Holly Thorpe - Snowboarding: The Ultimate Guide

The Ultimate Guide

Holly Thorpe

Copyright 2012 by Holly Thorpe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thorpe, Holly.

Snowboarding : the ultimate guide / Holly Thorpe.

p. cm. (Greenwood guides to extreme sports)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780313376221 (hardcopy : alk. paper) ISBN 9780313376238 (ebook) 1. Snowboarding. I. Title.

GV857.S57T45 2012

796.939dc23 2011042824

ISBN: 9780313376221
EISBN: 9780313376238

16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

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Surfing: The Ultimate Guide

Douglas Booth

To Kris, Geoff and Annafor always supporting my love of the mountains & To Jose, Brook, Jack, and Georgemay we slide sideways together for many years to come

of interest to students and enthusiasts alike, extreme sports are recharging and redefining athletics around the world. While baseball, soccer, and other conventional sports typically involve teams, coaches, and an extensive set of rules, extreme sports more often place the individual in competition against nature, other persons, and themselves. Extreme sports have fewer rules, and coaches are less prominent. These activities are often considered to be more dangerous than conventional sports, and that element of risk adds to their appeal. They are at the cutting edge of sports and are evolving in exciting ways.

While extreme sports are fascinating in their own right, they are also a window on popular culture and contemporary social issues. Extreme sports appeal most to the young, who have the energy and daring to take part in them, and who find in them an alternative culture with its own values and vocabulary. At the same time, some extreme sports, such as surfing, have long histories and are important to traditional cultures around the world. The extreme versions of these sports sometimes employ enhanced technology or take place under excessively challenging conditions. Thus, they build on tradition yet depart from it. Extreme sports are increasingly significant to the media, and corporations recognize the marketing value of sponsoring them. Extreme sports have increasingly become linked with products, their star athletes become celebrities, and their fans are exposed to a range of media messages. Local governments might try to regulate skateboarding and other extreme activities, sometimes out of safety concerns and sometimes out of moral ones. Yet other communities provide funding for skateboard parks, indoor rock climbing facilities, and other venues for extreme sports enthusiasts. Thus, extreme sports become part of civil discourse.

Designed for students and general readers, this series of reference books maps the world of extreme sports. Each volume looks at a particular sport and includes information about the sports history, equipment and techniques, and important players. Volumes are written by professors or other authorities and are informative, entertaining, and engaging. Students using these books learn about sports that interest them and discover more about cultures, history, social issues, and trends. In doing so, they become better prepared to engage in critical assessments of extreme sports in particular and of society in general.

my passion for snowboarding began during my first year at university in the south island of New Zealand. Growing up in a small beach town, the mountains were foreign terrain for me. But, having spent many years on the periphery of the surfing and skateboarding cultures, snowboarding captured my imagination like no other sport before it. Snowboarding quickly became an all-consuming lifestyle; I hitchhiked to the mountains after class, slept on friends couches in crowded ski resort flats, and saved scrupulously to follow the winter overseas. Between 1998 and 2004, I spent more than 500 days snowboarding on approximately 30 mountains in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. During this time I engaged the culture, sport and industry at many levels; beginning as a novice, quickly becoming a weekend-warrior, and then later as an instructor and competitive athlete. In pursuit of new terrain and fresh challenges, I (sometimes unwittingly) ventured into extreme territoriesI broke ribs, dislocated fingers, and suffered numerous concussions while training for freestyle snowboarding competitions in terrain parks and half-pipes, and practicing new maneuvers on jumps built in the backcountry. However, I would not describe any of my past snowboarding experiences as extreme. Moreover, while I still enjoy the thrills of carving down snowy slopes with speed, I no longer seek out the biggest jumps or the most technical rails in the terrain park. As I spend more time in the university context and less time on the mountains, I find myself becoming increasingly cautious. Despite my changing roles within the sport and culture, I continue to have a deep respect and awe for those who are redefining what is possible on a snowboard.

A number of sociological questions emerged during my snowboarding excursions: How is snowboarding unique from more traditional institutionalized sports, and other action sports? What are some of the broader social, cultural, and political factors that have contributed to the rapid growth of snowboarding? In 2005, I commenced a three-year research project with the aim of answering some of these questions. At the end of this project, I still had a number of outstanding questions, and thus conducted another three years postdoctoral research on the global snowboarding culture. Between 2005 and 2010, I conducted fieldwork in an array of snowboarding communities and ski resorts in Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States. I interviewed more than 80 snowboarders from around the world, ranging from novice and recreational snowboarders to Olympic athletes and judges. I also conducted interviews with various individuals involved in the snowboarding industry, including snowboarding magazine editors, journalists, photographers, filmmakers, snowboard company owners, snowboard shop employees and owners, and snowboard instructors and coaches. In conjunction with my multisited fieldwork and interviews, I also gathered evidence from cultural sources, such as magazines, films, newspapers, television, and Web sites, to help deepen my understanding of the complexities of snowboarding culture. Although I have never truly entered the extreme realm, I believe my snowboarding experiences and research into the sociology, history, and culture of the sport, equip me to write this book. What follows then, is a guide to extreme snowboarding framed by personal experiences and honed by scholarly analysis.

Written as an introductory reference work for high school students and general readers rather than for scholars,