doetnietcomputeren wrote:
Switters wrote:
Any newbie tips received with thanks.

You'll find this place much quieter and less volatile than the other
place. :-)

Apparently so!

Neil's covered the staying dry bit. You might also consider some
knee pads and maybe some padding down your butt. You'll fall over a
lot at the start,

Ain't dat da troof.

Write-off the evening, you'll be spent.

I have never, ever, been in such a condition where someone said to me
"have a guess what time it is?" to which I could not only not answer
intelligibly, but also be utterly astounded to hear it was only 8pm
when it felt like 2am.

Stick with it. There'll be 2 or 3 days of falling over, frustration
and pain. At the end of it, it clicks and nirvana awaits.

So, the Friday lesson was a bit, well, so-so at best. The group was
reasonably small, me, missus and I think, four others. Instructor was
however, a bit pants. I would have thought that a few minutes on
terminology and perhaps some explanation of how the board 'works'
might be first up, but apparently not. You can imagine when he said 'you
need to lean forward', some of the group did exactly that (as opposed to
leaning towards the nose of the board) and then promptly face planted.

By the end of the day, we'd barely covered 'how to get yourself up',
let alone getting anything close to competent at falling leaf, or
turns. We had managed to get comfortable with balance and a bit of
pre-fall movement.
Day two (Saturday), we didn't have lessons booked, so figured that
we'd go and wing it. The missus was done by noon, too much pain from
falling. I however persevered, figured out by myself how to get up and that
running toeside was much easier than trying to run goofy. Then by
about 3pm had got to the point of linking 3 or 4 turns before
stopping sharp

Toeside and heelside are opposites. Toe turns, and heel turns are opposites.
Regular (left foot normally forward) and goofy (right foot normally forward) are
opposites. Riding backwards of your norm is "switch". Most rider find learning
heel turns much easier than toe turns.

or falling. Again. Then I took a tumble that really wrenched my ankle,
so I figured I'd call it quits for the weekend.

Sunday was a no-board day, as we had to get ourselves back home again
(6hour drive). I really wish we could have recovered Sunday and had
more play on Monday, but alas, that will have to wait.

Overall I'm pleased - we had fun, didn't die, don't think we've broken
anything (although she has a hurty wrist). I'm positive that I'll be
giving it another go, and I'll give it 60:40 that she will.

Thanks all for your responses - between you, you covered pretty much
everything we needed.

You need to find batter lessons somewhere. It might be worth signing up for a
private.

Too late for your first trip, but:

One of the first things to learn is to twist the front of the board to initiate
turns, by pushing down or lifting on your front foot toes while resisting with
the back foot. This releases the front edge, allowing it to begin sliding
downhill, while the back edge resists, thus initiating the turn of the board.
Then, and the board turns enough to lose all sideward motion, the toes of the
back foot follow suit. If you learn to initiate turns this way, and to make sure
your uphill edge is somewhat engaged between turns, most of the hard falls will
be over.

You want to learn to turnby steering the front of the board, rather than pushing
the back end around, which is what most riders that didn't take lessons do.

Additionally, when you are going straight down the flat areas, be sure to apply
a slight pressure to one edge or the other at all times to avoid slams in those
areas. If you let the board go completely flat, it will start to skid sideways,
then catch an edge.