firstx1017

My first time on the snowboard part of the video was the day after Thanksgiving 2010. I was only able to take about an hour while trying to learn with all the falls. So about an hour on Saturday morning and an hour Sunday morning, then I would go back to skiing to get my mind off all my falling. We have a cabin up there for the winter so we go up every Friday night and come back Sunday afternoon. I had four days during Xmas and four days during New Years each with about one hour a day. January 9th I got a new women's flat camber board, was using my husband's old board to learn on, and for the month of January I was able to get about 2 hours a day each Saturday and Sunday weekend and the final video was shot 2/5/11. So if you add up all the hours it was probably 5 full days of 8 hour days which if I was in my 20's would probably not been a problem - but at 50 I needed a longer learning curve! lol

Jenzo

Eh I wouldn't chalk it up to age, some people just catch on faster, I think that's pretty normal learning curve. You get the people who have no fear of death and on their first day point the board straight down the hill and don't stop until they hit something or fall over, but I wouldn't call that learning faster, lol.
It took my b/f quite a while to get into it due to foot pain, he had never done a snow sport before and the lessons really helped. When I was trying to teach him it was a disaster. All his fault of course

S4Shredr

Damn I didn't see the 20 days part. Definitely get her a lesson, it is your only option at that skill level. You'll fail at teaching and she will fail at learning causing a big mess.

Trying to teach her yourself would be like giving tips to a scratch golfer as a 20 handicap, it just doesn't make sense.

Toecutter

Another vote for "get lessons."

Any guy who's ever tried to teach a girlfriend any sport knows this. Too much room for hurt feelings.

Bones

Really? So approximately 40 hours of riding from start to finish of that montage? That's it?

Very cool video BTW. I've shown it to several friends that are just starting and they feel so much better after having watched it. That probably sounds insulting, but I mean it in a positive way. There are videos of high end riders, videos of instructors, but no videos of what it is actually like to learn. They fall a lot, they get frustrated and while I keep telling them that everyone starts like that, they don't see their own progress (particularly the phase where you're transitioning from falling leaf to turning across the fall line)

leecm

You didnt see me post the 20 days part because I didnt - someone else did. BTW, thanks rveryone so far for the advice. This actually turned out to be a pretty damn good and informative thread.

Donutz

That's at least partly because when we hit our 50's we're not quite so anxious to just huck it. You learn jumps faster ferinstance if you just attack them aggressively without concern for possible consequences. Of course in your 20's you're invincible, invulnerable, and immortal. When you hit your 50's you realize you're lucky to still be alive with some of the shit you pulled in your 20's.

I'm a far better snowboarder at 54 than I was a skier at 20. But it's taking me longer to get there because I think through each advance before hitting it.

And yeah, I'm amazed I'm still in one piece

__________________

Illegitimi non carborundum

Mountain Days: 30

firstx1017

that is true - I couldn't find any videos of progessive learning on YouTube, that's why I wanted to post what I went thru. Most people just show them with the board pointed downhill and either bailing or running into something to stop. My first priority was to learn how to stop myself. Once I learned heelside how to control my speed, then I moved on to toe side - which was really hard for me to get. I then could go toeside, but took me forever to actually link toe and heel - as you can see in the video I could go to my toeside but when I went back to my heelside I would swing around and have to falling leave again to go back to my toeside. I was stuck doing this for a few weeks so that's why I posted that series on the video. I was finally able to stop the swinging and link heel and toe and I was a happy camper. I noticed the progression watching the videos as my husband taped so I really never got discouraged and everyday I felt I did better than the previous day. I would like to take a lesson this year to get better going down the blacks, so we shall see. And thanks for the compliment - means a lot to this old broad! lol

firstx1017

I totally agree!!!!