Stoked Re-Up

Ok.

Yeah, so its been a while.

That’s ok. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad mentor.

I forgive myself. Which is the sign of a good mentor.

Alright since I haven’t written since surf, let me summarize for you.

Only really got to surf once because there was no waves one time and the other time it was cancelled. Which sucks cause surf was really fun, and Mike was scared at first and then even more scared when he palmed a jelly fish as he was paddling out. But he did really well and stood up really easily. Which boded well for snowboarding. FIN.

Now, onto snowboarding. The first time was pretty sweet.
Mike got a hang of it at first during the lesson and I helped him a long a little bit just learning the basics and stuff. Then it got harder for some reason.

We thought he might have been goofy for a sec and tried that.
No Dice.

So we switched back to regular and he was finally linking turns by about 1:30.

Now, like a bastard I never let him leaf down the hill.
Because that’s a crutch.
Yes I did it when I was learning. But I regret it.

So I made sure he was always trying to transfer edges and let him know that at some point he would be pointed directly down the hill, which was scary for some people.

He seemed to understand. And then the turning point.

On our last effort on the bunny hill before heading to the chairlift he ended up getting turned around a little bit. He was headed down the hill goofy.

Now.

Instead of falling down and flipping over on his back, or just leafing down the hill, kid jumps up in the air, spins 180 and rides the rest of the way down the hill.

Jumps. Spins 180. In the air. Rides off.

That’s a trick. That’s legitimately a snowboard trick.
Before he’s even linking turns he’s busting aerials.

Mike. It’s time for the chairlift.


So we head to the lift. His first lift, mind you.

And I’m like “oh, so you’re definitely gonna fall getting off the lift, everyone does their first time, it’s a weird feeling, I did too…” on and on like I know what I’m talking about.

Well he almost falls off trying to get on the chair. The thing comes pretty fast, so he’s dangling off the front of the chair, I swing my arm over to stop him from falling and I’m pretty sure I punch him in the stomach in the process.

Sorry Mike.

So, now we’re settled into the chair and I keep going on about getting positioned right and just try to ride it out like when we were kicking over to the lift without our foot strapped in.

So we get to the end of the lift and I signal to the operator to slow the lift a little and dude cruises the dismount.
It was awesome.

I’ve literally never known anyone who didn’t fall their first time off the lift.

Then he follows it up by linking his turns the entire way down the hill. It’s incredible.

His first day, the end of the day, mind you, when everyone’s tired and he’s linking turns and doing frontside 180’s without a kicker.

I don’t even know how to express how happy I was for him.

So we ride the lift 3 more times before we have to leave and he doesn’t fall once. Even when I don’t tell the guy to slow it down.
Incredible.

So, yeah it’s a pretty successful first outing for us.

I couldn’t go last week, but we’re headed out again this Saturday and it looks like its gonna be a really nice day cause I think they’re getting a lot of snow.

I’ll do my best to keep up.