Doug grew up in New York riding the mountains of the Adirondacks and Vermont. As a professional Snowboard Instructor, Doug has taught full time for nearly five years. Doug's passion is in coaching freestyle snowboarding and all-mountain freeriding. He obtained full certification through the American Association of Snowboard Instructors and is an active participant in the training of freestyle coaching techniques. A favorite with group beginners and private customers, Doug is known for his ability to sense learning styles and to detect rapid improvement potential.

Make sure that you are fully equipped. Dress for success- bring clothes for a variety of weather conditions; sun, snow, and wind. Make sure that everyone that you are with has UV protective eyewear, sunscreen, lip balm, hat, and gloves. If you do not have everything with you, head to any of the Sugar Bowl Retail Shops and they will have everything that you will need.

Safety is a key element in entering the world of snow sports, whether it is your first time snowboarding or you are an advanced shredder. The first few days on a snowboard are by far the most difficult days of riding, and falling is to be expected. Wearing the proper safety gear can help avoid injuries while out on the hill. Some of the key components are a helmet and wrist guards. The most common injuries while snowboarding are strained and sprained wrists. The reason for this is because it is our natural instinct to extend our arms to catch ourselves while falling. We must train ourselves how to fall properly. This can be done through practice. "What? Practice how to fall?" Yes, we must practice so that we can develop muscle memory to overcome our natural instincts.

Here are some steps to practice to learn to fall safely:

Stance

Standing with your knees bent will lower your "center of mass" and make it so that you have a shorter distance to fall. Keep your arms bent and up to your chest. This will allow you to land on your forearms rather than on your hands.

Falling Forward

1. Fall down to your knees and keep your arms up to your chest
2. Brace yourself and land on your forearms
3. Make sure to not allow your lower legs to swing forward
4. Keep the board on the ground
5. Get the board back down and across the hill of you
6. Now get ready to get back up

Falling Backwards

1. Keep your chin down to your chest so your head will be the last thing to touch down, not the first thing!
2. Land first on your bottom. Keep your hands up to your chest
3. Roll back so that you can continue your fall smoothly
4. Get the board back down and across the hill of you.
5. Now get ready to get back up

Practice, and get ready for a fun and safe time out on the hill.

Lesson Tips - Advanced
The "Underneath Move"- Create More Power in Your Turns

The underneath move in snowboarding requires relaxation of the legs and tightening of the abdominal muscles to absorb the energy stored in the board. To create energy in the board, at the start of the turn push your board into the hill by extending your legs so that you bend the board into the arch of the turn. By mid turn, (before the board crosses the fall line) the legs should reach full extension without locking the knees and your board will reach maximum pressure and edge. This is your signal to relax your legs and let your board rebound (like holding a card between thumb and fore finger and bending it until the card snaps out of your fingers). Move your upper body down the hill towards the next turn as you guide the board underneath your body and up the hill onto the opposite edge. Start the next turn again by pushing the board into the arch of the next turn. With practice you will be able to make powerful carves with quick edge changes!

Balance is the key to success on a board. You must learn to balance on the board before you can cruise around the mountain, exploring new terrain. For a beginner this stage can be the most difficult and the most frustrating. There are a few things that can help your transition from a "never-ever" to an all-mountain rider.

Controlling the board – The key to controlling the board is using the medal edges on each side of the board, which are called the "toe edge" and the "heel edge." In order to stand up, you must first learn how to grip with each of the edges. This grip will allow you to stand in a stopped position, rather than standing to a slipping board. Once you are on your feet, the game is on! The game is to not to fall back down again. Don’t be discouraged if you immediately fall down: just make sure to fall safely. This will take you a few tries before you get it. A key to success is using a stance that will promote good balance as well as put you in a position that will increase your range of motion. A generic athletic stance is a good posture to have as you start to develop your balance. Keep your knees flexed, feet shoulder-width apart, back straight, and your head up.

Now you are ready to start moving. Use the toe edge while looking up the hill until you start to feel the board slip. Apply pressure down into the fronts of the boots to reapply the grip. Get used to sometimes having your back facing down hill. This often feels uncomfortable, so practice until you feel safe, and don’t forget to look behind so you know where you are going and who is behind you. Practice this now on the heel edge, facing down the hill, pressuring the back of the boot to grip and decreasing the pressure to start the slip.

Exercises at Home – At home there are things that you can do to get you ready for developing your balance skills on the hill. Make sure to stretch, focusing on legs and calf muscles as well on the wrists and shoulders. Good core body strength will give you an advantage over others, so strengthen those abs.

Experience in other board sports will give you a strong advantage, but it is not a necessity. The best thing that I have found for developing balance is using a balance board at home. There are a number of different brands, so search on the Internet, and you can even mail-order one from home.

The best thing to help get over the "beginners' hump" is to get up on the hill and get a few days of riding in a row with lessons. You will be cruising in no time.

The goal while developing your own riding skills is to feel comfortable, look stylish, and do this all while using the least amount of effort. The basic tasks such as J-turns, Garlands and the Falling Leaf are stepping stones to a smooth rounded turn. These tasks can be seen more than just ways to get down the hill, but more as movements that will develop muscle memory helping movements link together, resulting in a fluid stylish rider.

The "S" turn is essential in comfortable and safe movement around the mountain. It is the movement of the rider transferring from one edge of the board to the other and then back to the original edge, being either heal or toe edge.

When the board is across the fall line and you are getting ready move to the next edge the movements of our body needs to be down and across the hill. While we are making this diagonal movement across the board control comes from pressuring movements of the legs and a rotation movement of the hips. This will help to induce the board into a skid. The tricky part of this edge change is that the board cannot change edges until the direction that you are moving on the hill is running from tip to tail of the board. At first this will only be when the board is pointing straight down the hill. As you become more experienced and learn to carry a consistent speed through the turn the edge change can occur much before the fall line.

Some key points to help all of these movements link together is commitment and focus. If you want to move down the hill don’t fight it, be aggressive and drive yourself down the hill. This will give you much more control over the board and fully utilize the shape and design of the snowboard. A correct focus while making edge changing movements will give success, but focus in the wrong direction can result in catching an edge. The direction that you want to focus should be along path that you plan to take down the hill. So keep your head up and start imagining those smooth turns down the hill.

Practice up and you will be ready to really start getting into the diverse world of snowboarding, and start to chose your path whether it is freestyle, freeriding, carving, or all of the above.

As the winter season comes to an end and we move into spring, the mountains become a haven for those that want to progress their skills on the hill. The days are long, the snow is soft, the weather is great, and the last snowfalls of the year strengthen off the coast. Now is the time to take the next step and take your riding to the next level.

Warm temperatures make the snow soft, a little bit slower, and a lot more forgiving. The terrain that we are used to riding will start to feel a bit more comfortable. In the morning the snow will be firmer, but as the day progresses the it will soften into what is known as "corn snow." This snow is great for learning new things and making turns down steeper runs. The terrain parks and half pipes become less dangerous in these conditions.

As the steeps begin to feel a bit friendlier, use the softening snow to sink your edge and control your speed. Keep your focus down the hill and as you drive with your front leg to develop your turn shape, use that board. Think of your front lower leg as your joystick as you play through the spring snow. Remember to keep pressure towards the nose of your board as you are exploring this new terrain. This will keep your body moving down the hill with the board and give you more control.

The half pipes and terrain park also get nice and soft, and allow for progressing your freestyle skills. Here are a few tips to improving your freestyle:

In the initial stages of trying snowboarding, when first stepping into the bindings, it may feel odd to have your legs tied down, and it can almost feel restrictive. This will take a short while to get used to, but in the long run you will begin to see the many advantages. With both feet locked into one piece of equipment we will have a much greater control over it compared to when we only have one foot locked into the bindings. This gained control comes from having the ability to use your feet independently to control one device.

• While sitting on the snow locked into the board you can pedal your feet like pressing on a gas pedals to see how you can make the board twist. Play with this and notice how much power you actually have over the board.
• Then while standing across the fall line, feel what affect this has over your grip on the snow. Use balance to prevent yourself from falling and use the twist to fine-tune your balance.
• When you are ready to start moving, pedal down with your front foot while keeping constant pressure against your boot on your back foot. This can be done on both the toe and heel edge. This will cause the board’s edge near the front foot to release while the back foot still has some grip.
• Before the board goes down the fall line, bring back up the pedal on the front foot, reapplying pressure on the cuff of the boot. All this time the back foot remains relaxed with constant pressure on the cuff of the boot. The lead foot is doing all moving.
• Play with this exercise and use it to work yourself across the hill. Use this to start experiment moving in the switch direction, make your other foot lead.
• Once you are comfortable putting the board in the fall line you can use this to movement to really smooth out those "S" turns. The back foot does become more active as you change edges.
The "S" Turn


• Once the board is almost headed into the fall line the back foot centers in the cuff of the boot, while the front foot now starts to pedal towards the new edge, putting pressure into the cuff of the boot.
• The back foot reacts as if to be the last car in a rollercoaster while the front foot is the first car, front foot leads and the back foot copies but is delayed.
• As the board is about to cross the fall line, the back foot drives into the cuff towards the new uphill edge. This will stop the tail from spinning out too far downhill, and help to direct the board across the hill.
• Now you are ready to start over and move into the new turn.
This movement is known as the twist. It will help induce the board into a skid and is very important as you develop your skills into new realms of snowboarding.



Lesson 6 - Putting It All Together



It is key to practice at the different tasks given in the previous lessons to properly develop your skills. This will help to develop turns that are smooth, efficient, and have the most style. The body movements that create these ideal turns are only but a part of the whole package. The mentality of the rider is what will make the difference whether the individual can take their skills to the next step.

In this sport, we are using gravity as a tool to express ourselves. The instant that we fight this tool we lose control as well as the ability move with fluidity. Overcoming this fear is one of the most important steps to being successful. The best way to avoid this fear is by starting small and working in an active progression with your skills to achieve your goals. Plan for a lifelong snowboarding experience; don’t try to do it all in the first day or even the first year.

As well as not getting in over your head, riding with an aggressive drive down the hill rather than just looking down and tentatively moving down the hill will give you an advantage. Try attacking down the hill. Take your body and drive yourself, using your legs to push your upper body down the hill. This will result in much more control as well as make balancing over the board much less difficult. Focus your eyes in the direction that you want to go, and as your body becomes more accustomed to maneuvering over different types of terrain, our focus constantly needs to be looking ahead to the new direction or terrain feature that we wish to overcome.

So practice up on those hard skills, but don’t get beaten by the head game.