I wasn't sure I was going to be cut out for snowboarding. Visions of me lying in a crumpled heap, crying and swearing swam before my mind... Turns out I wasn't far wrong. Snowboarding is very fun, it's also pretty painful and quite difficult. It's not hard to get the basic skills in place so that you can 'falling leaf' down a blue run but it is tricky to try to progress beyond this level and inevitably involves falling over a lot.
In theory I have no issues with falling over but I found that after three or four consecutive falls on a particularly crap run I would be feeling nervous, possibly winded and probably fighting back tears. I also told my boyfriend a couple of times that I was going to bash him to death with my snowboard for making me go on this holiday.
Resilience is key. You have to keep going and not be defeated. I am very determined but I'm also very competitive and a perfectionist. To not be able to do something while not knowing how to improve was very frustrating! And by all accounts I was the 'best' person in my beginner group at snowboarding school. I probably fell over the most but then I also went the fastest and took the most risks!
Before our trip to Tignes I researched anything that might help with the inevitable aches and pains I would experience snowboarding. Kneipp Bath Salts were recommended to me by Caroline at
Beauty Mouth and I would have a bath filled with them at the end of every day. Having never been snowboarding before I had no frame of reference for how much they helped assuage my aching muscles but J said he felt nowhere near as fragile as he had on his past snowboarding trips. The salts also smell glorious and provide a welcome sensory relief at the end of a hard day on the slopes. You can buy them at
Victoria Health.
We rented our accommodation privately and absolutely lucked out, snagging an amazing 10-bed chalet to ourselves for most of the week. If you're heading to the Val de Saire/Tignes region of France and are looking for accommodation I highly recommend it.
sutski.co.uk
I wanted to wait a while after my return to form an opinion on snowboarding. This is a generalisation but I think that men are more hardy and 'gung-ho' when it comes to extreme sports. I imagine these qualities make it easier for them to get to grips with snowboarding. I think if you had a more relaxed attitude than mine this would also help. I think I would go again (and will probably be forced to) and that if I can iron out the few areas where I really don't know what I'm doing then I will start to love it. To summarise: when it's good it's really good, but when it's bad it's awful!
Do you like my orange hat? I look like the end of a decongestant tablet.