TigerWolf

Definately the legs or course but mainly your lower legs. It depends on what you are going. If you dont learn to fall over properly its your wrists because you use them to break your fall.

Falls is pretty good, but a bit flat. Hotham is great as its very big but you need to get a good snowfall so that the mountain is nice and open.

I was thinking about NZ too, they get more snow, the cost is like $150 or so more for flights and like you said - cool landscape to check out. Defo worth checking out in the future for me.

con3593

tendinitits in both achilles tendons (back of the ankle)

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I voted buckethead asshole,

Christafa

Bummer man . Hope you can get them working alright again. How do you mitigate that from ever happening if you don't mind me asking?

kylekilljoy

I'm still something of a beginner, this coming season being my second and all
but my first couple of days were nothing short of hilarious

My first day up at our local spot I was rockin the rentals and had a thirty minute lesson, they taught us the basics, skating turning etc. I spent most of the day on the bunny slope counting my falls and tryin to keep them under 5 lol. Finally it started getting later and my friends pushed me towards my first actual slope. I went on it and my knees nearly bled. Once a skier cut right in front of me, I tried to heelside stop but caught some bad edge and roundhoused the poor kids legs from right under him, i felt bad so i stayed and helped him back up. The next day my knees were raw and nearly bloody, and my ass felt like hamburger meat, but for some reason i kept going. Ever since Ive been hooked.

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Space
Space

con3593

stretch before you board....thats all you can really do to protect your tendons. What I usually do now is I will face a wall, put my toes on the wall, and try to get my hell to touch the wall without the toe leaving. Just don't over do it

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I voted buckethead asshole,

Christafa

Sounds good. Hope it works for you mate.

Man, sounds like I should get knee pads from falling on knees, wrist pads for the wrists, and elbow pads because apparently you're supposed to draw your arms up, and that could expose the elbows a bit too. Why not a helmet too. Bloody carnage!

Minger

I started out as a skiier. Slow learner, didn't learn how to parallel stop until I was about to run into a line of people. Got decent, and did it like 1-2 times a year for a few years.

This year I picked up snowboarding because my friends and I couldn't think of what to do and were like... why not? I basically had to relearn how to retraverse the mountain and it...hurt for the next four days, but it was fun. Quads hurt like crazy because the first few days I couldn't stop toeside, so any slowing down was just skidding on my heels. Learned toeside one day out of nowhere...and still can't do switch decently. Good enough to not freak out that I'm in switch though =]

Then I went a lot of times after that and it was fun. And I now have too many boards for no good reason!

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Board: Directional
Bindings: Burton Missions 07
Boots: Burton Freestyle 07

Penguin

Oh boy, where do I even begin.

First off, I haven't even seen snow until I was about 19. I don't know how to skateboard, nor ski. My friends took me up to Snow Summit (Big Bear) to try snowboarding. I was so excited. They told me it was going to be warm, so just wear jeans and a jacket (wow). So we get to the rental shop and they hook me up with clicker bindings and a board for 20 bones.

Finally we get to the resort, and still nobody is telling me how to turn or how to stop. Mind you this was when I was still regular because I thought that was how it was done. I didn't know I was supposed to be goofy until last year. So I got off the lift and busted my ass right away. Had to do one of those soldier crawls to get out of the way of the other people getting off the lift while the lift operators were yelling at me.

So I click into my board and my friends just told me "Well you're on your own now, find your own way down the hill!" This was a blue by the way. It was pretty steep for my first run...ever. I was so freaked out. So I stood up, and inched my way down on my heels for about 20 feet. Then fell. Got up, inched my way down, fell. Every time I tried to go straight, I caught an edge and landed on my back or knees. It took about 2.5 hours to make it down one run, whereas now I can do that same run in about 5 minutes.

I only did 2 runs that day. The other run after that was pretty much the same story. And when friends tell you it's ok to wear jeans and a light jacket on your first time, don't believe them. Because it's cold, wet, and painful. I was aching for about 2 weeks after that.

However I was absolutely hooked since that day.

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Lil_Fuzz

^^ haha good mates you've got
Yeh expect some pain for the first week. I started when i was about 13-14. Probably the sorest week of my life. Constant falling an it was a pretty shit snow season icy as hell but it was my first time in the snow so didn't know it could be better.
Took a few mates down a couple of years ago for their first time. They were nuts had em goin down blue runs and off jumps on their third day. They had some awesome stacks but it was hilarious to watch. Every1 is hooked now

wutwut

haha 1st time i tried, my cousin took me up a green (i think), at least he had some heart, hahaha. Told me, "its easy, just go down" and bounced. I was on that slope for at least an hour...wasn't the funnest day of snowboarding. Then my second time my bro taught me, seriously hooked ever since, haha. From that day i vowed to teach newbie friends for at least half a day b4 i bounce do my own shit. haha