Well, I think I am making progress!

Thanks again to all who posted in response to my ski length question. I skied again the other night on 160's and had a much better experience. Skied much faster and with more control. I would say I may have done actual carving about 5% of the time! Haha.

Now a new question for all of you multisport guys out there (Trencher:). I have some friends who want to try snowboarding, and want me to also. So, how bad is it going to be? I finally think I am beginning to understand angulation in relation to skiing, but does snowboarding require primarily body angulation? Am I making any sense at all?! Basically, any suggestions anyone might have would be greatly appreciated.

Great to hear your having fun on the skis Dean.

On the subject of snowboarding, you should of course try it, if only to have some reference base decisions on.

IMHO if you hit the slopes less than say 10 times a season, you are may be better off skiing. Unless you are a natural with, wakeboard or skateboard etc experience, the initial learning curve is steep, not to mention occasionally painful if you learn on ice.

On skis you will be able to progress much faster, but when you start hitting different terrain, moguls, ice, steeps etc, you will find you have reached the steeper part of the ski learning curve, unless you live in the mountains and have a lot of exposure to these things.

Once you have good control of a snowboard, you can get about in terrain that someone with same the amount of time on skis would struggle with.

These of course are generalisations and everyone is different.

Then there is the feel factor, that is, what feels right for you ?

My feeling is that it might be better to concentrate on one thing at a time. Feel comfortable with it and then add something new.

Trencher

Wow, that was a painful experience! I have not fallen that many times on skis in my entire life. :) I guess I could post this question in the snowboard forum, but did the three inches of fresh snow/sleet make my evening more of a nightmare? It just seemed impossible to get that board to turn by edging! Maybe next year I will put a little time into again. :)

Ideally in snowboarding, you turn by edging and subtle weight shifts along the board. The problem is that at slow speeds, this doesn't work well and you need a little prerotation (anticipation) to assist the turn. However the instructers (in the US) don't want you to rotate to turn. So it makes those first turns at slow speeds more difficult. If you watched very carefully, you would have seen the instructor rotate thier upper body very slightly befor and toward the turn (although they would never admit it).

A nice groomed, but soft snow day would be perfect for a first time on a board. Wear wrist guards and maybe some pads for your butt and hips.

Every time you fall is a learning experience (A snowboard speeds up that learning experience). At some point you stop falling so often. Then later, you notice that when you do fall, you come straight back up, hardly even stopping. Sometimes now on skis, I'll boot out and fall on my hip. I'll let myself spin through 360, slap my skis down and use my downhill momentum to get up again, still with some speed in the turn. I don't think I would have learned to do that on skis.

Pick a nice day next year and try it again.

Trencher