Hachikogen

If this post was a self-help book, it would be called “7 things I learnt after snowboarding this weekend.”

• Your body has a lot of muscles you probably aren’t even aware of. Every single one of these will cause you untold suffering and agony the morning after your first day of boarding. I’m not kidding; you have muscles in your neck that will hurt when you yawn. How snowboarding causes you to overexert these muscles is quite beyond me, but boy, will they hurt.
• If it’s your first time boarding, duct-taping a beanie to your ass is about the greatest thing you can possibly do. Trust me on this one. You will fall on your ass a lot and your tailbone is going to be taking the brunt of it every time. Being able to walk the next day is a big plus.
• Making “gnarly” hand gestures and yelling “see you at the bottom dude” is likely to get you punched in the face, despite anything Lorna might tell you to the contrary. Thanks Lorna.
• Buy clothes, goggles and gloves. Hire board and boots.
• Overconfidence is the quickest and easiest way to end up face down in the snow while four year olds shoot past you laughing. Working out how to stop on the kiddy slope and then deciding you’re ready for the enormous tree-lined death runs: stupid. Making it down one run without falling over and then deciding the next logical step is trick jumps: super stupid.
• If you go with folks of a different skill level than your own, get them to explain the basics and then go off and practice by yourself. Trying big slopes before you’re ready doesn’t help you learn and keeping the others on the baby slopes is frustrating for them. It’s easy enough to get the basics down in half a day and once you’ve got them mastered you can do almost any slope, just a little slower. Besides, learning the basics is something you’re going to want to do by yourself anyway. Falling on your ass every 10 seconds is more than a little demeaning.
• The Japanese can apply cuteness and customisation to anything. No, your spraypainted Lion King board with glowing lights underneath and matching beanie does not make you cool, it just makes me want to slap you.

Posted in Japan on Tuesday February 15, 2005.