The woman in front of me falls into the berm of a ski run, and I’m clapping like I’ve just watched my kid take their first steps.
She is taking a first-time snowboard lesson from me. She sinks into the snow, fists dropping to her sides. The flat line of her mouth tells me I’m the only one celebrating right now. I’m happy because she just held the toe edge of her snowboard without wavering for the longest stretch of the day. When I tell her how incredible this is, she thanks me for lying to her.
I can see why she thinks I’m lying. For 17 years, I’ve enjoyed the phenomenon of standing on a plank of plastic and wood, and directing it down a hillside of snow, ice, slush or whatever variation I can get that day. I can stand upright on this board, my body naturally falling into the position I’ve trained it into for nearly two decades—knees slightly bent, pressure switching quickly from my toes to my heels, back straight. I’m putting such little effort into thinking about what I’m doing that I could be standing in line at the grocery store.
“How are you just standing there? You make it look so easy,” she says at one point. I hear this a lot as I teach adults how to snowboard. I mostly see those who have never touched a snowboard before—some who haven’t even seen snow before.
At each lesson, I make the class form a circle at the bottom of the bunny hill as I explain how to strap their boots into the bindings on their boards. I have them practice good stance while standing on their board, then I show them how to point the nose of their board down the slight incline on the southern periphery of our circle and force it to change direction so that they can engage their heel edge and come to a stop, perpendicular to the hill. One by one, they follow me. Their bodies contort to oppose the unnatural movements into which I’m trying to force them. Most often, this looks like leaning uphill to oppose the fall of gravity—which, every time, causes a fall.
Aside from holding their hands, I can do no more than repeat the same demonstrations and instructions over and over, interluding with what feel to me like motivational speeches, which are often met with the far-off stares of the overwhelmed.
It’s agreed upon in the world of snow sports that snowboarding is a terrible sport to learn. It’s a guaranteed way to spend a season wiping snow from the seat of your pants and counting the bruises on your legs, knees, back and ego.
I don’t say that to dissuade anyone from trying. Snowboarding is a rewarding sport. It was the catalyst for my connection to nature and what, ultimately, led me to the Reno/Tahoe area to eventually become your outdoor advocate. Standing up on my snowboard was the first time, as a bulimic high school girl with social anxiety, that I felt actually capable of something.
I can do no more than repeat the same demonstrations and instructions over and over, interluding with what feel to me like motivational speeches, which are often met with the far-off stares of the overwhelmed.
This year, it’s showing me the importance of faith and support. As I look at my students, I see my awkward, 14-year-old self suffering the ups and downs—mostly downs—of my first season, strangled on tears, and repeating mantras of can-nots and never-wills. How could I? I had no vision of myself succeeding at this terrible thing. No proof. How could I comprehend a future in which could succeed?
My students feel the same way. I can see with each fall that the proof of failing is overcoming any hope for succeeding whatsoever. Which is why I rotate the same encouraging and absolutely true messages like: “It took me about a season to get to where you are right now”; “Learning how to snowboard is like unlearning how to be human”; “This takes a lot of time to get down”; and “You’ve got this.” Which, of course, all sound like the generic rhetoric my therapist spews at me while I’m in the midst of a full-on emotional breakdown as I close my eyes, shake my head and think, “How could you know?”
Before I taught our snow-berm-falling woman, I sang this encouraging speech over and over to the point that it was losing effect, even with me. I’m able to see past the falls and agony my students face, just as my therapist can see past my emotional agony. (“I’ll never been good enough to be loved/hired/successful/etc.”) When all they can see (and feel) is how many falls they take, I see what an amazing feat it is that they can turn their boards to stop at all.
I was overjoyed the other day not to see my student fall, but to see how stable she was—able to hold an edge, and how long she went before stopping. She was one of my most advanced students all season. I was so proud of her, but every time she fell, she would grumble something about how she felt so stupid or how much she sucked. She didn’t leave in tears—not even close—but she left with the mindset that I was saying kind things to her out of pity. This crushed me.
I sometimes see former students days later, either on the bunny hill or adventuring to the beginner lifts. It makes me happy, seeing that they’ve continued on, but it also makes me think about the students I don’t see. Will I see this woman again? I think about our final moments and wonder if she left feeling like she just wasn’t cut out for snowboarding, that something fundamental to her nature prevents her from experiencing the absolute joy this sport delivers.
I wonder if these types of thoughts seep into her everyday life. I hope not. But if they do, I hope she learns to hear those who cheer from the sidelines—even when she falls.