I'm proud to say "I snowboard," in fact, it's something I never thought I would say and now it's one of our favorite hobbies! But it's been a long journey to get to this.
Getting Started
I cried all day on the first day I tried snowboarding.
Ok maybe not all day, but there were definitely several moments filled with tears as panic set in…
Let me backtrack, everyone has irrational fears, one of mine is the fear of falling. When I was young, I avoided roller coaster, cause I hated the feeling of the big drops. I think this is why snowboarding was so scary to me at first. When I was 16, I tried skiing for the first time. I was pretty terrible, falling multiple times in ridiculous ways on the bunny slope. The worse one was landing on a pile of rocks on the side of the bunny slope, skis in one direction, poles in another. Needless to say I wasn’t in a hurry to try it again.
So why did I try snowboarding? In the winter of 2014, my husband Carlos and I found ourselves ready to have a lonely Christmas as both of our families would be in Puerto Rico. So we jumped on a snowboarding trip with our good friends, Alejandra and Steve. Not knowing what we were getting ourselves into but in the name of adventure, off we went to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia.
First Day
On the first day, I took lessons while Carlos, fearless as usual, just went for it with our friends as he had gone snowboarding once before and gotten the hang of it (punk). At first, the lesson was fun, I was enjoying it but then we had to start going down a small slope, and even though it was maybe 20 feet long, I found myself feeling more and more panicky. When the lesson was over and I joined my friends on the bunny slope I was not ready at all.
The lack of control I felt was truly terrifying and panic-inducing. There is NO WAY to learn to snowboard without moving, you can’t practice on solid ground, you have to be on a slope, moving down towards your possible death while LEARNING to stop. So yea, I would go like 5 feet down the bunny slope, panic, throw myself down and look at Carlos in desperation. And other times I would just tear up.
When I finally decided I was ready to face my first green, a “beginner” run, I thought I was ready... I was slowly navigating my way down, when we came to a steep transition area. I could tell this area was going to CHALLENGE me and it did. Terrified, I stopped. Got on my hands and knees and didn’t move. Steve sat patiently by my side for almost 20 minutes while I would try to turn around and go again only to throw myself down in panic. It’s pretty embarrassing, but luckily he decided to continue being my friend afterwards.
After that, I did one or two more runs and called it a day. The next day, I woke up and went to stretch and realized that my entire body was in massive pain. I was in so much body pain after snowboarding for only like 2 hours, my body felt like I had gone through 3 bootcamp classes in a row and done like 100 pushups.
On my second day, I was still doing the whole panic and throw myself down maneuver periodically as I got down the hill. At almost the end of the hill, I actually “caught an edge” and face-planted and Carlos being the sweet husband that he is, had been staying very close to me just in case. WELL, when I face-planted, he wasn’t able to stop in time and his board came crashing directly with my shin. OWWWWW! Ok so I thought, great on my first trip, my leg is broken. Perfect.
I couldn’t believe it, but I had two options: be carried down by the ski patrol OR try to stand up to see how bad it was. So I stood up and realized ooh ok, I can move it ok, maybe it’s not broken. But that was definitely the end of my first day.
So we jumped on the shuttle and went back to the rental apartment to access damage. Although there was a big bruise, the cut itself was pretty small, about ¾ of an inch and not deep. It hurt more than it damaged. And also, wow I have strong bones.
Our Second Trip
Later, in January, we took a trip to WhiteTail resort in Pennsylvania. It was the same crew, but my friend Paty had also joined us. On this trip, I suddenly stopped feeling like the newbie since Paty was there and now that I was more experienced (from two whole days), I felt like I had something to prove (lol I know how this sounds). This feeling made me brave and also being at WhiteTail was a lot less scary than Snowshoe, which I quickly realized, is NOT for beginners.
On this day, I was able to practice carving a lot more and getting better at stopping confidently and I started realizing, hey, I am having fun! That day was a huge turning point for me. Realizing how fun it could be motivated me to be brave and when I felt panic setting in, I would try to calm myself.
Side note: Carlos took a tumble and broke his clavicle on this trip (yep snowboarding can be dangerous...). He didn’t realize it was broken and just said "hmm my shoulder hurts". Then he drove us home driving stick with one arm and we stopped at a lake where he did an “ice angel.” Two weeks later, it still hurt and he decided to do push ups to make it better. When he finally when to the doctor to check it out, it was too late to fix, the clavicle sort of fixed itself but he’ll always have a little bump there. Yep, this is the man I married LOL.
We Got Hooked… and Practice, Practice, Practice
Soon after, Carlos and I got the itch and decided to go again and again. The next year, we got our own “used” equipment to save money. My fear was definitely there each time, but the joy of being disconnected in the beautiful mountains, concentrating on a fun physical activity kept me excited to go back again and again. Every single time I was proud of myself for making it down the mountain.
That being said, I was pretty bad for the first two years. I fell a LOT. In fact, if I had a slow-mo roll of my falls, it would be me falling on my butt 75% of the time, face-planting or landing on my stomach, a couple of scary falls where my helmet almost flew off, etc. I am amazed I was only bruised each time as I would be stunned by some of the falls.
I would get really frustrated after falling a lot and feel bad about myself. But Carlos also pointed out that a lot of the falls were my own fault because of my fear. He kept saying I threw myself down. I know I was also awkwardly fighting the board sometimes which didn’t help. The movement necessary to snowboard was not natural to me at all so that didn't help.
The other thing I was terrible at was getting off the ski lift. Without fail, I was going down every time! It all happens so fast! It was pretty embarrassing and once you fall, you're in the way of others coming behind you so you have to scoot yourself out of the way as quick as possible. It’s still a little scary for me every time, having 4 people on a small ski lift, getting off of it in seconds, while one of your feet is not strapped in and trying to aim to go straight… for me it was always a lot to think about LOL, I finally nailed it but took me a good three years.
On Fear
After the second year, I thought OK I got this, I’m not scared any more!
Then on our first trip of the third year, in late 2016, we drove out to Canaan Valley ski resort in West Virginia and on the bunny slope, immediately the panic set in. In fact, I was so scared that I couldn't comprehend as to how I had ever successfully snowboarded before. That day, I only did an easy run and then gave up for the day. It was a major realization to see that it was still really scary each time. I thought I had overcome my fear by then but what I realized is that I was still scared each time.
That year I realized, with certain things in life, fear will always be present or at least in the back of your mind. Only through practice, preparation and repetition does it get easier. It was a great learning lesson because I was doing a lot of presentations for work that year as well, which happens to be my greatest fear.
So my mantra became: You’ve done it before, you can do it again! (hey whatever works right??). I also read a book that year, My Year with Eleanor, on overcoming your fear and I recall mentally referencing several quotes from this book during my snowboarding journey.
One of the things that also helped a lot was watching YouTube videos. I would try to visualize their movements in my head while I attempted it myself. I knew it was just a matter of muscle memory and getting my body to do the right things, which required a lot of practice for me.
Carlos of course was a natural, like he is at many sports, and he’d be smooth and beautiful with me as a wreck next to him LOL. But I kept trying and kept practicing and kept pushing myself to become better each time.
A trip to the Rockies
That year we took a trip to Breckenridge, Colorado to the “real mountains” with friends for New Year's. This trip was amazing and life changing. First of all, it was absolutely beautiful in every direction. Second, these trails were more hardcore than what we were used to, so we were forced to be "ALL IN". It was also my first experience with “powder” (fresh snow) which was more challenging than I expected. It also surprised to see a lot of ice on some of the areas of the bunny slope.
ALSO, a blue run which is intermediate in the east coast, is basically a black in Breckenridge, or at least parts of it where. On one part of the blue, I just sat on my butt and scooted down. I kept looking around trying to understand HOW the heck the other snowboarders were going down this super steep and icy part gracefully...
The trip to Colorado gave me confidence when we returned to the east coast. After that trip, we started doing a lot more blues and after a while I started really enjoying them.
So that is how I got “over my fear” of snowboarding, something I never thought I would say in my life! Also, whenever I see other lady snowboarders, especially the really good ones, I’m like YEA GIRL, girl power! LOL Every time.
What is a fear you have overcome that you are super proud of?
P.S. Snowboarding as a sport is actually pretty new. Check out this podcast to learn about how snowboarding started.
Thanks for reading, byyeeeeee!