Lessons in falling

There we were on Tuesday, dressed to kill (hopefully not ourselves), waiting to tear down the slopes. Our trainer/coach dude walked us to the kiddies slope, then past it to a totally flat spot which is even easier - all the kids were pointing and laughing at us. Little bastards!

We learnt to clip the board to our boots and then how to fall. WTF? I know how to fall, turns out I'm an expert actually, but I don't know how to snow board.

It's very tiring learning, as you have to drag your board everywhere; you can only use the ski lift when you know what you are doing. The lesson went well, with frequent falls and tricksy boards going where they weren't supposed to. B made the lift operator have a minor stroke as she went barreling straight for him and all the equipment. It didn't inspire much confidence that she kept yelling, "where the fuck is the brake on this thing?" and "Oi! You there! Take your ski-lift and get out of my way!". There was also an incident or two with B and me trying to occupy the same space (apparently not possible) even though we started off really far apart. Mostly because I stay as far away as I can get, because she's a menace to society and shouldn't be allowed on the slopes.

Our trainer was polite, telling us how well we were doing, even though we both clearly sucked. A lot. He also told us that coffee and alcohol are no no's for snow boarding. You can imagine how well that went down - we immediately went and handed our boards in, demanded a refund and had some wine. Just kidding - about the boards, not the wine.

We went back again yesterday, but alas, were just as bad as we were the day before! We had a few really epic falls, none of which were caught on camera unfortunately, as you can't lug a camera around when you spend more time falling arse-over kettle than standing upright. The amazing thing is how hot you get, even in the freezing conditions, and a few times B and I just flopped down in the snow and stayed there. Didn't even mind getting snow down my McCracken a few times - found it quite refreshing actually!

It's also very disheartening to try and learn something in your mid- thirties while watching 3 year old whipper-snappers tearing down the slopes around you like pros. I'm sure I saw B try to trip one particularly smug ankle-biter, but she insists it was an accident.

Think we might have been making the tiniest bit of progress when we heard the most blood-curdling shrieking just behind us from a woman curled up on the slopes. Note to self: unclip your boots from the board before trying to run, as failure to do this will result in epic fall #206. B got to the woman first, who was writhing in agony, and we flagged down the medical staff who came zooming over on snowmobiles.

Think the woman tore her cruciate ligament - looked eina. B then tried to hijack the snowmobile, but didn't make her getaway fast enough. We decided to give up for the day after that incident.

But we live to tackle the mountain again!


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