This week I became a snowboard instructor.  I’m way out of my element on this.  First of all, it’s at Park City.  I’m pretty much typical Utah and this is a town that feels like it’s the anti-Utah.  Like a sovereign nation where people come from all over the world to stay and play but it doesn’t really belong here. On the other hand, for us typical Utahns we like having Park City in our state because it’s our claim to normalness.  We like, that every now and then, Justin Timberlake, or Kevin Spacey come to town and we can lay our own individual claims to normal.  “They were in Park City and not in Utah” you say.  Well they had to come through Salt Lake to get there because there’s no other alternative.  Park City doesn’t even allow electric signs on businesses let alone a major airport.  Nope, until teleporting becomes a reality, all the famous people have to pass through the suburbs to get there.

So I started on Monday and I went a little early because I had to get my I-9 processed.  It’s a form that proves you’re a real human and a citizen of the US and that they can tax you.  Anyway, while I’m waiting to get my I-9 stuff processed I was listening to the Christmas music playing in the HR office and I was thinking, “how festive, it really helps people relax.”  “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was playing as I got my paperwork done and I started out of the building and across the road to Legacy Lodge, 3^rd Floor where my training was to begin.  Oddly, the music was still playing and at the same volume as when I was in the HR office.  I thought, “These Park City people are all about the atmosphere” No matter where I was “Mr. Grinch” stayed at a constant volume.  It was unobtrusive, but audible and it just kept going.  It was then that I realized that the music was coming from the phone in my pocket and I was providing the mood music.  It occurred to me that no one even looked at me funny.  Well no more funny than normal, so I guess that’s not saying much.  I’m no stranger to the odd glance and disbelieving shake of the head, so who knows.

I went to the class.  Three hours of introduction to policies, procedures and the mission of Vail Resorts.  That all went pretty well and I really think the tag line “Experience of a Lifetime” is great.  That’s how we should live every day and so I like that I’m working for a company that has that as a driver.  Just before lunch we were divided in to two groups, ski instructors and snowboard instructors.  I went with the snowboard instructors and found very quickly that I was far and away older than any of the other snowboard instructors.  This was a group of stump jibbing, terrain park free-styling adrenalin junkies, average age 19.  I’m a guy who took up snowboarding at age 40, and has ridden recreationally on “blue groomers” and felt pretty extreme in doing it.  The snowboard instructors were counted off 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3,… and then assigned to three different trainers.  I was sent with my other number 1’s to Jaime.  She would be our trainer and lifeline for the rest of the week.  I looked around at my fellow trainees and I could see that I was old enough to be their dad.  Jaime passed around a roster for us to write our name and age and it got to me last.  I was right.  The next oldest one in my class was 24.  Exactly half my age.

After lunch we were “on snow” for the first time.  We took a lap to warm up on “First Time”, the learner lift and it was then I knew I was in trouble.  All of them had their boards strapped on and were on their way down the hill before I, struggling to bend in the middle, could fasten my bindings.  I couldn’t keep up, and though I tried, each one of my classmates had thousands of hours of snowboarding.  This was their life.  One, a guy from SoCal, was a competitive sponsored rider.

Long story short, at the end of the second day, I was bruised, sore, exhausted and dehydrated.  I couldn’t believe I ever thought I could do this.  I wondered what they were thinking to hire me.  I didn’t want to go back for day three.  But I went.  And I survived, but being perpetually the one everyone else is waiting for takes a toll on your confidence and by the morning of day 4, I was having trouble executing basic turns and just riding in general.  By late morning, Jaime had taken to giving me more extensive one on one tutoring than she had already been giving me all week.  She told me that she didn’t care how well I could ride.  She told me further that I had revealed during the week that I had something rare in my ability to reach people and that I would be great at teaching kids to snowboard.  I guess that’s what they saw in me on the day they hired me.  While that helped me relax, getting my confidence back was still ahead. 

Near the top of our last lap, there was a short span of black diamond terrain that stood between us and the run we needed to get to.  Black diamond is “expert” terrain.  Put bluntly, it was a slope with about a 60 degree incline – it seemed like a cliff through my panicked eyes.  The same eyes where oddly, I could register my pulse as they seemed to be throbbing with the beat of my heart.  This is a hill I had no business hiking down during the summer, let alone, approaching its snowy ledge on a snowboard.  Nonetheless, Jaime told me to approach it so that I would be situated “toe-side” at the top of the slope.  At first I thought it was sort of cute how she really thought I was going down the hill and not sliding on my butt.  Standing on the precipice toe-side meant that she intended for me to actually execute turns on this mountain of doom. 

I slowly and cautiously slid over to the edge.  Again, this looked like a cliff to me.  I had to be right on the edge to even see the surface of the slope all the way to the bottom.  The hill wasn’t long maybe 500 feet, but when it seems like a cliff 500 feet is significant.  Jaime began coaching me on what to do.  Reminding me of proper form which, believe it or not, is to lean DOWN the slope of the hill, as you turn, toward the front tip of your board so that you have leverage to make the turn with your leading foot.  Yeah, that’s right, so on a slope like this you can either execute the turn or go into easy cartwheels all the way down.  At least there are options.

I sat there taking deep breaths, the cliff to my back, my fate in my own hands.  I looked up.  Took some deep breaths and just to set the record straight said, “I’m pretty terrified right now.” Understating it wildly.  A few more breaths and I let my leading foot heel drop slightly, my board turned down hill and I leaned toward the front of the board, quickly pulled up on the toe of that leading foot, leaned back into the hill and executed the turn with near perfect form! It had to be near perfect or I would have involuntarily taken the cartwheel option.  There it was.  My own Experience of a Lifetime.  It was completely exhilarating, relieving, life-changing and confidence restoring all at once.

Not letting me off easily, Jaime made me complete turns the rest of the way down the slope.  When we reached the bottom, she told me that she’d “broken people on that hill”.  Relieved that she’d held that information private until I got to the bottom, I realized that I was already broken.  The same hill fixed me.  Jaime's good at fixing people's confidence.

So here I go, ready or not, but mostly ready, to teach kids who have never-ever been on a snowboard.  Never thought I’d be doing this.  My advice, be open to any and all things that come your way. You never know when you’ll have an experience of a lifetime.