Student’s Blog

         Snowboarding is one of the beautiful and exciting winter kind of sport. Thanks to my close friend, I have known much interesting information about it. In this entry I want to tell people who are interested in snowboarding about its history, styles, equipment, famous sportsmen.

         Exact date of snowboard inventing is not known. Nevertheless, there were several people who took part in creating of snowboard. First of them was M.J. “Jack” Burchett who made it from plywood in 1929. The second was Sherman Popper who connected two skis with the help of rope in 1965. It’s invention was called by his wife as “The Snurfer”. In different years, Tom Sims, Jake Burton and Chuck Barfoot built their own firms of snowboard production. Gradually, snowboarding became a very popular sport. As a result, in 1994 it was included in Winter Olympic Games.

          Snowboarding has 4 absolutely different styles: FreeRide, FreeStyle, FreeCarve and Splitboarding.

         FreeRide

This style can be appropriate for beginners because does not demand excellent technical skills. You should only ride downhill or uphill. The basic equipment consist of soft snowboard boots, plate bindings strap or flow-in bindings and freeriding snowboard.

          FreeStyle

FreeStyle demands from a snowboarder good technical acquired habits because it includes different aerial tricks: Ollies, Air to Fakie, etc. Equipment: softer snowboard and softer snowboard boots in order to become lighter.

         FreeCarve

FreeCarve is focused on speed and also does not suitable for those who recently began to ride. Equipment: hard snowboard boots and plate binding system and snowboard.

         Splitboarding

Splitboarding consists of two stages:

1. Climbing the mountain like skier or with the help of helicopter.

2. Riding down like a snowboarder.

There are the most famous snowboarders: Danny Kass, Shaun White, Kevin Jones, Craig Kelly, etc.

Danny Kass

        Before the collapse of USSR, study abroad was an impracticable dream. Nowadays, study in foreign a university or college is not a big problem therefore many people want to realize it. And I want to tell them about some difficulties with which people who have already finished a college abroad faced.
        First problem is called “language barrier”. Freshmen cannot adapt to pronunciation and very often said:

        ”Oh! I don’t understand anything…”

 ”They don’t understand me…”  

  ”I said something wrong…”  

“They speak very quickly…”   

  Second problem is a “cultural shock”.                                                                              

Alyona Iliina, an international student tell:

“…constant speaking on foreign language and new discoveries lead to tiredness. It’s the basic sign of “cultural shock” that disappeared in one-two months…” 

        The last difficulty is an absence of support of parents. Students must solve all problems by themselves.

        Finally, if you can get over all these problems, your study abroad will be exciting!