I'm not very good at sports in general. I have resistance and I'm not specially weak or anything, but I do not enjoy them as much as other people, and I do not have much skill on the first place. These things could be solved with training, but then again, as mentioned, I'm not fond enough of them to spend time practicing one. Right now at home we do some exercise with an elliptical bike, and the only reason we do so is because we can watch series while running, which makes it quite pleasant.
However, since we're next to the place where the winter Olympics are happening, we decided to try something snow-related: Snowboarding.We had never skied before, so we thought it may be fun to learn it, and we were told it was easier than skiing. Jordi Nadal (a coworker here in Adler) had never tried snowboarding, and wanted to take some classes here and try it. He convinced us to go with him, and we went all together with another friend, Misha.
We had to wake up early to take a bus to get us there. The mountains are close, but with the roads and traffic that they have here, it takes at least 1 hour to get there, and that's if you don't find many cars. It took us around one hour and a half, but Jordi told us it had been a fast trip this time.
We went to the ski resort called Gasprom-Laura. I believe it's where they're going to do Cross-Country and Biathlon competitions, but it also has normal tracks for alpine skiing and snowboard. The learning tracks are quite simple, so it was the ideal place to start. Arriving to the place takes a while, but the installations are brand-new (probably made thinking about olympics), and there was lots of space and facilities,
First thing was to rent equipment. We had clothes, but we were missing the snowboard itself and the boots. We asked for second-grade equipment, since it's cheaper and we're just learning. The process of selecting is kind of funny, since they make you stand still and push you to see which foot do you use to stop yourself (and consider that to be your dominant foot). It seems there are better ways, but oh well. According to my size, I got a table for a dominant right foot. The boots were rather nice, with a wheel that tensed a metal cable to adjust them(they're very thick and hard. even if softer than ski boots). It was a very easy-to-use thing, and I liked it. Not all of them had this system, though.
With the equipment ready, we paid the entrance fee valid until 16:30 and we went to the top of the mountain. The mountains around Sochi are quite high and they go up quite fast. In a small distance there are huge height differences. To go up, we took one of the cable cabins, and it was quite impressive. We climbed fast and there were really good views. Jordi told us that in other stations the views were even better, since they were higher.
The main starting place of the track was covered in snow, but the temperature was quite high, we believe it was between 3 and 6 degrees. That means that with our clothes we were actually rather warm. Once we had to start moving and falling, we'd probably sweat...but well, at least we checked and we really did not notice the humidity of the snow with these clothes.
We hired an instructor for 2 hours. This way we would get some introduction to snowboarding and we'd still have time to play around with the snowboard by ourselves. The instructor was a nice guy, that started with very basic things, like how to properly put on the snowboard, how to make sure it doesn't start sliding without us, what position to take when we had only one foot strapped so we can move around, how to fall properly, what posture to get when moving, etc...Of course, it was relatively easy to do all that while not moving, and even then I needed lots of corrections.
After a while of that , and a first try sliding in a flat place, we went to a blue track. For those of you that have never skied (like me), green tracks are for learning and beginning, blue tracks are faster and harder, red tracks are almost professional, and black tracks are really fast and hard, only for professionals or people who know what they're doing very well. Anyway, a blue track, for a beginner like me, is already quite steep.
In there, we were supposed to put the board horizontally, and slide frontally and backwards, by balancing ourselves with the snowboard edge. This way, if we didn't raise one side of the snowboard, we would start sliding quite fast. If we started raising one side, we would slow down, until stopping if we raised it too much. The idea was to achieve a controlled slide, with the instructor in front of us to stop us or grab us, if necessary.
There I remembered something that I already knew, but I had not think about it in a while: I have not much balance. Sure, I managed to slide down, and after 2-3 tries I improved, but I need much more practice with balance to really control it. Somehow, it was easier for me when I was balancing the board backwards, with my back to the ramp while looking towards the start of the track. I was told that most people have more trouble with this way of balancing than with the other way around, face towards the end of the track. Anyway, I was not doing very well in both cases, and the instructor thought that we wouldn't be able to do a whole green track with me around, so he tried to teach us some freestyle tricks instead.
That was just a little bit of fun, where we tried to jump around with the snowboard. We fell quite a lot, but we were in a flat surface and we were standing still, so it was not a problem. Eventually, to finish the training, we went to the start of a green track, the simplest one, accessible next to the starting point of all tracks. He taught us how we were supposed to turn left and right, to do so with one foot unstrapped from the board. Then he told us to go down the green track.
I had not done very well all this time, but when I started going down the little slope, I managed to not fall and move around for quite a long while (actually longer than the others). Then I had to actually turn around some obstacle, and I lost control and fell. Oh well. I managed to go down all the way, falling several times, but it was rather fun after all, and I did ok.
At the bottom of the green track we entered the queue to go up till the top again. The instructor, still with us at this moment, told us how to use the ski lift. With a snowboard you cannot "sit" on it, so you need to grab it from one side and let it pull you up. It's not easy at all compared to using it with skis (or so I've been told), and it was sometimes hard to keep the balance while the lift was pulling you. Right at the start was probably the most unstable part, with little bumps of snow moving you on unplanned directions all of a sudden.
Anyway, we went up, the instructor left and we had lunch to take a little break (by the way, if possible, bring your own food, they have overpriced bad-quality food, but well, it's normal in these places). We believe another hour of instructor could really help us, but that day we had enough, so after lunch we just went to the initial green track and went down several times.
After doing that, I discovered several things. First thing, I do not know how to brake with a snowboard. The instructor didn't clearly explain this section, I guess assuming that if we knew how to turn we'd be able to stop. Well, the others managed, but I didn't learn how to do it yet. So, most of the time I was going down at quite a high speed for a green track, maybe not turning enough times, and just launching myself to the floor when it was time to stop. It was not the best way, but I survived it and I was ok after the experience.However, I really need to learn this vital part before I can try other tracks than the green one. Falling in the green track when going fast is not that much of a problem. Trying the same in the blue track would probably break something....
Another thing I noticed is that the theory had been quite nice....but I needed to get used to the feeling of sliding first. In the last 2 times I went down the green track, I finally started to notice things, how to incline myself to do this, how to change weight along the board, what happened if I did that, etc. Before that, my spinal cord was taking care of everything, and my brain had not much to say about it. With more practice, I'd be able to think about what I'm doing and change it if it's incorrect, but during these first tries, I was just going around with instinct mostly, and my instinct is rather incorrect when it comes to using the snowboard. Anyway, as I said, I had fun and managed to control things better after a few tries.
Third thing was that all the moving around, putting yourself in position (which was always bending everything a little), getting up after falling, putting the straps on and off...well, it adds up. It was a lot of exercise, and I sweated a lot. Besides, with the exercise and the falling, I ended up very tired. When we finally decided to leave, at around 16:00, we were all pretty dead.
It took us a while to reach the bus stop, between the cable car and finding the right spot. The bus also took some time to arrive, but the good part was that this station was at the beginning (or end) of the bus route, so we managed to get seats. It took us a long time to reach Adler again, and when we arrived home we were destroyed.
Next day everything hurt, but in a good way, like after going to the gym for the first time in 6 months. Since then I recovered. We had fun in there, and we'll probably go again soon. I was lazy to repeat it last couple of weekends, but we'll try to go again tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes. Lately there were several stations closed (since they're doing competitions to test them for the Olympics), and temperatures are stupidly high for winter, but we hope we'll be able to enjoy it a few other times before the season ends.
Maybe we'll like it so much that we'll get our own equipment in the end....
However, since we're next to the place where the winter Olympics are happening, we decided to try something snow-related: Snowboarding.We had never skied before, so we thought it may be fun to learn it, and we were told it was easier than skiing. Jordi Nadal (a coworker here in Adler) had never tried snowboarding, and wanted to take some classes here and try it. He convinced us to go with him, and we went all together with another friend, Misha.
We had to wake up early to take a bus to get us there. The mountains are close, but with the roads and traffic that they have here, it takes at least 1 hour to get there, and that's if you don't find many cars. It took us around one hour and a half, but Jordi told us it had been a fast trip this time.
We went to the ski resort called Gasprom-Laura. I believe it's where they're going to do Cross-Country and Biathlon competitions, but it also has normal tracks for alpine skiing and snowboard. The learning tracks are quite simple, so it was the ideal place to start. Arriving to the place takes a while, but the installations are brand-new (probably made thinking about olympics), and there was lots of space and facilities,
First thing was to rent equipment. We had clothes, but we were missing the snowboard itself and the boots. We asked for second-grade equipment, since it's cheaper and we're just learning. The process of selecting is kind of funny, since they make you stand still and push you to see which foot do you use to stop yourself (and consider that to be your dominant foot). It seems there are better ways, but oh well. According to my size, I got a table for a dominant right foot. The boots were rather nice, with a wheel that tensed a metal cable to adjust them(they're very thick and hard. even if softer than ski boots). It was a very easy-to-use thing, and I liked it. Not all of them had this system, though.
With the equipment ready, we paid the entrance fee valid until 16:30 and we went to the top of the mountain. The mountains around Sochi are quite high and they go up quite fast. In a small distance there are huge height differences. To go up, we took one of the cable cabins, and it was quite impressive. We climbed fast and there were really good views. Jordi told us that in other stations the views were even better, since they were higher.
The main starting place of the track was covered in snow, but the temperature was quite high, we believe it was between 3 and 6 degrees. That means that with our clothes we were actually rather warm. Once we had to start moving and falling, we'd probably sweat...but well, at least we checked and we really did not notice the humidity of the snow with these clothes.
We hired an instructor for 2 hours. This way we would get some introduction to snowboarding and we'd still have time to play around with the snowboard by ourselves. The instructor was a nice guy, that started with very basic things, like how to properly put on the snowboard, how to make sure it doesn't start sliding without us, what position to take when we had only one foot strapped so we can move around, how to fall properly, what posture to get when moving, etc...Of course, it was relatively easy to do all that while not moving, and even then I needed lots of corrections.
After a while of that , and a first try sliding in a flat place, we went to a blue track. For those of you that have never skied (like me), green tracks are for learning and beginning, blue tracks are faster and harder, red tracks are almost professional, and black tracks are really fast and hard, only for professionals or people who know what they're doing very well. Anyway, a blue track, for a beginner like me, is already quite steep.
In there, we were supposed to put the board horizontally, and slide frontally and backwards, by balancing ourselves with the snowboard edge. This way, if we didn't raise one side of the snowboard, we would start sliding quite fast. If we started raising one side, we would slow down, until stopping if we raised it too much. The idea was to achieve a controlled slide, with the instructor in front of us to stop us or grab us, if necessary.
There I remembered something that I already knew, but I had not think about it in a while: I have not much balance. Sure, I managed to slide down, and after 2-3 tries I improved, but I need much more practice with balance to really control it. Somehow, it was easier for me when I was balancing the board backwards, with my back to the ramp while looking towards the start of the track. I was told that most people have more trouble with this way of balancing than with the other way around, face towards the end of the track. Anyway, I was not doing very well in both cases, and the instructor thought that we wouldn't be able to do a whole green track with me around, so he tried to teach us some freestyle tricks instead.
That was just a little bit of fun, where we tried to jump around with the snowboard. We fell quite a lot, but we were in a flat surface and we were standing still, so it was not a problem. Eventually, to finish the training, we went to the start of a green track, the simplest one, accessible next to the starting point of all tracks. He taught us how we were supposed to turn left and right, to do so with one foot unstrapped from the board. Then he told us to go down the green track.
I had not done very well all this time, but when I started going down the little slope, I managed to not fall and move around for quite a long while (actually longer than the others). Then I had to actually turn around some obstacle, and I lost control and fell. Oh well. I managed to go down all the way, falling several times, but it was rather fun after all, and I did ok.
At the bottom of the green track we entered the queue to go up till the top again. The instructor, still with us at this moment, told us how to use the ski lift. With a snowboard you cannot "sit" on it, so you need to grab it from one side and let it pull you up. It's not easy at all compared to using it with skis (or so I've been told), and it was sometimes hard to keep the balance while the lift was pulling you. Right at the start was probably the most unstable part, with little bumps of snow moving you on unplanned directions all of a sudden.
Anyway, we went up, the instructor left and we had lunch to take a little break (by the way, if possible, bring your own food, they have overpriced bad-quality food, but well, it's normal in these places). We believe another hour of instructor could really help us, but that day we had enough, so after lunch we just went to the initial green track and went down several times.
After doing that, I discovered several things. First thing, I do not know how to brake with a snowboard. The instructor didn't clearly explain this section, I guess assuming that if we knew how to turn we'd be able to stop. Well, the others managed, but I didn't learn how to do it yet. So, most of the time I was going down at quite a high speed for a green track, maybe not turning enough times, and just launching myself to the floor when it was time to stop. It was not the best way, but I survived it and I was ok after the experience.However, I really need to learn this vital part before I can try other tracks than the green one. Falling in the green track when going fast is not that much of a problem. Trying the same in the blue track would probably break something....
Another thing I noticed is that the theory had been quite nice....but I needed to get used to the feeling of sliding first. In the last 2 times I went down the green track, I finally started to notice things, how to incline myself to do this, how to change weight along the board, what happened if I did that, etc. Before that, my spinal cord was taking care of everything, and my brain had not much to say about it. With more practice, I'd be able to think about what I'm doing and change it if it's incorrect, but during these first tries, I was just going around with instinct mostly, and my instinct is rather incorrect when it comes to using the snowboard. Anyway, as I said, I had fun and managed to control things better after a few tries.
Third thing was that all the moving around, putting yourself in position (which was always bending everything a little), getting up after falling, putting the straps on and off...well, it adds up. It was a lot of exercise, and I sweated a lot. Besides, with the exercise and the falling, I ended up very tired. When we finally decided to leave, at around 16:00, we were all pretty dead.
It took us a while to reach the bus stop, between the cable car and finding the right spot. The bus also took some time to arrive, but the good part was that this station was at the beginning (or end) of the bus route, so we managed to get seats. It took us a long time to reach Adler again, and when we arrived home we were destroyed.
Next day everything hurt, but in a good way, like after going to the gym for the first time in 6 months. Since then I recovered. We had fun in there, and we'll probably go again soon. I was lazy to repeat it last couple of weekends, but we'll try to go again tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes. Lately there were several stations closed (since they're doing competitions to test them for the Olympics), and temperatures are stupidly high for winter, but we hope we'll be able to enjoy it a few other times before the season ends.
Maybe we'll like it so much that we'll get our own equipment in the end....
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