The Snowboard Lesson

Emilio could ski before he could ride a bike. He grew up in Santiago, Chile, and his family spent every winter weekend in the mountains near the city. So when his company sent him to Denver for a year, he was sure he would be able to learn snowboarding without any problems. After all, how different could it be?

On a cold Saturday morning in January, he drove up to a small ski resort in the Rocky Mountains and signed up for a beginners' lesson. The instructor was a tall, cheerful woman called Jess. There was only one other student in the group: her daughter, Maddie, who was ten years old and wore a pink helmet with cat ears on it. "Mom says I have to learn properly this year," Maddie explained. "Last year I could only go in a straight line."

Jess showed them how to strap their boots onto the board and how to stand up. Maddie managed to do it on her first try. Emilio couldn't. Every time he tried to stand, the board slid forward and he fell on his back. His legs, which knew exactly what to do on skis, seemed to have forgotten everything. "Don't fight the board," Jess said. "Bend your knees and look where you want to go."

By eleven o'clock, Maddie was able to slide slowly down the little practice hill and stop at the bottom. Emilio had fallen about twenty times and had snow inside his jacket, his gloves and, somehow, his socks. A group of children from the ski school went past, and one of them pointed at him and laughed. Emilio smiled, but inside he wanted to take off the board and put his skis back on.

At lunch, Maddie sat next to him with a hot chocolate. "Do you know what my mom told me last year?" she said. "You can't learn if you're scared of falling. So I fell on purpose a few times, and after that it wasn't scary anymore." Emilio laughed. It was the most useful advice he had heard all morning.

In the afternoon, he stopped trying so hard. He bent his knees, relaxed his shoulders and let himself fall when he needed to. On his fourth run, he managed to get all the way down the practice hill without falling once. Maddie cheered so loudly that people at the cafeteria turned to look.

At the end of the day, Jess gave both of her students a little paper certificate. Maddie's said "Excellent progress." Emilio's said "Never gave up." He put it on his fridge in Denver, and the next weekend he went back for a second lesson. This time he was able to turn left. Turning right, he decided, could wait until February.