World Snowboard Day 2011 - Win 1 of 6 Prize Packs!
some awesome stories of what snowboarding is to them. Funny vids and heart felt tales of love.
I have all the same stories, feelings of stoke 
In the early nineties, after years of rolling around on a skateboard, i turned 18. My old boys a Pom and hates the snow and cold with a vengeance. So I only visited a few times with school and friends for day trips. It was so close, two hours drive, yet so far away.
A license to drive, a 1975 Holden Kingswood with a V8 and plenty of eagerness to try out snowboarding was my ticket to get my stoke.
That first day I ever strapped in, it changed EVERYTHING for me. I wish I could explain it, pin point it, break it down and analyze it, figure it out. But then, why? That moment changed who I was and sent me off an adventure that is yet to end 
20 years I have been chasing that thrill. Working to pay for passes, resorts entry, plane tickets, accommodation and gear. I still have not come across better motivation for me to get up in the morning, than I know that what I do that day gets me closer to being back on the hill.
The first 15 years, I was a weekend warrior, a punter 
I hit the hill every weekend, scammed a week long stint once or twice a year, tried to get to NSW for new terrain. My life revolved around earning $$$ so I could get back up there
A few years back, a dream turned into reality. I was living in the snow, Dinner Plain. Working in the dream job, ski tech, in a legendary store, the boss, a true legend of snowboarding. Riding Mount Hotham daily…................ stoke on a stick.
Now over that time, kids have been born, wives have come and gone, lives have crashed together to become one. The kids, the lives coming together, that is when I really started to learn about snowboarding and what it means to me.
Snowboarding has taken me places I had only dreamed of, but more importantly, snowboarding has introduced to me to many amazing people, people who I am proud to call my friends.
These people all share a link, that link is snow. I arrived there on a board, others skied in on skis. There a few who just wander in because they like it cold. The common thread here is a love of snow. In this great country we live in called Australia, snow only happens on a regular basis in the mountains.
I call these people Mountain folk. They may live on the coast, overseas at another mountain or in a city. Each and everyone of these folk have that same passion and love in their heart.
So you will find them all over the globe, chasing that dream, the feeling, the stoke.
Snowboarding lead me here to this point of realization.
So now I have (or like to think I have) a huge extended family around the globe. Wherever I end up on this big planet, I can find some one I know, or a mate of a mate to hook me up with the good oil on the hill. Show us around, point out where to eat. Get us in with the locals to make the visit extra special.
I ask you, would you ever thought I would have a place to crash if I ever ended up in Albion Park on the off chance?
Family, thats what its all about in the end. Thats what snowboarding means to me.
Family.
The extended snowboarding family, the mountain folk and my family.
Snowboarding is something I can do with ALL the members of my family, from the littlest through to us old farts. We can all go riding together and get the stoke. We can go ride alone and sit down together for dinner and talk about each others stoke for the day.
That stoke carries on throughout the year, with or without snow outside the door.
Our world revolves around snowboarding, its what we do.
Hopefully in the future, I’ll be on the hill sliding with my Grandkids, sharing the stoke, three generations shredding, getting stoked on snowboarding together.
What does snowboarding mean to me? It means family, and family to me is EVERYTHING. Its why I get up everyday and do what I do.
Nice work Azz!!!!! 
And who else is it that ya know that lives in The Park????? 
So for my 50th post and exit from rookieness to member-man i’ve decided to write in this here thread. I posted earlier on when the contest was announced and since then I’ve been thinking of an entry idea. I had a thought, to try and make you folk giggle with a clip of William Wallace screaming out FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMM but it didn’t work out, plus there are other quality and more heartfelt entries pertaining to that topic.
Honestly I don’t even know if this should be an entry, more on that later. I think it’s more of a proper introduction of myself rather than asking you guys which board i should buy (incidentally, I am now the proud owner of ‘Chippy’ - a 151.5 GNU Rider’s Choice. He was christened after a skier ran over him and left a big piece of the topsheet flapping about). Oh, and get ready for plenty of parenthesis explanations.
So why is this (not) an entry? Because i don’t know what snowboarding means to me. At least not completely. I haven’t found the answer yet, but in my mind - far more than i thought it would, i’m still searching. I have bouts of anxiety from when i book a trip to when i’m on top of a run. I see myself taking the run nice and smooth, not falling over, not fearing falling over (i jack-knifed once and i swore the board slashed my head but it didn’t)... it never goes how i planned. Yet once I’m at the bottom I want to go back up, just to experience the fear, trepidation and physicality all over again. I can’t wait to see people fly pass, and strangely I like to see people fall over too. We’ve all been in the same position, and if we haven’t we’re trying to get there.
I usually get off the mountain pretty early so i can go and sit back with some beers (or as Spaz will tell you, that could happen before I have a run). I’m not that ‘first chair, last call’ (thanks Special Blend) kind of rider. To me the experience is as much off the mountain as it is on it. It starts from turning onto Southern Cross Drive for me, all set for a 5/6hr drive (the wife don’t drive).
I’ve only been to the snow since 08, a year before I got married. I loved it so much that I decided that we should get married down there. Such is the presence of a snowboarder that a bunch of skiers stopped to let us walk around Kosi Express at Thredbo.
But am I a snowboarder? A little bit, I can do this and that, maybe competently maybe not. When I met Spaz earlier this year he asked me if i was going to the Shred. The excuses couldn’t come out of my mouth fast enough - i couldn’t keep up with any of the BW guys, I don’t even know what i’m doing, I’m really just a beginner. No problem, he said there’ll be people with all kinds of abilities and it’ll be fun just to hang out and ride together then have some drinks. That immediately snapped me out of my fears and thought to myself ‘wow, that’s just f-ing cool’. Well, if i had the money and didn’t have to be in college for that week then i would’ve come down. Even not knowing anyone, it would’ve been cool. All i had to do was dare myself to take the leap, just like I did when strapping in and falling over the first dozen times at Friday Flat.
Before this year’s trip I ventured in to STM Bondi, even though I had been to Balmoral Boards more. But paying tolls sucks and Bondi has free parking too! That day i had to hand in my architecture portfolio but first things first, i needed my board waxed. So coming up through Westfield Bondi with a snowboard bag (10cms bigger than my board mind you) i felt some pride walking through with this big long bag under my arm. Snooty people - kiss my ... So down I went to STM, where i had been the year before for a browse. There i met CJ Parker and we had a good talk. I had questions, he had plenty of time to go through things. I looked at some bindings as the ones i had were too small but then i had to go to tafe. No worries, i’d be back the next day to pick up the board.
Went back the next day and got the bindings (if you’re reading this, i probably should’ve gone with the Flux ones… but the Contact Pro’s are awesome even with the loosening straps) and picked up the board. CJ was around somewhere, but the dude who served me was none other than Rider himself. I had conflicting thoughts about him - he stared at the missus a little. Then he asks if she was someone who used to swim with him (Paula A, if you forgot ) and she was. Rider - i’ll get busted for this but Paula was upset that you recognised her, she didn’t think she looked anything like she did back then!
Anyways, that weird little story is just me illustrating what snowboarding has given me - I’d lurked around here for awhile but never got into posting (how do you just butt in on conversations?). Now i post from time to time, i have a connection with you folk… i’ve joined a community. Not just here, but when I go down to the snow and mingle with random people, when i read mags and articles, when i see pictures and dream of taking some with my own camera… We’ve all been there at the beginning, we’re all going the same way and that’s just cool.
In 2012 I think we’ll be missing our trip to Thredbo, the Shred will depend on me taking up another course or not but we’ll be going to Canada for 2 weeks (and London for family, though missing out on Seattle thanks to budget). Canada? Why would you go to Canada? I’d say that if I never knew snowboarding, but now it’s been the first o/s country on the list for years. We’re going to have a white christmas there, we’re going to have memories, we’re going to ride some good snow. Most nights when i have trouble sleeping i think of myself going down big runs smoothly, nice and fast. It won’t happen that way but it’ll be just as good. I’ll be taking some lessons again for sure.
Finishing up in Bogmow post #51
cont…
I’ll bring back plenty of stories from Canada. Who knows, i may post some here just like what i’ve done in this post. I think that stories are the greatest. You can sit in a pub with friends or strangers and with a story everyone can get involved and feel some sort of connection. They can almost feel the experience, or at least relate it to one of their own.
That’s what snowboarding has given me - stories. I can show people photos and tell them i’ve been places but if i don’t have a good story to tell from a BW Shred or my first overseas trip to Canada or even how fat some snowflakes were then I don’t have something to stay with me for the rest of my life.
So, i’m 30 years old and just beginning to experience it all. It’s an exciting time and the future looks bright and white.
Oh, and snowboarding means that I don’t have to ski, which is what the wife does. How we get along is anyone’s guess.
Nice work Azz!!!!!
And who else is it that ya know that lives in The Park?????
I know this awesome chick, her hubby is an Agro Dad (not sure how she puts up with him) and she would welcome us anytime 
Nice work Azz!!!!!
And who else is it that ya know that lives in The Park?????
I know this awesome chick, her hubby is an Agro Dad (not sure how she puts up with him) and she would welcome us anytime
Ohhhh, now I know who ya talkin about!!!!! They only live down the road from me!!!!!! 
Great write up, bogmow!!!!! (At first glance I thought, SHIT….. do I have to read all of this?????)
Yeah, you should’ve got the FLUX’s, rider is a bit of a weirdo and I’m not about to second guess ya marriage as I never swam at Bondi!!!!!
Board On!!!!!
December 18th is World Snowboard Day, this day is also my birthday. Put two and two together and you’ll see that I am born to snowboard.
Ever since I was exposed to snowboarding at the ripe age of eleven, I have been hooked. Absolutely taken in with the world of snowboarding. Almost everything I own or take part in has arisen from snowboarding. My Mum met my Step-Dad (Azz) through snowboarding and that small happening has subsequently shaped my life and me as person.
I have been lucky enough to spend a couple of seasons at Hotham and they were the best winters of my life. My whole family has a natural talent for snowboarding. I literally came within a second of becoming National champion in boarder cross and I’ve trained (or really chilled) with Alex “Chumpy” Pullin. I’ve had an incredibly amazing experience in my first sixteen years of life. The best of it, in my eyes, due to snowboarding and I’m not going to argue with any of it.
Cool entry, munga!!!!! And some sweet sweet shots!!!!!
Awesome entry, Fishmunga. 
My dad loves snowboarding.
I mean he really, really, really loves snowboarding! He totally lives for it, and it’s been that way since years before I was born.
When I was little, he got a job at a snowboard magazine so he could be around it all the time. He told me once it was so he could share his passion with as many people as possible. It’s pretty cool that he seems to have found ways to combine work and snowboarding ever since. He’s forever telling stories about snowboarding trips or bringing up all kinds of nerdy old-school trivia. Even though I get kind of over it sometimes, I still like it because he’s so stoked.
He’s always said that there’s nothing better in the whole world than riding powder. It’s probably like that for a lot of people, but in my dad’s case, I now know that’s not entirely true. I’ve heard that saying about “no friends on a powder day” and it kind of makes sense. Especially here in Australia, where we don’t seem to get it that often, or that good.
But here’s the thing. I spent the first couple of weeks in July this year snowboarding with my dad, and they had these freak powder storms that produced what some people said was the best snow in Australia for years and years. It was so awesome to be staying right at the snow and to have it all on our doorstep, even though I’d never ridden powder before. I told my dad heaps of times that I was OK with staying inside and watching TV while he made the most of it, but he kept on saying that it wouldn’t be “the best thing ever” if he didn’t share it with me.
He does so much to make sure I get to go snowboarding, and sacrifices heaps when he really can’t afford to. And he’s helped heaps of other people get into snowboarding as well. I reckon he might be a bit over the top about some things sometimes, but I know it’s because he really cares.
By the end of this season I could ride powder, and trees, and even a double black, because I’ve got the best snowboard teacher ever. I know my dad really wanted to ride powder all day every day of those first weeks in July, and I’m worried he feels like he totally missed out, but he still spent every day sticking to the easier runs with me instead. I still feel guilty about it, but he still says he didn’t mind as long as we got to hang out together. I actually believe him, because I get the feeling there’s one thing in the whole world he cares about more than snowboarding. Me.
So what did I do on Sunday to celebrate World Snowboard Day? I tried to find the best way to show my appreciation for snowboarding I was able to, so I hugged my dad and said the biggest thanks I could. For my dad, now the best thing about snowboarding is us spending time together, and as my dad would say, that’s “all kinds of awesome”.
That’s why I’m entering this competition. Not for me, but for my dad. He deserves it. I just reckon that any competition about “what snowboarding means to you” should have him as a winner.
Yeah, that is whats its about ^^^^^
Awwwwww…...................
Now stop suckin up to him beeseekay!!!!! You’ve already got the laptop off him!!!!!
