How To Snowboard In 6 Steps: A Honest Guide To Your First Time Snowboarding.
Step 1: Get a lesson.
Step 2: Ignore Step 1 and use this guide.
Jokes aside. You’ve decided to give snowboarding a try. Congratulations! You’re about to discover one of the greatest pass times the world has to offer. Be warned, snow holidays aren’t cheap and you will soon find yourself wishing you had taken up Frisbee Golf instead.
I am a strong advocate the best money you could ever spend at the start of your snowboarding journey is on a lesson from a good instructor. This will single handedly increase your progression and enjoyment, right from the beginning.
We have all heard the horror stories of the early days of snowboarding. Anyone you mention your up coming trip to will be sure to make such comments as “make sure you put a pillow in your pants!”, “do you have wrist guards?”, “you’re going to be so sore!”
1 on 1 with an athletic client I can confidently help them from never having seen a snowboard to turning down a green run, without ever having their butt touch the snow.
However, as you are still reading I can see you have already followed the first 2 steps for How to Snowboard. You are a quick learner. This guide is aimed at helping you survive your first time snowboarding without spending too much money or having to listen to your boyfriend/girlfriend/friend/family member who thinks they can help you.
WARNING: If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this one tip: If you have a significant other, do not let them teach you how to snowboard. Snowboarding for the first time can be frustrating.
I coach snowboarding for a living. When I want to teach my wife anything to do with snowboarding, it goes like this:
By all accounts, this is an exceptionally successful outing.
To help you avoid ruining a relationship, I have outlined some steps you can try on your own below:
How To Snowboard: Your First Time Snowboarding.
Step 1. Make sure you have the right equipment.
Step 2. Don’t head to the top of the mountain.
Step 3. Learn how to move around on your snowboard.
Step 4. Learn to stop on your snowboard.
Step 5. Get control of where you’re going.
Step 6. How to turn your snowboard.
I know I joked around earlier, but in all seriousness, learning to snowboard can be rough.
It is harder than skiing.
One of the first things you are going to have to master involves learning how to control the flex of your ankles while balancing on what is effectively a knifes edge.
Since you have decided to go at it alone, it is likely you will spend a significant amount of time sitting on the snow, both intentionally and otherwise.
It will all be worth it. I promise.
You will come through the crucible to find the period of snowboarding that skiers love to focus on when they say “snowboarding is so much easier”. You will suddenly be able to go anywhere you like on the mountain (so long as it isn’t flat). As your intermediate skier friends are stuck making pizza on a blue run, your get out of jail free card, side slipping, will let the mountain become your playground.
This guide on how to snowboard is here to help you make the transition from wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into and why your butt is so cold. To the feeling of freedom that comes from being able to go where you please, with 6 simple steps below:
Step 1: Make Sure You Have The Right Equipment
There are a few things you must have when you head out snowboarding for the first time. These might be different from what your friends have recommended or the local snowboard shop. Below is a head to toe list of beginner snowboarding gear, what you need, and how important each thing is.
Helmet
You need a helmet. Head injuries represent over 20% of all ski and snowboard related injuries in North America. Snowboarders have a 50% higher rate of head and neck injuries than skiers.
The reason for these stats is pretty simple; particularly when learning to snowboard, you are traveling down hill with the edge of your snowboard across the slope. If the down hill edge of your snowboard accidently comes into contact with the snow, your board will stop instantly.
This results in a fall that feels pretty similar to running, quite fast, into a tree.
Wear a helmet. You can usually find one online for sale for around $100-$150
Alternatively, every rental shop will have helmets for rent if you’re looking to save some money.
Sunglasses
If it is sunny or even bright, a pair of sun glasses (while not the coolest looking underneath that helmet you’re wearing) will make a world of difference.
You don’t need goggles, they are going to fog up. Learning to snowboard we are going to top out at about a fast walking speed. The lack of air flow and your body’s rapidly rising temperature will fog any goggle no matter how expensive.
Bringing goggles only to have them sit awkwardly half out of your pocket or flapping along behind your head like your helmets own personal cape, is unnecessary. No one wants to learn to snowboard in a blizzard. The only thing we need to think about protecting our eyes from at this stage is the sun.
Top
A light water proof jacket (shell) on top of a thermal layer will do in all but the coldest conditions.
You are going to get hot. It is counter intuitive as you’re heading up for an adventure in the snow. In reality, as you’re learning you will be doing quite a lot of walking around, pushing off the ground and struggling to use muscles you didn’t know existed.
90% of students I teach end up with their jacket open/on the ground/around their waist.
Bottom
The more waterproof the better. If I was going to recommend you buy anything new for your first time snowboarding. New snowboard pants would be it. Look for something Gore-Tex or 30k waterproof. Unfortunately though it doesn’t matter how good the technology, if you spend a long time sitting in snow, your butt is getting wet.
A thin thermal layer underneath pants can be great for regulating temperature.
Do not wear jeans or track pants under your snow pants.
Socks
Get a pair of snowboard/ski specific socks. They are padded and thin in all the right places. Snowboard boots fit snuggly to your foot. Any ridge or hem in your socks will result in a nasty blister by the end of the day. If its cold, 2 pairs of socks does not keep your feet warmer.
Boots
Rental boots suck. There is no getting around this unless you plan on spending $300-$400 on a brand new pair of snowboard boots. Unfortunately, brand new boots also suck for a first timer as it takes a few days of riding to “break them in” to the point where they are comfortable.
So with this in mind, for your first time, rental boots it is.
What you absolutely must do is make sure you tie your boots up properly. Snowboard boots are designed to support your ankle and translate any movement you make directly to the snowboard. If your boots are loose there is a delay (like when your internet is slow) and you have to move further to achieve the same result. On top of this your feet will be in agony.
How to tie snowboard boots:
Start by tying the lacing of the inner boot as tight as it will go without causing any blood loss to your toes or too much discomfort.
Then, tie the shell using what ever lacing system it has so that the top half (around your shin bone) is tight. The lacing on the lower half, over the top of your foot can be a little looser.
I tell the kids its like a hug from grandma, a little tight, but feels quite nice.
Board
There are all different shapes and sizes of snowboards, which is great because people come in all different shapes and sizes also.
For your first time almost any board will do. Ideally you have some choice at the rental shop and can choose a park style board, these are typically a little softer and you stand centered between the nose and tail. This is a good thing at this stage because we are going to spend most of our time with one foot in or sliding sideways.
Choose your board based on size (roughly, between collarbone and chin) rather than how pretty the top sheet is or any “special beginner specific camber profiles” the guy in the shop tells you about.
Step 2. Don't Head To The Top Of The Mountain
Our first goal when learning to snowboard is simply to get comfortable putting the board on and moving around on the flat ground. You may be thinking, “moving around on the flat sounds pretty hard with both my feet strapped to a big piece of plastic”. This is why we are going to spend as much time as we have the patience for with just one foot strapped in.
To start with, you don’t even need a chairlift or magic carpet. Just find somewhere that has a little bit of flat space at the base of a gentle slope (ideally where there isn’t a lot of through traffic).
Most resorts have some pretty awesome learning areas and are doing a great job creating some good zones for terrain based learning (where the mountain is shaped to help you learn to snowboard). This is often located at the base of the mountain, particularly in higher elevation resorts/colder climates.
At Whistler Blackcomb the learning area is located at mid station of the Whistler Gondola, it is a good idea to ask at guest services where to find the learning zones to make sure you don’t end up in unsuitable terrain immediately.
This is the perfect environment for step 3.
Step 3: Learn How To Move Around On Your Snowboard
Before we even put on the board we need to work out which foot we like to have in front. Everyone’s brains are a little bias towards moving one way or the other, we don’t know why, we just accept it and move on.
You may already have an idea of which way you like. If you have ever done any other board sports (surfing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, windsurfing) it is often the same.
Gone full Top Gun and slid across your floor in your underwear?
The foot you plant on the ground to kick a soccer ball.
These can all help you decide which foot you are going to call your “front foot”.
Tom Cruise is clearly rides goofy (right foot forward)
Don’t stress about this too much. After moving around with one foot strapped to the board for a while, you will have a good idea if it feels awkward because its new or awkward because its wrong, just trust your gut here.
Put the heel of your front foot in the binding against the high back part and strap your foot in. The ratchets work pretty simply (give them a go before you try putting your foot in to save the awkwardness of not being able to work it out while bent double sliding around on the board).
Now that you’re strapped in try the following:
Pick the board up and try and hold it level.
Do the same and hop on one leg.
Try to turn around. Both ways.
Step your foot from one side of the board to the other.
Stand on the board and try jumping a few times.
This probably feels odd. You have a meter and a half of plastic strapped to one foot and are standing on a slippery surface. It feels this way for everyone to begin with.
Next step is to get used to moving around:
Try “Skating”. Put most of your weight on the foot that is attached to the board. With the free foot, give yourself a little push to try sliding across the snow. Try this with your foot both in front and behind the board.
Go further.
Go faster.
Slide a bit between each push.
Try and skate up the small slope. If it’s too hard try turning sideways and walking up standing on your toes to stop sliding down hill.
Now I’m up this slope how do I get down?
Turn the board so that your front foot/nose of the board is pointing down hill.
Take a deep breath and step onto the board putting your back foot up against the inside of the back binding.
Relax and let gravity do its thing. Try and keep your head up, look where you are going and stand in a relaxed athletic stance.
If you have picked your learning environment right you should gradually come to a stop. If not your only option to slow down at this point is to crash, do that now.
Repeat this till you feel comfortable sliding down hill without falling over or tensing every muscle in your body.
The last thing we want to do before moving on is learn how to stop on a snowboard with one foot attached.
This is important because what we are doing right now is effectively learning how to get on and off of a chairlift.
Head back up your little hill and get ready to slide down again. This time:
As you are sliding down the slope move your hips slightly backwards and turn your head/shoulders to look in the same direction you moved your hips.
Baby steps, small movements to start with are easier to control.
By moving your hips over the Heel Edge of your snowboard it will start to dig in and engage. This combined with a little bit of rotation from your body, looking where you want to go, will cause the board to want to turn in that direction. Exactly what we want to happen.
This is called a “J” turn because of the shape it makes in the snow.
Try this till you feel confident doing it in both directions without having to use your face to slow down.
Congratulations! You are now confident enough at moving around to get on and off of a chairlift or magic carpet.
It is time to do exactly that.
Head to the magic carpet and after spending a couple minutes watching some others to get an idea of how it all works, make your way to the top. If there is no magic carpet, take off your board and walk up the slope part of the way (you may want to do this anyway depending how busy it is).
Step 4: Learn To Stop On Your Snowboard
Right know you’re either excited to strap the other foot in and get snowboarding! Or wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into looking down the slope ahead.
Either way, the best thing you can do for both your dignity and physical wellbeing at this point is hold off on strapping that other foot into the board. Before we get to both feet there is one last thing we want to do that will set us up for success:
The base of the snowboard is what makes it go fast. The edges are what make it slow down.
How we slow down on our snowboard is by turning the board across the hill and using the up hill edge of the board to create some friction. Think spreading butter on toast, your edges work the same way, depending how you hold the knife you are either going to end up with some nicely buttered bread or a butchered mess of holes with butter dripping through. Up hill edge, not down hill edge.
At the top of the slope, turn so that your board is across the hill and your body is facing downhill (lined up with your snowboard).
With your back foot on the snow, push the board forward. Feel how if you lift your toes as you push, the heel edge digs in a little and makes it harder to move. This is what we want.
Silly as it feels, push your way all the way down the slope using the bend in your ankle (keeping your toes up) to feel how the heel edge of the board works to slow you down.
Repeat this a couple times. As you feel more confident, instead of pushing with the back foot, try putting it on the board between the bindings (as you did before) and continuing to slide down the hill sideways using the heel edge to slow down.
The most common issue I see when teaching people to stop is how they are standing on the snowboard.
Snowboards are very simple:
If they are flat they go fast.
If they are on edge they change direction.
If the edge is at and angle to the direction of travel they slow down.
If the down hill edge is in contact with the snow you have already crashed.
How we control the snowboard is just as simple:
If your weight is centered the board stays flat.
If your weight is over one edge the board tips.
If your weight is over one end the board bends.
If you rotate the board twists.
With this in mind, if we are trying to slow down by keeping our board across the hill and on its heel edge, we need our weight to be over the heel edge.
Stand up and try this at your computer: Try and move your hips backwards as far as you can without falling over. Do you notice what you are doing with your shoulders and head?
To compensate for the weight of your hips being behind you, you have moved your shoulders forward to keep your center of mass over your feet. You did this without thinking about it because you’re awesome. Unfortunately, this is the natural reaction we all have (because we are all awesome) and we need it because we are standing still.
When we are learning to stop on our snowboard our brain still reacts as if we are standing still and your body does exactly what you just did at your desk.
What this means is that our hips are telling the board to tip backwards onto its heel edge (which we want), our shoulders are telling the board to tip forwards onto our toe edge (which we don’t want), the result is our weight is fairly centered and the board stays flat. Which as you can see above means it goes fast and often leads to the down hill edge catching and us crashing.
This is the part where you need to trust your snowboard to keep you upright on this slippery surface.
Keep your head up. Move the hips back slightly, and let the board slide. The movement allows us to be leaning backwards a little and not fall over.
Once you have mastered this with one foot in and can confidently stand up tall and relaxed as you do it. Go ahead and make a little platform for yourself at the top of the hill using your snowboard (so that you can stand still without sliding away) and strap in that other foot.
Now do exactly what you just did before, only this time it’s even easier because you can use both feet to control how much the board tips.
Good luck!
The key is to keep your weight even over both feet so that the board goes in a straight line.
Once you can confidently slide in a straight line with your board across the slope. Try the same process, starting with one foot again, on the Toe Edge. This means going backwards looking up the hill. Do a quick check before you start moving that you wont crash into someone below.
Like we talked about earlier with how to stand on the board we want to keep our weight over our Toe Edge now. Do this by:
Pushing your hips forward till you feel your weight over the balls of your feet
Your thighs should make a straight line with your stomach
If you can tense your butt cheeks you are doing it right.
This is a fun one to try right now: See how it’s hard to squeeze your butt cheeks sitting in your chair. As you do it you can feel your hips trying to move forward to make it easier. I’m not suggesting you spend the entire time on your Toe Edge tensing your bum, but it is a good test to see if you’re in the right position.
You can now stand up, slide and stop your snowboard! So stoked! Sounds like you are ready for step 5.
Step 5: Get Control Of Where You're Going
This is it. This is where you become a snowboarder.
You are moving down the slope in control. You aren’t crashing into everyone below you. You are sick of only going in a straight line. Let’s get control of where we are going.
Snowboarding isn’t rocket science. Small movements make a big difference. As we stated above:
How we control the snowboard is simple:
If your weight is centered the board stays flat.
If your weight is over one edge the board tips.
If your weight is over one end the board bends.
If you rotate the board twists.
What we want to do at this stage is get the board to bend and twist slightly. This will cause one end of the edge we are balanced on to turn down hill a little bit and dig in more, making the board travel in that direction.
How you do this is simply:
Start sliding down the slope on your heel edge with your weight even on both feet.
Shift your hips slightly to the left while keeping them over the heel edge.
Twist your hips to point your left hip at an angle down the hill.
Look where you want to go. (which is left)
To go right, do the same thing but to the right.
You are now zig zagging your way down the slope on your snowboard!
You can avoid all the fallen skiers in front of you. Your butt isn’t wet unlike all those other would be snowboarders who didn’t read this guide (or take a lesson). You only have a couple more steps before the mountain becomes your playground and we can leave the learning area.
To progress your zig zag; Increase the amount you let the board turn down the hill each time you go across it. Let the board come closer to the fall line (the direction a ball would roll). You will pick up a little more speed but still be in control using movements that are familiar.
If we really wanted to, we could take this technique and head to any chair with green or blue runs and zig zag our way down the mountain. I have taken this approach with many students who were super keen to get moving and away from the busy learning zone.
While this will allow you to explore the mountain a bit more, be warned, your legs are going to get extremely tired. You are doing the equivalent of a squat or calf raise (depending which edge) the entire way down the mountain. It is fun though. If you choose to spend a little more time at the learning area then, you are ready for the final boss. Turning.
Step 6: How To Turn Your Snowboard
The awesome part about having followed this guide and spent some real time working on each step up to this point is that turning should feel quite natural, as you are just linking together some skills that you already know how to do.
Turning is basically moving from one edge to the other (heel to toe, toe to heel).
We already know how to move across the slope on both edges and are comfortable letting the board point fairly down the hill. All we need now is the missing move in the middle.
How you turn the snowboard from one edge to the other:
The easiest way to put this together is with your snowboard off. You can even try it right now as you read this guide.
Stand up and imagine you’re on your snowboard:
You are facing down the hill, balanced slightly on your heels.
Turn your head so that you are looking over the shoulder above your front foot. Do this without moving your body.
With your weight a little more on your front foot, Twist your hips to point towards where the slope would go. Let your shoulders and head move with them, looking where you want to go (down the hill).
Shuffle your feet until the nose of your snowboard would be pointing straight down the hill.
This is it. This is the move:
Move your hips forward towards your Toe Edge till you’re standing on the balls of your feet (still with a little more weight on the front foot).
Keep looking where you want to go (across the hill) with your hips/shoulders/head twisted slightly in that direction.
Shuffle your feet until you are standing facing 180 degrees in the other direction from where you started.
You have just completed your first turn!
Try this a few times in both directions. Keeping the front foot leading the way. Moving from the balls of your feet to your heels and vice versa.
It is now time to put this into practice on the board:
Strap in using that shelf you created at the top of the slope.
Start by moving across the hill in the direction of your front foot. (it is called your front foot because it is now always going to be in front)
When you are ready, turn your hips, looking down the hill, keeping the weight more on the front foot.
As the board goes flat pointing straight down hill, shift your weight over to your toe edge, balancing on the balls of your feet.
Keep looking around and across to the other side of the hill.
Let the board follow your front foot and eyes in that direction by keeping the weight on that front foot.
Do it again the other way.
You are Snowboarding!
Keep practicing linking your turns in the learning area till you feel confident and want to try something harder. From here you can progress the terrain to something steeper (a harder green or easy blue) or move onto a chairlift with some longer green runs for you to tackle.