Winter Time

Well, after living in Utah for several years snow, and having previously lived in Colorado, I decided that maybe I should see what all the hype about winter sports was about. I love the snow, most of the time. And I LOVE tubing. I finally decided that maybe I should try skiing to better understand. Well, last month I went up to the local ski resort, and decided to take snowboarding lessons. It always look so easy when you see people doing it. Well of course that is because they do it all the time.
Anyways so I go and rent all of my board and my boots and sign up for a lesson. First off I have to make my life difficult by not being able to decide which way I want to ride. What ever way I started out, it was the opposite of my instructor. Makes it a little difficult. So we practice the basic turns down at the bottom of the slope. Then it is off to the lift. I am surprised that with how much I do not care for hights that I was not that bothered. So Now we get off and go to the hill, and for the life of me, I cannot go from sitting to standing. After trying and rolling down the hill some, it is decided that I should kneel and get up that way. That is great, except then I am facing up hill, while trying to go down hill. I loose my balance and flip, and somehow, lucky me, twist my ankle while it is in the boot. I hear it crack or pop and it is sore. I just tell my instructor that it is a little sore, and off I go again.
As I am getting the hang of it, my instructor realizes that I keep trying to turn so that the other foot is the one in the front. I told you I made it difficult for ymself. It seams that I am always the exception to whatever guiding rule is set. So then we switch the board, and I get to quickly relearn how to turn. But I am still going down the hill backwards. Near the bottom, we work on me trying to do a C turn so that I will be facing down the hill instead of up. But by this time I am very tired. I never realized how much work it was to keep your balance and everything. I never quite mastered the elusive C turn. But I do finally make it down the hill on my own power. So my first run took almost 2 hours, and I did not really want to go down again by myself, so I went and turned my stuff in. It was then that I realized how sore my ankle was and that it was maybe a little swollen.
By the time my body warms up my ankle is very sore and almost impossible to walk on. Needless to say I had a moderate sprain. I then decided that January is not the time for my ankles, becuase the January before that I sprained the opposite one and was on crutches for 3 weeks. So anyways maybe next year I will try skiing and see if that is any easier. My only regret is that I never got a picture. Well I have an X-Ray of my ankle but that does not really count. Maybe next time.