I spent the second half of last week on the slopes of Bakuriani trying to tame snowboarding again. By the last day of skiing, I had almost learned zen and made several conclusions for myself of varying degrees of evidence.
1. A good instructor is worth its weight in gold.
My first snowboarding experience took place 5 years ago in Logoisk. The instructor didn't really bother explaining the technique at the time, and I ended up skating as it turned out. I didn't break anything and didn't leave my teeth on the slope – well done.
I don't know how I fawned over fate so much, but this time we were just damn lucky to have an instructor. He explains it like a God. Patient as a hundred Belarusians.
If they had explained it to me so clearly back in 2020, then in 2025 I would not have killed my legs on the first descent, riding in the technique of a drunken Pinocchio nailed to a board.
2. It's very difficult to retrain.
Even a break of 5 years did not help me forget the crooked technique that I had developed for myself on the slopes in Logoisk. But the same good instructor, my perseverance and 3 days of very active practice helped. It was just at the limit of my strength, and there's still a lot of work to do. But at least I already know that I'm not hopeless.
3. The last covid hit me harder than I thought.
The covid lottery was good for someone's sense of smell, for someone's breathing, and for me, for muscle tone. Last summer, I got sick with mild pneumonia, and for a while after that I crawled like a half-dead fly. But in the fall, I quite successfully climbed through the mountain forest for mushrooms, and I already thought that I had recovered. Figs there. My leg muscles have never been killed so quickly. Therefore, I am already making a plan to restore my former physical form. Gym and running shoes are waiting.
4. I underestimated my fortitude and determination.
I've been falling a lot these days. Getting up, given the negative muscle strength, was, to put it mildly, difficult. I even cried a couple of times, sitting on a broken *op in the middle of the descent, when I didn't have enough strength to get up.
I don't know where it came from, but I still didn't give up and rolled back to the last one. And I was even starting to get pretty good at it. I'm proud of my resilience.
5. I'm a coward, but I can work with it.
I'm still scared when I accelerate on the descent. Even on not particularly difficult tracks. Because of this, I regularly slow down, or even fall. But my confidence is growing, and with it my speed is growing and the number of bruises is decreasing. Of course, I won't become a freerider (and I don't really want to), but I have every chance of defeating my inner coward.
After all the falls and bruises, the only regret I have is that we didn't get out until the very end of the season. And now all the fervor and determination will have to be somehow maintained until next winter.
And now – a roll call of skiers and snowboarders in the comments!
I spent the second half of last week on the slopes of Bakuriani trying to tame snowboarding again. By the last day of skiing, I had almost learned zen and made several conclusions for myself of varying degrees of evidence. 1. A good instructor is worth its weight in gold. My first experience with snowboarding took place 5 years ago in Logoisk. The instructor…
