Snowboard Training, Packages, and Lessons
Welcome to Nzsnowboardingtraining.com! We are a Web site dedicated to the sport of boarding. We believe the best way for us to share our love of boarding is to teach others how, and so we started this site. We designed our site to give you an overview of several areas of snowboard training, including instructor certification, snowboard packages, and mountain etiquette. We hope you enjoy your stay here, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We have an FAQ section where you will find answers to questions asked by other readers.
Snowboarding started out in the late 1960’s when surfers looked for ways to expand their beloved sport. So they tried land surfing, and snow surfing. The land surf board was essentially a scaled down surf board with wheels, which eventually became the skateboard. Initially, a similar concept made its way onto mountain slopes. It was running by the unfortunate name of the ‘snurfer’ which I think we can all agree wasn’t going to fly. It was a smash up of the words snow surfer. While the name eventually died off, the sport did not. In fact, starting in the late eighties, the sport really gained popular momentum.
Initially, many mountain resorts refused to allow snowboarders on their property. This was due in large part to the counter culture image of boarding as a rebellious and uncontrolled sport. Today there are a few resorts that still are ‘skier only’ such as the Alta resort in Utah. However the vast majority of resort property is open to snowboarders today. Resorts like Alta are seen as quaint, and at least in Alta’s case, they put a lot of effort into keeping up the quaint, old world feel of their resort.
It was during the nineties that the concept of snowboard training emerged. Much like skateboarding, snowboarding was initially seen as something that you could not teach. A student strapped a board on, experimented on the mountain, and learned what was possible through trial and error. Some of the greatest early snowboard stunts evolved out of someone asking ‘what would happen if I did this?’ while riding up the lift.
As the sport’s legitimacy solidified, so did some basic techniques that were eminently teachable. And with the legitimacy came a much larger audience that wanted to learn the new sport. These new adherents were often skiers who wanted the challenge of something new. Boarding definitely gave that to them. The balance and mechanics of boarding are much different from those employed while skiing. They may come as second nature to anyone who has surfed or skateboarded before, but for skiers they need to be taught.
Of course, some of the people seeking snowboard training had never been anywhere near a mountain before, and those people needed far more than a paradigm shift. They needed to be taught how to do literally everything: from dressing properly for the weather, to learning how to get on and off a chair lift. Instructors can help you, whether you’re a winter sports novice, or old man winter himself.