Obviously to snowboard you will need a snowboard. Your weight, height and the type of snowboarding you will be doing should affect what snowboard you get; for optimal performance. Below you will learn about the different types of snowboarding. If you’re planning to snowboard often or for a long time and not just trying it out, you will probably want to invest in goggles and equipment to keep your board in good condition, if you’re going to maintain it yourself and not have a store do it.

In Alpine snowboarding boots, plate bindings and a stiff board are used. The events are all timed and snowboarders must maneuver around gates. The Olympic Alpine-Parallel giant slalom competition features head-to-head matches on the mountain. In Parallel Slaloms it is all about racing directly against an opponent.

Boarder cross snowboarding uses flexible freestyle boards and bindings are used with a board of medium flexibility. Boarder cross snowboarding has four to six racers simultaneously navigating a downhill course containing bumps (moguls), jumps, and other obstacles and the winner is determined by speed.

In 2006 at the Turin Olympics Tanja Frieden of Switzerland won first place at the Snowboard Cross Women competition; the gold medal for the men’s competition was taken by Seth Wescott of USA. Additionally Hannah Teter and Shaun White took 1^st place on the women’s and men’s half-pipe event.

Once you have traveled up hill and are now traveling down one way to slow down is to increase the amount of edge angle. Edge angle is the angle between the edge of your board (usually the one not touching the snow) and the snow.

Much like how to slow down above, in the “hockey stop,” as you’re going straight down hill shift your weight forward on the board to allow your back foot to quickly pivot around your front. If you ride regular the front should be facing your left and if you ride goofy foot it should face the right. After you pivoted, gradually apple edge to stop.

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