Snow Ski or Snow Board? Which one is harder if you have never done either?

Question

My teen daughter who has never snow boarded, snow skied or water skied, wants to learn how to snow board first. She is average build but a little clumbsy. Do you think she should learn how to snow board or snow ski first in Colorado?

Answer 1

If she wants to board then get her on a board!  There aren't really any skills that cross over between skiing and boarding that would help if she skiied first.  The only thing she'd be able to take with her from learning to ski would be how riding a lift feels and how it feels to slide on snow.  That's it.

Snowboarding takes a few days to pick up so make sure to be positive with her and get her lessons.  The first day she'll spend moving down easy slopes very slowly with some quality falling time (make sure that she's got good waterproof clothes on and warm layers underneath) and on the second or third day it should start to click and she'll start to have a blast.

Most rental shops on the mountain are really good at getting newbs set up with the right gear and the bonus of renting at the mountain is that if she hates snowboarding and wants to try skiing they'll usually swap her board out for skis during the day.

Don't waste time making her ski first, that's like saying "learn to rollerblade before you go skateboarding."  The two are very different and if you let her do what she wants on this one you'll get to be the cool mom!

Answer 2

as pctorab said the is no relation between the 2, knowing how to do one doesn't help you do the other. Skiing is easier to learn, but it takes longer to master than snowboarding, you could master snowboarding in a few weeks of snowboarding every day but it would take probably over a year to master skiing if you skied every day, that could be multiple years too. But the point is if she wants to snowboard let her snowboard.

Answer 3

It is slightly easier to learn to ski, but if she wants to snowboard, she should do that.  If she learns to ski first, like many advise, it can be even harder to transition to snowboarding after you get used to skiing.

In all, it doesn't matter what she learns first, so just have her choose what she would like to learn.

Answer 4

A lot of people that i instruct force their kids to ski first when they want to snowboard.  The skills you learn in skiing don't really help at all on a snowboard, so you should start her out on which ever one she plans to stick with.  There's no point wasting time with one and then starting again at the bottom of the learning curve with the other.

Answer 5

skiing is definitely easier, you start with no poles so you can get used to it.  Snowboarding is hard, and you have to go into a lesson knowing that you're gonna fall A LOT.  i left the mountain with a bruised tailbone.  However, if you can take the falls, snowboarding is definitely worth learning, it is a lot more fun than skiing once your good.

P.S. if she chooses snowboarding, get her wrist guards! they make guards that are specifically made to fit under a glove or mitten and can be a life saver!  I sprained a wrist snowboarding (the most common injury in snowboarding) and it almost ended my whole week.

Answer 6

Skiing is easier to learn but much harder to master.

Snowboarding is harder to learn but easier to master.

There are few things in common between these two sports:

1. Both need the Edging and Carving skills when hit the slope.

2. Both need good sense of balancing. (in different way, though.)

I ski a lot. Personally, I think skiing is classy and it goes with you in a long way once you master it. There are a lot more people at different ages do skiing. However, you don't see a lot of old folks do the snowboarding, do you?

Skiing is elegant. Snowboading is cool.

Let your daughter decide which one she'd like it.

Answer 7

As everyone has said, you should always learn to do what you want, neither skiing will help with snow boarding or vice versa and as already said it mighty make it harder.

One thing that has not been made clear is yes skiing is easier maybe on the first day or even on the first week, but after that, snowboarding is easier. In skiing you can stand up easier and go down a slope easier on the first day, where if you were snow boarding you are more likely to be sitting on your bottom. But, skiing has so many more techniques to learn after the original snowplow, whereas snowboarding is slightly more simple after the first week