I missed
@ilovepugs tag, but yes, I teach snowboard and ski. I started out skiing from age 3 to 20 thanks to my dad who learned to ski from his friend who is Japanese and had lots of experience in Japan. (He also learned to play guitar from him) and we would take trips to Killington when I was age 3 to 8. He was the dad who held me between his legs as we headed down the slope so I'd start to feel comfortable. I also would go with church groups. My mom could ski as well but she likes to be sedentary. So I would take her boots and skis and she would hang out in the lodge and eventually not come on our day trips. Those were some really old style skis from the 80s. plastic boots with wire closures. they were lightweight boots. I also had straight skis.
At age 20 all my friends were snowboarding so I decided to switch and try it. I was a wedge turner on skis and did blues comfortable and did blacks uncomfortably but I could make it down the hill but felt not great about it at all. Since I wasn't exactly a ripping skier, it wasn't a hard sell to try something different especially if everyone else was doing it and just loved snowboarding. It was really blowing up at the time this is in the late 90s and early 2000's.
When I started, it was really hard to snowboard. I was so used to skiing I think snowboarding was doubly hard to change over to snowboarding b/c my body wanted to ski on the slope instead of get used to this new equipment and slide sideways.
(Aside: I had several friends who had never skied or snowboarded and they thought that snowboarding was easy to learn to balance and just float down on whatever edge they were pressuring (feathering, heel side hero was typically the first). From the people and friends I have, sliding on snow for the first time, most choose to snowboard, and a few others learn to ski. Many that learn to ski first, find it was too hard and then switch to snowboard.)
Once I got past that, I would do the easy trails with friends. they would watch me and give me tips as to what to do with my body to effect a change on the snowboard. They would follow me and tell me what to change at what point of the turn and everything. The communication wasn't easy b/c they all spoke primarily Korean and I spoke English primarily, even though we were all Korean (but I was American born and they were immigrants)... And thank goodness for them teaching me.
I also had a colleague from work who had taken a lesson and helped me with front foot steering and opposing pedals to engage torque or twist in the snowboard. We happened to work together and were like, do you like snowboarding, yes? me too! so we went. our other colleagues were primarily skiers. So we'd drive to Hunter mountain and other local hills. I remember him teaching me on belt parkway and I was having so much trouble. LOL. Once he explained the opposing pedals and steering with the front leg (and not the back foot!) I was able to make it down the trail with no issue. It was that aha! moment for me in snowboarding. I then went on to get better and pursue freestyle snowboarding and it cultivated my love of the sport.
Because of snowboarding, that is how I met my spouse! we met on a trip with mutual acquaintances during a Killington trip and had powder conditions due to a storm. I have a video of us meeting at wobbly barn. I had one of those flip cameras, and I filmed the bar scene.
Later at age 35 (around 2015), I'm married and have a kid and she's in ski school. My spouse is an avid uphill skier (alpine touring) for the past 10 years or so, he had started before it really blew up. He said, let's have you learn how to tour so we can chase powder, but I can't do the splitboard equipment (as he's a skier) so let's do it on skis. He said with my background on skis, it would be an easier time for me, plus at the time the equipment was far more advanced for skis than splitboards which were relatively new to the scene. Also as I was new to it, he could help me on skis.
So I took seasonal lessons and my instructor was like I will have you skiing parallel in all terrain in one month. He did. And the rest is history.
Also by 2015, ski equipment has evolved to use snowboard technology like shaped skis and rocker. It skis like a snowboard! Made it so much easier to come back to skiing (as opposed to straight skis!)
I have been teaching since 2019. The skiing helps my snowboarding and the snowboarding helps my skiing. Going back and forth was hard in years past, but now I can do both in a day, not a problem.