Adapted from Winter Adventure by Peter Stark

To make the board track straight, you simply move your weight to your rear foot and the back portion of the board.

Jason guided us down a few runs and gave us a few pointers about what we were doing wrong. Like a beginning skier, our instinct was to lean back when we should be pushing forward, with the result that we''d go flying along in a straight line without much control over the board''s edges. But the basic principles of boarding, if not the actual performance, were surprisingly simple. "I''ve taught you everything I can," Jason said when we reached the bottom of the slope. "Now you''ve got to work it out for yourself."

We pushed over to the chairlift and found another boarder standing in line—a woman about our own age, which is to say, nearly twice Jason''s age.

"At first I couldn''t go 20 feet without falling," she told us as we rode up the lift together. "But after a while, you know, I learned to stand up and go straight. Then one day I started turning. Now I''ve snowboarded five or six times, and it''s really getting to be fun."

Thus inspired, we threw ourselves into the job of learning to board in the school of hard knocks.

Move on to Which Foot Forward?

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