If you live in a place that has a lot of snow during the winter, and a lot of hills, you’ve no doubt seen people both snowboard and ski. No doubt it looks very interesting, seeing people move quickly downhill, sending flurries of snow and ice behind them, throwing caution to the wind. But what, you may have wondered, is the difference between the two? If you can do one, are you able to do the other without much trouble? Or is each one something that you’d need to take lessons for separately?
Snowboarding is the act of sliding down a hill on a board, usually made of fiberglass. They are built with straps, so that a person can strap their feet onto the board. Snowboarding is, by its very nature, completely downhill. When strapped into a snowboard, the rider is unable to move their legs very easily, so they must move downhill to move at all. The rider does have some control over their movement. By adjusting stance, a rider can cause themselves to move more quickly or slowly down the hill. As well, a rider is able to jump into the air, allowing a plethora of tricks and maneuvers that will affect the riders speed and position.
Skiing is very similar to snowboarding, but has several key differences. For starters, instead of one board that the rider straps themselves into, skiing involves two long planks. The planks, which should be about the same height as the skier, are separate from one another. This allows for the rider to move their legs much more freely. However, because of the length of the skis, it’s often difficult for a rider to get much in the way of forward motion. Therefore, skier’s often use two long poles, one in each hand, to propel themselves downhill. Also, thanks to these poles and the way skis are built, a rider is able to move quickly across flat plains as well as down hills. This makes skis slightly more versatile than a snowboard.
As for the question of whether you can do both with equal ease, the answer is no. Because of the differences in stance, balance, and motion, snowboarding is very different from skiing. If anything, snowboarding is more like surfing, or skateboarding, than any other winter sport. Skiing, on the other hand, is much more akin to snowshoes (and in fact, many people believe that skis were derived from snowshoes).
So, now, when you see people moving quickly downhill on various board-like apparatuses, you can be confident in what they are, and what they do. And who knows? Maybe now that you know a little bit more about the both of them, you can go and see about learning how to ride on either one!
