discussing hitting the slopes together for a holiday and I've even been discussing with Ant about getting Luca skiing lessons once we've passed.
This week we have our level 3+4 combined, that's three hours of snowboarding! Three hours!!! That one will be painful the day after and utterly exhausting but I can't wait for it to come around.
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