The first thing you want to learn is the direction you need to face when riding downhill on a snowboard. You can either go down the slope backwards and with your toes pointed uphill and your back facing the direction you are traveling. Or you can go down nose first.

Keep in mind that while you are snowboarding, always put pressure on the uphill edge of the board. So, if you are going down the mountain backwards, that is, facing uphill, yourpressure will be on your toes. This way of facing the mountain is called “toeside” for obvious reasons. If you are going down the mountain facing downhill, your pressure will be on your heels. This is called “heelside”. DON’T put pressure on the downhill edge. It will cause you to tip over.

If you are heelside (that is, traveling downhill and facing downhill) and you dig the downhill edge (the toe edge) into the snow, what do you think will happen? The board will stop and you will keep going, causing you to tumble over your board and crash on your face. Similarly, if you are toeside (traveling downhill backwards) and your heel edge digs in, what is going to happen? Your board will stop and you won’t, causing your backside to slam into the ground.

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Board - A beginner should have a board that has a beveled edge (so the edges don’t catch as easily), has a little flexibility, and is sort of hourglass-shaped like a maxi-pad, so that it is relatively easy to turn.

Boots - The most important thing is that the boot always moves with your foot. Since the boot is bound to the board and you are controlling it with your feet, if your foot moves within the boot, your foot movement will not translate into board movement. Make sure you get good boots.

1. The boot should be snug from toe to heel

2. When you lift your heel while standing, your heel should not move up inside the boot. That is, the heel should not come up off the floor of the boot. Raising your heel should raise the heel of the boot too and should not make a space between your heel and the boot.

3. You should not be able to rotate your foot or ankle with respect to the boot when the boot is wedged or pinned in a stationary position. Loose boots may be a problem for women renting men’s boots; their feet tend to be narrower. Boots with dense, form-fitting foam in the heel solve problems (2) and (3). The foam is a part of the inside of the boot and protrudes into the recess of your achille’s tendon so that when your heel comes up, it catches on the foam and the boot comes up too. Don’t leave the rental equipment desk until you are happy - it could mean the difference between having control of your board and not having control of your board.

Helmet - You’ll want a helmet with good visibility that doesn’t block your peripheral vision, and one which doesn’t deafen you so you can hear skiers and riders approach from the sides and behind. Different countries have different safety certification names. So, if it is made in Europe, it might say CE. If it is made in the US it might say Snell. They are made to crack so your head doesn’t. Replace your helmet if the inside or outside becomes cracked.

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Those who learn to paddle correctly will be able to catch all the good waves. Those who are poor at it will use up all of their energy missing the good waves. The beginner frequently has difficulty paddling because of poor body positioning on the board. If you are too far back on the board it will tilt up in the front and you will be pushing water, this will slow you down.

If you are too far forward on your surfboard then the nose will sink or pearl, another bummer. Remember, your surfboard is balanced correctly and under control when the nose is one or two inches out of the water. The flatter the board is on the surface of the water the better it will glide.

Try to feel comfortable on your board, be centered and look closely at the tip as you begin paddling. If you pay close attention to how well the board is moving through the water you will see right away if you need to reposition your body in order to improve your glide.
Paddle one arm at a time in a rounded circuler motion. Stretch the arm outright, fingertips pointed and together and have the hand enter the water smoothly. Bring the arm down and through, making sure to complete the stroke at the finish - much like in freestyle swimming - only now you are on a big floation device.

Keep your eyes focused on the tip of your board to make sure that the surfboard is flat on the water and that you are pointed straight in toward the beach. This will help you get the right angle into the wave.

When you are paddling out to get to the surf, try to pace yourself. Depending on where you are surfing, the first paddle out from shore can be difficult. You may have to paddle a long way or for a long time, so take it easy, don’t burn out. The difficulty in paddling out is more due to the prevailing surf conditions and how well you deal with the oncoming surf, than it is how fast you can paddle. We will cover how to deal with tons of cascading whitewater in an upcoming article.

When you try to paddle in to the whitewater wave, or if you have advanced to the outside, you must sprint to catch the wave. Eight or nine of the hardest deepest strokes that you can summon up. You must bring the surfboard up to speed as the oncoming wave rushes up from behind, while remaining perpendicular to the wave. This is the hardest part – but also the most fun.

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One of the biggest factors in getting you the most comfortable skis for your skiing preferences is choosing the right flex. Flex is the factor that will affect a skiers float, turning, and overall stability.

Stiffer skis will be better for speed on hardpack downhill type skiing while more flexible skis will be better for mobility on broken powder or bumpy rides. If you want to get the best skis for your skiing habits, check out the many manufacturers of skis and let them know what type of skiing you prefer. They will be able to match you with the best options.

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The first modern snowboard was called the Snurfer, originally designed for his children by Sherman Poppen in 1965 in Muskegon, Michigan. Poppen’s Snurfer started to be manufactured as a toy the following year. It was essentially a skateboard without wheels, steered by a hand-held rope.

During the 1970s and 1980s as snowboarding became more popular, true pioneers such as Dimitrije Milovich, Jake Burton (founder of Burton Snowboards), Tom Sims (founder of Sims Snowboards) and Mike Olson (GNU Snowboards) came up with new designs for boards and machineries that had slowly developed into the snowboards and other related equipment.

Dimitrije Milovich, an east coast surfer, had the idea of sliding on cafeteria trays. From this he started developing his snowboard designs. In 1972, he started a company called the Winterstick; by 1975, The Winterstick was mentioned in Newsweek magazine. The Winterstick was based on the design and feel of a surfboard, but worked the same way as skis.

Although many skiers and skateboarders took up the sport, the vast majority of ski areas didn’t. Many of the early snowboards were extremely difficult to control and they were generally banned. Only 7% of U. S. ski areas allowed snowboarding in 1985 and things were much the same in Europe.

As equipment and skill levels improved, though, snowboarding gradually became more acceptable. Most of the major ski areas had separate slopes for snowboarders by 1990. Now, about 97% of all ski areas in North America and Europe allow snowboarding and more than half of them have ramps and pipes.

Today, more than 3.5 million people have taken up snowboarding. That is around 20% of all visitors to US ski resorts.

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Trad climbing usually involves the leader ascending a section of rock while placing their own protective devices as he/she climbs. Route finding, effective gear placements, self control, and good climbing skills are essential. Normally, such climbs are not previewed or rehearsed on a top rope (with or without tension), and emphasis is placed on passing difficult sections on the first try. As a form of free climbing, only the limbs and body of the climber are used to effect upward progress, and protective devices are placed solely to catch the climber in the event of a fall.

Traditional climbing includes placement of all forms of protection, including bolts, while leading. In its purest form such placements are done without any aid from the rope. Bolting in traditional style requires standing on natural holds, drilling a hole and hammering in a shaft and hanger, a difficult and time consuming process.

Because of this difficulty and the once prevailing ethic of minimizing bolts as they permanently mark the rock, traditional bolted routes often entail more distance between protection bolts than sport climbs. Not all bolted traditional climbs are “run out” between bolts; nevertheless, traditional climbing has now become associated with “bold,” “adventurous” if not “scary” climbing with minimal protection and the possibility of long falls.

The majority of the protection placed while leading a traditional line does not consist of permanently installed bolts, but of removable protective devices such as spring-loaded camming devices, aluminum or steel ‘nuts’, hexagonal-shaped chocks, and their variants. Carabiners and nylon slings are then used to connect the protection gear to the climber’s lead rope, so that in the event of a fall, the rope can be used (by the belayer below) to ‘catch’ the falling climber.

Modern traditional climbers very rarely place bolts, except in the case of establishing difficult new lines that lack the features necessary to place adequate removable gear. It is also considered extremely bad style to install new protection bolts on existing climbs that can be completed without them.

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Alpine skiing developed in the Alps beginning in 1889. In Winterthur, Switzerland, Odd Kjelsberg may have been the first person in the Alps to try skiing. Previous to this time,the predominate Alpine winter sport had been tobogganing.

Skiing techniques are difficult to master, and accordingly there are ski schools that teach everything from the basics of turning and stopping safely to more advanced carving, racing, mogul or “bump” skiing and newer freestyle techniques. There are two primary types of downhill skiing — “telemark” and “alpine.”

For beginning skiers learning under a trained instructor, skiing speeds are low, the terrain is not steep and is often well-manicured, and the risks are relatively low. For extreme skiers, testing their expert abilities against ever more challenging terrain, the risks may be much higher.

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Early skate tricks had consisted mainly of two-dimensional maneuvers (riding on only two wheels), spinning like an ice skater on the back wheels(a 360 pivot), high jumping over a bar(nowadays called a “Hippie Jump”), long jumping from one board to another(often over a line of small barrels or fearless teenagers lying on their backs), and slalom.

In 1976, skateboarding was transformed by the invention of the first modern skateboarding trick by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand. It remained largely a unique Florida trick from 1976 until the summer of 1978, when Gelfand made his first visit to California. Gelfand and his revolutionary manoeuver caught the attention of the West Coast skaters and the media where it began to spread worldwide. An ollie is performed by popping the tail of the skateboard, sliding the front foot towards the nose and lifting up the back foot to level the skateboard out. This results in the skateboarder, along with his or her skateboard, lifting into the air without the aid of foot straps or the skateboarder’s hands.

The ollie was reinvented by Rodney Mullen in 1981, who adapted it to freestyle skating by ollieing on flat ground rather than out of a vert ramp. Mullen also invented the ollie kickflip, which, at the time of its invention, was dubbed the “magic flip.” The flat ground ollie allowed skateboarders to perform tricks in mid-air without any more equipment than the skateboard itself. The development of these complex tricks by Rodney Mullen and others transformed skateboarding. Skateboarders began performing their tricks down stair sets and on other urban obstacles, they were no longer confined to empty pools and expensive wooden ramps.

The act of “ollieing” onto an obstacle and sliding along it on the trucks of the board is known as grinding, and has become a mainstay of modern skateboarding. Types of grinds include the 50-50 grind (balancing on the front and back trucks while grinding a rail), the 5-0 grind (balancing on only the back truck while grinding a rail) the nose grind (balancing on only the front truck while grinding a rail), and the crooked grind (balancing on the front truck at an angle while grinding) among many others.

There are various other grinds that involve touching both the trucks and the deck to the rail, ledge, or lip. The most common of these is the smith grind, in which the rider balances over the back truck while touching the outer middle of the board to the grinding surface in the direction from which he or she ollied. Popping and landing on the back truck and touching the inner edge of the board, i.e. popping “over”, is known as a feeble grind. Boardslides, lipslides, noseslides, and tailslides are on the wooden deck of the skateboard, rather than on the trucks.

Apart from grinds, Flip tricks are an important set of tricks, as they are a requirement for the trick line. Flip tricks are very diverse, and can include virtual any combination of flipping, usually never flipping more times that in the 360 flip. There are varial kickflips and varial heelflips, (in 4 combinations [a hardflip is a frontside varial kickflip]).

While all these can be done in a regular stance, they can also all be done fakie, switch, or nollie. Ambidextrousness is part of skateboarding; trick lines will often be made of switch, nollie, and (sometimes) fakie, flip tricks, and switch tricks down rails or stairs are just as common as regular tricks. Flip tricks can also be done into grinds, or with a body movement, such as in a backside 180 kickflip. These again, into nollie tricks such as a nollie backside heelflip. And these, further, are linked to complicated grinds, such as a kickflip backside lipslide or a nollie heelflip noseslide.

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Ropes and protective equipment are used only for protection against the consequences of a fall. The term is used in contrast to aid climbing, a much less prevalent practice in which equipment is used directly in order to make progress.

Do not confuse free climbing with free soloing by non-climbers. This is a type of free climbing where no rope or protective equipment is used for protection, and a fall would clearly be disastrous. In contrast, the vast majority of free climbers will make use of such equipment as a safeguard when climbing at height.

The goal is to climb the route first try on-sight as if the rope (if one is being used) is not there. Therefore, true free climbing prohibits:

1. Pre-climb inspections to learn more about the climb before starting (however one should always perform a safety inspection on any face that they are about to climb)

2. Hangdogging (resting on gear or the rope)

3. Pre-placing gear (pinkpointing)

4. Pulling or stepping on gear (french free)
Prior top roping of the lead climb (most common in trad climbing, frequently termed ‘headpointing’)

5. Practice through falling (i.e. failing) on previous lead attempts (most common in sport climbing, frequently termed ‘redpointing’)

6. Although an on-sight attempt is the most coveted, in practice all of the above tactics are common practice to greater or lesser extent. This is especially the case in sport climbing.

7. Ordinarily, the traditional climber will only resort to aid as a last resort, in order to complete a hard climb. The aid climber strives to free climb as much of the route as possible.

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“We’ve been absolutely swamped with e-mails,” said Nanaimo BMX Association vice-president Randy Little. “It’s been crazy. We’ve got 68 riders coming from Australia. It’s been a matter of trying to figure out who to get on the track and when.” Riders from Germany, New Zealand and the Netherlands will also use Nanaimo’s facilities for training, Little said.

Nanaimo BMX Association has hosted the ABA World Cup twice in the last 10 years, but the UCI Worlds is a much bigger event. Thousands of riders from all over the world will race. BMX racing will be introduced as a sport in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China so there is plenty of excitement within the sport these days. The training sessions here in Nanaimo will be an event on its own.

“We have to have first aid people here, people to keep the track groomed and water it so everything is just right,” said Little. Prior to the teams arriving for training, Nanaimo BMX Association is hosting its annual Pro BMX Supercamp training clinic at the Beban track. The four-day camp, which starts Wednesday and wraps up Saturday, features several top pro riders, including world champion Bubba Harris, a regular at the camp.

Other top riders such as Mike Day and Anthony Derosa will be on hand to instruct at the camp. Several from New Zealand, parents and children, are in the clinic. “We’ve done the camp for 10 years now,” said Little, who estimates between 70 and 110 riders have already signed up for the clinic. “Bubba raced here in the ABA Worlds in 1997, He was 11. He’s 21 now and world champion and he loves coming here.”

To participate in the clinic, you must hold a membership in a BMX-sanctioned club. Registration information can be obtained by visiting the Nanaimo BMX Association website. Membership is $55. The camp (four days) is $300 U.S. which includes meals (three a day) and sleeping arrangements. Food Country and Pacific Produce are major contributors to the Supercamp clinic.

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