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Growing up a Snowboarder, learn young and ride old


jtslalom

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:D So somebody else can deal with them crying on the edge of the slope!

My kids (8 & 11) take instruction much better from their coaches than from me. They won't complain (much) or roll their eyes at their coach. Daddy, a different story. So they ski with the team this year.

....

I am guessing that this is the case for 99% of children...

I was a basketball coach for small children once, and I could see this behavior to all of them, dad talked about something and they did not care, but when the coach was talking....well they had a totally different attitude...

Don't want to experiense this as a dad...:)

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and snow rocks! As a Cdn. we fulfilled our duty of enrolling all three (2 girls) in hockey programs. With the kids at 8,11& 13 we made the family decision to drop the hockey to favour full time skiing; which quickly became skiing and snowboarding and now pretty much all snowboarding. Mom (level 2) and I (level 3 and 2 coach) must be lousy ski instructors. At 46 I crossed over to the "dark side". I love having one foot in each camp - ya, skiers suck; oh ya snowboarders suck too. For the last 11 yrs our winter social and sport life as a family has revolved around riding on snow. We have made so many lasting frienships through the snowboard programs. Our oldest daughter made it to the Nationals for BX and now lives in Whistler. Our middle daughter was Provincial GS champ, achieved a 6th place GS at a NorAm in California, 10th place SL at 2003 NorAm / Nationals in Quebec completed a 4yr kinesiology degree and is living in Whistler for a year. Our son happens to be the Cdn. under 20 BX champ - riding hard boots and GS racing was a big part of his soft boot success.He is riding the full NorAm circuit this year. Mom and I are very proud and very broke!

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Nice to see someone else sharing the family stoke. I usually end up posting at least one of these type posts a season, so good to see someone else doing it too. Started snowboarding late myself, I was 37 when I learned and this will be my 7th season...you do the math. All 3 of my kids learned to ski first with my son coming to the "dark side" first at age 6, than the girls followed 2 seasons ago. I taught all 3 to snowboard. Zach was on hardboots by the age of 8 and now rides both alpine & freeride at age 12. My oldest daughter will be trying hardboots for the first time this year and rides her freeride setup with forward angles and loves to carve. Of all the things I've done sports-wise with my kids, riding the mountain with them beats them all. Here's some pic's

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that awsome. I am right now on the fence with my son (who is 4) whether to start him with a snowsport. I know he can do it physically but mentally I dont know if he is ready. I was thinking about bringing him up to MC and trying him on the LTR area? How to you start with your girl?

I started my daughter at 4 but it wasn't until she was 6 when she got the concept of watching her edges and linking turns. You should take him out there and have fun with it even if it's just going straight down for the first year. It will still build balance and get him used to riding.

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When they are that young you have to keep them interested. you can be a sh*tty skier and still have fun. If they are constantly flayling around on an uncontrolable board, always muggin' out they will quit. It is no fun crying on the slope all day.They are easier to teach when they are on skis. Once they understand how the edges work when they pick up the board the learning curve is much steeper. Almost effortless. For the two that did it that way it was a matter of one day for the transition to take hold.

I took a different direction. Instead of skis it was a skateboard. I have pictures of her dropping in on a small ramp at a local skate park at age 3.

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It might take me a while to find the skate pics. I have nearly 40 disks I have to go through. (I don't have them labeled as I'm disorganised) I did come across her first day of snowboarding though. She's 4 here.

That's ridiculously cute.

I remember when I was in boarding school there was this one very young, small, and frail looking kid that excelled in any sport that he tried. He was amazing! We got him snowboarding and his family wouldn't buy him a board so he saved up his very meager allowance and got himself the cheapest snowboard that the mountains would let you take on the lift at the time (yes, that would be the "black snow" board that had metal edges). His feet were so small we had to put wooden blocks in the bottoms of the bindings so that they would close firmly enough to hold him in. That little kid was a BADASS! Despite the crappy board and the wooden blocks, he absolutely kicked ass. He was like this fearless midget snowboarding dynamo. I have a great picture of him and I standing next to each other with our boards in the spring, he really wanted to get a race board when he could afford one.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sniff... My keyboard's getting wet.

Very cute stories --Love the pictures of the young shredder!

Surfer as a kid. Skiing never worked for me. Didn't start boarding until I was in my 40s - so I subscribe to the learn old and ride until you're on the wrong side of the grass.

Started my daughter skiing at 7 'cause that's what Mama did. Her friends would say "You should snowboard. It's cool!" to which she would reply "My Dad snowboards, how cool can it be?" Now she's 16 and can't really be bothered with skiing. Guess it's part of that adolescence thing (sigh)

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Her friends would say "You should snowboard. It's cool!" to which she would reply "My Dad snowboards, how cool can it be?" Now she's 16 and can't really be bothered with skiing. Guess it's part of that adolescence thing (sigh)

I also, well, used to play in a band. We were pretty big locally and we'd play the big festivals and open for national groups when they'd come through. I took my daughter to one of our outdoor concerts last Summer. She couldn't understand why everyone was so excited when we went on stage. When your dad's a snowboarding rock star, what's cool?:smashfrea

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