Funny, I had the exact opposite experience of the OP. My first time boarding was toward the end of last season. Took some really tough spills but for some reason I was hooked.
Anyway... decided to jump right in and got a board, boots, and bindings. Went twice already this season...and did much better than last year.
However, like I said complete opposite problem of the OP... my first time out this season I found that toe-side turns came naturally to me but I couldn't get my heel-side turns going at all.
When I went back the second time I had a "plan." Some of the things that worked for me was setting the heel of the binding forward a bit to keep myself from leaning back too much. I found that grabbing the side of my snow pants kept me more balanced when I got that wobbly feeling. Then an instructor who had seen me a couple times told me that I should focus more on my lead foot than my back foot and that was a huge help. By the end of the day I was going down no problem, turning and stopping when I wanted. I'm hoping to get back up on the mountain this weekend... will definitely try the Garlands.
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