Snowboarding and Skiing: POV of a Crotchety Amateur
Skiing is easier to learn but harder to master; snowboarding is harder to learn but easier to master.
That’s the aphorism everyone had on hand when I transitioned this year from a sub-mediocre skier to a fledgling snowboarder. So I was ready for all the falls coming to me the first few times I tried snowboarding, and have since been progressing pretty quickly. By no means have I mastered it. My carving is sloppy, I rely heavily on heel and toe slides when the terrain gets too steep or choppy, I despise moguls and have yet to get through them without wiping out, and still fall on occasion for no good reason, often when I’m going too slow or trying to stand still.
I have, however, gotten good enough that I am already starting to judge the people who are not as good as me. Is that wrong of me? Maybe. A little. But it’s only in the sense that seeing the newer newbies struggling to stay upright impresses upon me how quickly I’ve improved in a couple months. But, for the most part I am judging people not for being inexperienced or untalented, but for doing things that are stupid or dangerous.
People do not know how to act. That doesn’t only apply to the newbies and “Jerrys” either. In my short time of being a semi-regular on the slopes, I have seen behavior ranging from negligent to atrocious. New as I am, I know well enough the basics of what you should and shouldn’t do. For instance, don’t stop in the middle of a slope, especially not down a sharp incline. If you have to stop, go off to the side, by a sign, or somewhere where people won’t have to veer around you to avoid collision. If you fall when getting off the ski lift, get out of the damn way. Plenty of people fall getting off the lift. It’s a tricky maneuver. Even experienced skiers and boarders can fall. But if you do fall, don’t lie there like a jackass, laughing with your friends. Get up and out of the way as quickly as you possibly can. Also, all you drunks and stoners gotta go. Regardless of experience and skill level, no one wants you inebriated jackholes anywhere near them on the mountain.
People do not seem to understand how stupidly dangerous this sport is. We’re attaching steel-edged planks to our feet and shooting downhill on snow and ice at speeds comparable to cars. Do you know how often I’ve been standing around, running a finger on my board’s edge, like a rough blade, thinking about how disturbingly possible it would be for it, if I were to wipe out and tumble ass over teakettle, or if it snapped loose of the bindings and went flying, to shoot through the air and slice right through someone’s neck? Maybe I’ve said too much. But such jugular-eviscerating and decapitating horrors seem practically inevitable, really. Everyone needs to stop being a dumb-dumb and learn to act right. If they want to keep their heads.