Learning to snowboard -or- a war between the conscious and the subconscious
This weekend I went to Tahoe and learned to snowboard. Veteran snowboarders
girlpurple, Bill (lj unknown), and
arcanepackrat, accompanied me. Prior to the trip,
girlpurple regaled me with a Snowboard Instruction Kit packaged in a hollow Christmas ornament (no, really). Inside was a small poseable magnetic stick figure and a metal mini snowboard. The Instruction Kit and accompanying demonstration were brilliant and really laid down everything I needed to know of the physics of snowboarding and the implications for how you stand and move.
It all seemed simple enough.
My two days of snowboarding were spent jamming this knowledge into my cerebellum. Some of this came easy -- braking on a snowboard just consists of putting the board perpendicular to the slope and angling it so the uphill edge digs into the snow. I did this wrong for a minute or so, and then my muscles started popping into place with just the right amount of tension to let me throttle the braking. It's just like what happens when you get into a rental car and the accelerator and brake pedals have different sensitivities from what you're used to.
However, the hardest skill to internalize was the stance -- when you're boarding down the mountain, you need to shift your weight onto the foot that's further down the mountain. This lets you steer. Weight on upper foot -> no steering control -> you fall down.
While it was relatively easy to pick up this skill when going slowly, once I reached a certain speed, the fear of "I'm going too fast" (which was reinforced by some rather spectacular falls) kicked in and I started to lean onto the upper foot, which caused me to lose control and fall. No matter how hard I thought about leaning down, the subconscious "I'm keeping you alive here!" response would make me lean up for at least part of a second before my conscious self (aka I) forced my body to shift down. Sometimes I recovered. Sometimes I went splat. It was a little war inside my head, with two different commanders giving orders to the same soldier.
A veteran snowboard bum I randomly encountered (an unlikely Yoda) advised "You've got to commit to it, dude. Commit to going down the hill." Finally, in a sudden mental flip, my subconscious started automatically shifting my weight down onto the lower foot whenever I was going fast. Instantly, it all worked and I was able to turn properly, going much faster with far more control. The subconscious not only stopped fighting me but started doing what I wanted automatically without me having to think about it.
How did it happen? Was I (the conscious me) helpful at all, or did the subconscious just have to figure it out for itself? Did the times I overrode it after it forced me to lean back help eliminate the fear instinct that was kicking in?
In any case... the experience of picking up a new skill in just a couple of days was fantastic, and tearing down the mountain was great fun. If I learned it in a couple of days, you probably can too, since I'm not a great athlete by any stretch of the imagination.
Thanks to
girlpurple, Bill and arcanepackrat, for organizing and getting me trained. This is the power of lj.
girlpurple, Bill (lj unknown), and
arcanepackrat, accompanied me. Prior to the trip,
girlpurple regaled me with a Snowboard Instruction Kit packaged in a hollow Christmas ornament (no, really). Inside was a small poseable magnetic stick figure and a metal mini snowboard. The Instruction Kit and accompanying demonstration were brilliant and really laid down everything I needed to know of the physics of snowboarding and the implications for how you stand and move.
It all seemed simple enough.
My two days of snowboarding were spent jamming this knowledge into my cerebellum. Some of this came easy -- braking on a snowboard just consists of putting the board perpendicular to the slope and angling it so the uphill edge digs into the snow. I did this wrong for a minute or so, and then my muscles started popping into place with just the right amount of tension to let me throttle the braking. It's just like what happens when you get into a rental car and the accelerator and brake pedals have different sensitivities from what you're used to.
However, the hardest skill to internalize was the stance -- when you're boarding down the mountain, you need to shift your weight onto the foot that's further down the mountain. This lets you steer. Weight on upper foot -> no steering control -> you fall down.
While it was relatively easy to pick up this skill when going slowly, once I reached a certain speed, the fear of "I'm going too fast" (which was reinforced by some rather spectacular falls) kicked in and I started to lean onto the upper foot, which caused me to lose control and fall. No matter how hard I thought about leaning down, the subconscious "I'm keeping you alive here!" response would make me lean up for at least part of a second before my conscious self (aka I) forced my body to shift down. Sometimes I recovered. Sometimes I went splat. It was a little war inside my head, with two different commanders giving orders to the same soldier.
A veteran snowboard bum I randomly encountered (an unlikely Yoda) advised "You've got to commit to it, dude. Commit to going down the hill." Finally, in a sudden mental flip, my subconscious started automatically shifting my weight down onto the lower foot whenever I was going fast. Instantly, it all worked and I was able to turn properly, going much faster with far more control. The subconscious not only stopped fighting me but started doing what I wanted automatically without me having to think about it.
How did it happen? Was I (the conscious me) helpful at all, or did the subconscious just have to figure it out for itself? Did the times I overrode it after it forced me to lean back help eliminate the fear instinct that was kicking in?
In any case... the experience of picking up a new skill in just a couple of days was fantastic, and tearing down the mountain was great fun. If I learned it in a couple of days, you probably can too, since I'm not a great athlete by any stretch of the imagination.
Thanks to
girlpurple, Bill and arcanepackrat, for organizing and getting me trained. This is the power of lj.