CLUB . . . You're wrong and you don't even know it !

I was sharing a room with Paul and for some reason whenever he gets a text message on his phone it beeps every 5 minutes or so until he answers it. Kerri likes trying to ring Paul in the early hours of the morning when he is asleep and as some Club members may be aware when he is asleep it takes a lot more than a loud annoying beeping every 5 minutes to wake him up. Unfortunately loud beeping is not something I find conducive to a good nights sleep and so I woke up quite late.

Any Club members who have Pauls number may or may not find it amusing to send him texts saying "Beep !" in the early hours of the morning.

Despite my lesson with Sebastian not being until mid afternoon by the time I woke up I was running a bit late for it so I scoffed down some breakfast, put my boarding boots and set off to walk quickly into town, pick up my board and meet Sebastian.

Despite being weighed down by the cumbersome boots I made the walk in record time and had time to ask the shop to change my board from a goofy stance to a regular one which I thought might help me a little since the lessons I had at the snowdome where on a regular board.

There was a huge queue for the Pleney cable car but I queued up and slowly edged towards to the cars where I noticed that there were actually slots on the outside of the car to put your skis or boards in. On the way down in this car on Monday I hadn't noticed these and was cursing the lack of room on the seat for both me and the board.

At the top of the lift the visibility wasn't too bad but it was snowing and quite windy, I set off to find Sebastian and shortly did so hanging around with a group of his instructor mates.

I showed him the card the shop had given me and he agreed this proved I had a 2 hour lesson with him and we set off immediatley to the top of a small hill to get started.

He asked me what level of competence I had achieved and what I wanted to learn, I told him I was basically incompetent and I'd like to learn to how to control the board and maybe how to make turns. "Control the board ? Is easy" he replied "Turns will take 3-4 days". I had two hours but he, rather unconvincingly, reckoned he might be able to get somewhere in that time.

"So, you put on your board and away we will go" Sebastian commanded. I slumped into the snow and began the long process of putting on the board. "Is there a problem with your bindings ?" he asked 10 minutes later as I rolled around the snow trying to grab my foot. Eventually he got down and strapped my board on himself and thus set the precedent for doing the same thing every time I needed to put it back on.

"So, away we will go. Over there" said Sebastian, pointing down a steep looking slope. I immediately fell over and was obviously having trouble getting up so Sebastian had to reach down and haul me to my feet.

"So, away we will go." he was saying as I began to cruise down the slope in the opposite direction to the one he was pointing in.

"No, this way. Not down there" he shouted and glided over to grab me and point me in the right direction. Eventually we made it over ( with Sebastian pushing me most of the way ) to the nursery slope which was filled with red clad instructors towering over their 5 year old students.

We began with some side slipping which although I hadn't exactly mastered I could manage reasonably safely. Side slipping is a technique which you can use to slow yourself down where the board is lying pretty much across the slope and you can just lean backwards to dig it's back edge into the snow. By leaning a bit less back and putting your weight one or other of your legs you can progress slowly from side to side and make your way slowly down the hill. The only problem with this technique is that after 10 seconds or so it becomes extremely painful on your thighs and calves and after 20 seconds you can find yourself halfway down a steep slope with no way of turning around in extreme muscular agony.

Sebastian looked relatively pleased with the side slipping and began to explain how to perform turns. There are two sorts of turns you can do, heel side turns or toe side turns. Heel side turns are ( I think ) where you turn to face the slope and raise your heels and lean forward which will then in theory keep your front edge safely in the snow. Toe side turns are the same but where you raise your toes and turn the opposite way.

"Okay, we practice toe side turns first. Just put your weight on the front foot and raise your toes, the board will turn and voila you will have turned."

"OK" I said unconvinced. Let's give it ago. I fell over.

"What was that ? What did you do there ?"

"I fell over"

Sebastian helped me up and explained that he didn't think I'd put any weight on any leg in particular, leaned in the wrong direction and not raised my toes at all.

"So, we try again" he ordered and once again I fell over. "Look, watch me" he said whilst performing an effortless looking perfect turn. "You see how I did that ? With the weight on this foot."

"Er, yeah" I said, not seeing at all how he did it.

This time I got the board pointing downhill and began to move my weight to the front foot, the board was speeding up remarkably quickly and all my instincts were screaming stay at the back of the board ! Stay at the back of the board ! Stay at the back of the board ! The board now appeared to be going so fast that Einsteinien relativistic effects were beginning to become evident, the front of the board was now looking at least 10ft longer than it normally does and although I was rapidly trying to put my weight on the front foot and raise my toes things seemed to be happening very slowly or possibly just not at all.

"Turn ! Turn !" I heard someone yelling and I actually felt the board begin to swing round in the direction I wanted it to go. Success ! I thought, prematurely as I leant back and fell over once again.

"You didn't bend the knees" said Sebastian "that's why you fell over then. We will try again but this I will hold your hands."

I was still trying to remember at what point Sebastian had said anything about any kneebending and wasn't really concentrating so I accidentally got my board entangled in Sebastians legs and brought us both down on the ground.

Slowly, with him holding my hands, things began happen and I was making turns and joining them together into a nice smooth snaking down the slope. Obviously this process was punctated by quite a few fallings over and wasn't exactly smooth but it was progress.

"Now, I let you go and try it on your own" Sebastian said letting go of my hands. I wobbled down the slope wondering which way I should try to turn, "Heels up" I heard Sebastian yelling so I, inexplicably, raised my toes and very nearly crashed into the skier I hadn't noticed at my side and then promptly fell over, again.

"What are you doing ! That wasn't heels"
"I know that now"
"Well we try again, we have all afternoon but now I think we'll try one of the blue slopes."

We set off in the direction of one of the lifts.

"You have been on lift before ?" Sebastian asked.
"Er, sort of. Normally I end up in a heap at the end"
"Good, so you know what to do then. Come on."

I was beginning to think Sebastians English was not exactly perfect. We arrived at the bottom of lift and Sebastian helpfully pushed me into place at the gate and I managed to get most of my way to the end of the slipway before the lift got me in the back of the leg and dumped me on the seat.

"You were eager to get on that" Sebastian said. "Do you smoke ?"
"Only on the slopes" I quipped.
"Do . . . you . . . smoke ? Would . . . you . . . like a . . . cigarette" Sebastian repeated.
"Er, yes thanks"

We had a nice smoke and Sebastian told me that as well as being a Ski and Snowboard instructor he was also a carpenter ( very handy in an area where all the houses are made of wood ) and ran a ski shop with his dad which was, co-incidentally, the shop where I'd hired my equipment from.

Getting off the lift was surprisingly painless, Sebastian told me how to sit on the lift, the board hit the ground, I stood up and the next thing I knew we were 10M from the lift and I was still standing. I was very impressed by this indeed.

On the blue run Sebastian told me to just side slip down the steep bits and practice turning on the shallower bits. There were a lot of hiccups. On the lift on the way back up to the top I asked Sebastian how he thought I was getting on and he said

"Well, you can sometimes do heel side turns and, er, very very sometimes toe side turns. You are getting a bit better."

We went down a few more slopes and up a few more lifts until we ended up back at the top of the Pleney cable car.

"Ok" said Sebastian "we have 10 minutes left, either we go around here for a bit or we can get a beer."
"We'll get a beer" I replied eagerly.

Despite me having paid Sebastians agency 100 Euros for this lesson it was apparent he wanted me to pay for the beer which I did because I thought Sebastian had been quite helpful and given me a few cigarettes.

Sebastian told me that when he was in London and asked for a small beer the bar man had laughed at him and asked him if he was a woman which he had found very confusing at the time. He also said he thought I should aim to drink at least 5 pints before I tried snowboarding again since in his opinion I was almost entirely unrelaxed the whole time and this would help me. Tomorrow he said I should practice again the places I had been with him today and before long I would, no doubt, become a master boarder.

I left Sebastian and headed back into town on the cable car. I had learnt a lot from him and I was looking forward to putting it into practice the very next day, after tomorrow.