Joe,

Sorry to hear your experience with learning to Snowboard, although not
uncommon. I rented twice and never bothered with lessons before I broke
down and paid 350$ for a board setup.

Your absolutely right about the "kids" running the rental place just handing
you the equipment and saying go for it. This is also true with lessons from
what I have heard. Other than what has been said before, like renting from
a small shop the day before, I would suggest taking a person that knows how
to board. Ask a friend (adult) or the kid next door to go with you for the
day. Hell! Save the money you would spend on lessons and buy a lift ticket
for helping you. They can walk you through the boot and board selection
much better than the people there will. Also they should bring along a
Philips screwdriver so you don't have issue with binding angles. (Note: an
ok place to start with bindings angles is about 20 in front and -6 in the
back, if you want to try duck stance [usually a good place to start])

It confuses me that you didn't get on a lift. Learning to snowboard is all
about having enough slope. If you stay on things which are too flat you
will not be able to carve. After boarding for two years it is still
difficult to board without speed. It is like a bike, the faster you go the
easier it is to balance or in this case turn, up to a point. Don't worry,
every boarder bails of the lift the first time, I did it and everyone I have
taught has done it.

I understand that you don't want to hit people as a human projectile. I
have this issue as well being 6'5" and 200 lbs. So less crowed day would
help, not to mention non-icy conditions. The snow conditions also have a
huge impact on learning. Don't learn on ice or deep powder, neither will be
much fun. The best I think to learn on is machine packed powder that fell
within the last 3 or 4 days, so its not too too hard.

Other than that there are only two keys to snowboarding. One: Weight on
your front foot. Two: bend your knees. (whenever I take a good spill, I am
usually getting lazy on one or both of these points.)

You will be surprised how fast the learning curve is for snowboarding. I
spent 2 days falling down and after that it just starts to click. You can
become a pretty good boarding in 2 or 3 seasons compared to skiing which I
have been told takes much longer.

Definitely try it again, and I suggest taking a boarder with you who will
stay the whole day with you and help you with equipment teach you how to
board. This was evident when I learned, it took 2 days since my friends
were there but not really helping, however late last season I tough someone
who had never been on a board to link turns in 5 hours, not well but well
enough to hit hard blue runs. That's just my opinion.

ED