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Advanced Tricks

Now if you really want to be challenged you could try doing double flips, combinations, and lots of harder spins. To do double flips of any kind you should be able to do them on a trampoline before you even attempt them on a snowboard. After you can do them on a trampoline you should be able to do it on a snowboard. To do a 720 you should warm up a little by landing some 360's and 540's. Once you are ready you approach the top with more speed than you would use for a 540 and prepare to take off. Then you turn backwards hard with your shoulders and hips as soon as you feel the board leaving the lip. Do a 360 spin and start another twist to do another 360 spin. Complete the second spin and find your landing spot on the ground as close to the lip as possible. The more spins you do the more air you will have to get and the faster you will need to spin. An example of a combination of a flip is a McTwist which is doing a front flip 540 with a mute grab. Before you do it you should warm up by doing 540's and doing front flips with doing a mute grab. To do a McTwist you drop into the half pipe then crouch down low on your board at the bottom of the half pipe and pick the spot you launch off of on the approaching lip. Do not take your eyes off the spot you will use. Extend your legs slowly so you gain momentum then lower your head and front shoulder as soon as your front foot clears the lip. Jump off and do a front flip and crouch with a mute grab. Right after starting the front flip start to do the 540. Look for your landing and stick the landing. There are harder tricks but these tricks take lots of skill and practice.

Reflection

My blogging experience has been pretty good. This was my first time blogging and it wasn't that bad because seeing that I got to choose the topic which made my experience better because it made it seem not as boring. Some things that were hard in this project were thinking of topics to talk about. It was hard to think of topics that I could go into enough detail about because each blog was different lengths and some things are harder to tell about then others. I think it is a good way to learn about different things and it is also a good thing to do in your spare time as long as it is not about anything bad. I think that blogging can be fun if you find a topic that's interesting and if you do it with friends so you can make it good and add a bunch of cool things. I tried making my blog interesting by adding cool videos and putting in detail about how to do tricks. Also I tried putting in a lot of things beginners and people wanting to snowboard would want to know. I think that you can gain a lot personally and academically from blogging. You could learn that if you do it about some one else that it could hurt them and they could do the same thing back to you. Also that it could make you feel better because you could get comments saying that your blog was really cool and stuff from a bunch of people that you thought didn't like you. Some things you could gain academically from this experience is putting more detail into things because in blogs you try to put a lot of detail and interesting things in them so people will follow them and more and more people will read them. Also you could learn to make your writing not so boring because people won't want to read something that's boring unless they're forced to. Another thing you could gain personally form this experience is not to take to much care for what people have to say. For example if someone commented on your blog and it was mean you could just ignore it because if you get other comments saying its great then you just know that the person doesn't like you. Also you could learn to consider what people have to say about your writing and look into it and really look over and make changes to it. I tried to get people to read my blog by putting videos of people doing tricks, putting detail and important info, and cool pictures into my blogs. I hope some people read my blog and I hope I can get some comments about how my first blog went. I also hope people comment and give me any advice they have for snowboarding. Thank you for reading my blogs and I hope you liked them this has been a fun experience for me and I might consider blogging about different topics.

Equipment

There can be a lot of equipment or gear you could bring along for snowboarding or skiing. Some of the basic equipment is snow pants, a jacket, extra layers (if you want), boots, gloves, and a hat. Snow pants can come in pretty much any color you want so you can choose from a wide variety. You can wear any kind of jacket you want when you snowboard but if you really want to you could buy a snowboarding jacket. Snowboarding jackets aren't as big as regular jackets but they are warm because they are specially insulated. You can also find jackets that have pockets where you put your headphones through so they aren't exposed. Jackets also come with a bunch of other things so it also depends where you buy it and who you buy it from. It's up to you if you want to wear extra layers because you might get cold and you can always take layers off. You should bring extra layers just in case because you never know how cold it will get through out the day. Snowboarding boots come in single lining or double lining. You should buy double lined boots because your feet could get cold and that would be a waste of money if you bought single lined and then bought double lined. When you snowboard you also want to wear long socks because the boots will make your legs irritated. Snowboarding companies also make socks especially for snowboarding and or skiing. You want to wear a thick pair of gloves when you snowboard because you don't want to get frostbite on your hands. If you can get waterproof gloves you should wear those because your gloves can get really wet and it gets kind of uncomfortable after a while. You can also just bring 2 pairs of gloves if you want to change during snowboarding but its up to you. Any hat will do as long as it can keep your head warm its good. You could also wear a hood hat, which is a hat, but it goes over your whole head and covers your neck. If you don't like wearing hats you could always wear a helmet because they act like a hat also. You can also get a helmet with speakers in it so you can plug your Ipod into it instead of wearing headphones. If you wear a hat you might want to wear something that covers your neck because snow can easily get on your neck or it could get cold and it doesn't feel good. You could wear a scarf or a neck scarf, which goes over your neck and can cover your mouth and nose to keep your face warm. They also make face masks that are tight around your face to keep your face warm. Something that is also an important thing to wear is goggles. You can go without goggles but it helps so wind isn't getting in your eyes and so snow doesn't get in them if it's snowing. You can go to any snowboard place to get these things including one of the most popular ones Burton.

Snowboards

There are many different companies that make snowboards such as Burton, Morrow, K2, Element, Oakley, and many more. Some brand snowboards are better than others but that doesn't mean they aren't good, they still ride just as good as others. The snowboard companies that make snowboards also sell all the equipment that is useful while snowboarding. Snowboards can be anywhere from a hundred some dollars all the way to a couple thousand dollars. When snowboards are sold they don't usually come with bindings, which can also cost up to a couple hundred dollars. If you are a beginner you don't need a super fancy snowboard you just need one that fits you and that won't break on you. Snowboards can come in different styles. There are snowboards for doing tricks and for riding slopes. A regular snowboard can be used to do tricks too but if you know you want to and will be doing tricks more than you should get a trick style board. One of the best snowboards right now is the Burton Method it's reinforced with titanium but it is also the lightest snowboard ever so far. The bigger you are the bigger the snowboard you will need because if you have a small board it will be more sensitive and turn easier. You don't want to big of a board either because then it will be harder for you to turn, and it will take the fun out of snowboarding. The easier way to tell if a board is a good size for you is to see if it's up to your chin. If it's exactly at your chin it's perfect but it's ok if it goes a little over or a little under. An important thing to remember when you get a snowboard is every couple of times you go snowboarding is to get it waxed. To get it waxed you can take it up to a ski/snowboard shop and get it waxed which will probably cost you around 20 dollars depending where you go. You could also wax it yourself but it might make a mess. Waxing your snowboard makes it go faster because it melts a thin layer of snow touching your board, which reduces the friction making it go faster.

Wipe Outs/injuries

One of the most deadly things about snowboarding is the wipe outs. Even if your good you could still easily wipe out because all it takes is one little bump to throw you off balance. Your board could also get stuck in the snow when you turn. The reason they can get really bad is because you're going fast and its down hill and you have something on your feet so you won't land correctly. Also, when you fall you can also keep sliding which might hurt you a little more. Usually the most common injuries on a snowboard are the breaking ankles because you can't take them out. Some other common injuries are breaking wrists, concussions, knee injuries, neck injuries, and other kinds of broken bones, and dislocations.. Knee injuries are usually caused by extremely hard collisions such as crashing into things. Concussions can easily happen because all it that really needs to happen is that you just slip backwards. For wrist injuries you can easily break them by falling on them and bending them. Neck injuries can happen if you try to do a trick and land on your neck or if you fall and bend your neck. You could also break your collar bone. You can prevent yourself form getting injured by wearing wrist guards, ankle guards, knee pads, and even wearing a helmet because you never know when your going to have a bad wipe out. Also to prevent injuries because you cant wear protection for everything is to ride safely and not go out of control. Many pro's have had some bad wipe outs one you probably know of is Shaun White at the X-Games where he came down from doing a trick and face planted on the side of the half pipe. My friend Colton Wicinski broke both his wrists while snowboarding a while ago by just falling somewhat lightly on them. Now this doesn't mean he's bad at snowboarding because all it takes is one little mistake for you to break a bone or get some other serious injury. An injury that is really bad is frostbite. Frostbite has four stages the third and fourth stages could result in amputation or they could fall off. The first stage is when the top layer of skin gets hard and numb but doesn't do any permanent damage. At the second degree blisters usually appear and blacken but they aren't that bad. Wherever you got frostbite the blisters will go away in about a month but that part may always be permanently sensitive to heat and cold. Even though frostbite can easily be protected many people still get it because they think they will be fine but remember it's easier to get over a long period of time in the very cold weather so watch out and dress warm when you go.

Tricks

There are many tricks you can do on a snowboard including a 180, 360, 540, 720, and many more spins. You can also do flips like a front flip and back flip. You can also do combinations like a 180 front flip or 180 back flip. Flips are usually done more in half pipes because you can get more air. To do a 180 spin your front foot heel ward, with your back foot moving toe ward. During the first 90 degrees of rotation, it will be feel kind of like doing a heel-edged stop at first. Make sure that you do not get in front of your board. Instead stay directly above it or behind it a little but not too far. Finish off spinning, and remember that your board is the thing that needs to be facing downhill when you land, your torso position isn't as crucial. Put your feet down firmly, but don't slam them. Keep your knees bent as you land, locking them will hurt. Put a little bit of weight on your heels to make your board turn a little to counter your momentum from spinning when you touch down. To do a 360 you look over your leading shoulder to look where you are going! If you keep looking down the hill instead of in the direction of your spin, your body will not rotate, and you are going to land sideways on the snow - a prelude to a lot of pain. As you pass the first 90 degrees of the rotation (facing completely forward) grab your snowboard. Hold the grab and keep following through with the rotation about another 180 degrees (facing the take off of the jump.) At this point let go of the grab and start to look for the landing. Then to land just brace your knees for impact. To do a front flip you throw yourself fowards when you get to the top of the jump but you can't move your shoulders or else you'll start spinning. You don't have to worry about the landing because you'll probably land on your board or butt. It doesn't hurt to much landing on your butt if you practice on a smaller jump. Drop in or slowly proceed down a large snowboarding ramp. To do a back flip you need a larger ramp because you need enough speed to get high enough off the launch ramp to successfully perform a back flip. Approach the launch ramp at a slight angle so that when you begin to back flip, your head is already clear of the ramp instead of it possibly falling back directly toward the launch ramp. Launch yourself off the ramp and begin to throw your shoulders back as you push your momentum around back toward the ramp. This will make your rotate feet overhead backward. Make one full rotation so that you are back facing the same way that you started, and begin lining up a clear spot for your board so that you land safely back down. Once you land your board should be the first thing to hit the ground. You shouldn't start doing combinations of flips and spins till you master both of the tricks because you could really injure yourself.