Chairman Of The Board

The words of our marketing madam, Niamh O'Reilly, rang hollow as I faced my first slope on Sunday night in Kilternan Ski Club. "The most important thing is to look cool" she footnoted my itinerary, but despite being supplied with a dandy set of Nokia snowboard clobber, it's hard to be the Fonz when you're facing down the Republic's only artificial ski slope and the only thing between you and the lubricated slope is the 21st century's equivalent of a greased plank bound to both feet.

Like most of the 15,000 or so people who make the trip out here each season I had never snowboarded before. I had seen the mad bastards who live and breathe the boards close up a few weeks beforehand when I went to the French Alps for my first ever skiing trip. It certainly looked impressive but sticking to not killing myself on skis was a priority for those two days, although crossing onto a red slope by accident means you can't avoid seeing them up close, and indeed, personal. It does look a bit more graceful than skiing, even with the beginners, as you've only one piece of equipment instead of four. Picture if you will the daddy longlegs versus the tadpole. Still with me? Never mind.

Having done my skiing bit I was really keen to give the snowboarding a go. Arriving into the ski hut at the base of the slopes everything's a bit more casual than I expected. Boards and boots are being dispensed, as well as the obligatory pads. This being Sunday evening, there are no skis in sight, as the boarders have the slopes to themselves. All the staff are incredibly good natured and knowledgeable. They are all skiers/snowboarders and I was surprised to find that they are all voluntary, with 'proper' day jobs.

Your first reminder that THIS ISN'T SNOW is when they give you a large pad for your arse. You then must decide which way you feel better riding the snowboard: left foot facing forward (the satisfyingly named 'regular' way) or right foot facing forward (the bitter, knife in the heart of dignity 'goofy' way). As misfortune would have it I preferred the latter. This amused photographer Myles more than anyone as he took this to be some form of disability creating great photo opps of me falling on my padded swiss. It is actually merely a preference and does not affect your ability at all. I swear.

Kitted up, you already feel a bit superior to the skiers, having boots you can actually walk smartly in and a neat one-piece board under the arm. Gloves on, you follow the instructors out to the furthest of the three slopes in the ski centre, past the foreboding advanced slope and the intermediate slope with their system of button drag lifts which pull the snowboarders from the base to their chosen height. The groups are quite small, four in mine and five in the other that evening, which means quite a lot of individual attention and not much waiting for the others to get their manoeuvres done. There are two training slopes with increments that a man on a galloping horse might not notice, but seem a bit foreboding when you stand atop them.

We all do a few warm up exercises to, well, warm up, and our instructor Jacques (an architect during the day) asks for a brief run through of our names and what sports we partake in. Mark Johnson, 14, has had a swish sports life already with skateboarding, kite surfing and weight boarding all under his belt. David Hickey, 25, has done some skiing and surfs too which means I'm relying on Lisa Marshal, 16, to match me on "a bit of indoor footie" on the sport scale. Turns out she's done every sport that Guinness have a record for. I can't even remember them all but when we got to horse jumping and power walking, Jacques stops her and, impressed enough, begins our first lesson 'How To Fall'. Assuming it would be swiftly followed by 'How To Stay Up' I got stuck in.

The falling lessons are quite important as the slopes are made up of a honeycomb series of mats topped with a hard plastic brush that does a surprisingly good impression of snow when you're standing, but a surprisingly lifelike impression of mats topped with a hard plastic when you fall. Keeping the fingers in a fist, covering your head and getting your board in the air are the important things. Unfortunately this goes against instinct and I immediately resorted to instinct following the demo, clearing my mind for the important 'looking cool' bit.

We all traipsed up to the top of the slope for a run through the basics. Stopping and sliding were high on the agenda. Facing down the slope, your immediate fear is that you'll fall face first. Keeping the board tilted up at the toes slows it down, and adjusting this to control the slide is the first lesson. You instructor walks you down halfway, at first holding your hands (yes, I'm trying to forget the image) but you get the hang of it relatively quickly, and the group as a whole seemed to be all progressing at the same pace. You next do this backwards which still gives you a surprising amount of control. Falling comes when your instincts override the instructions to keep your body upright, bent at the knees, with the centre of gravity directly over the board. This was very difficult to get the head around when skiing, but seems to stick much quicker on a snowboard. Rumour has it that you pick up the basics quicker on a board than with skis, but it takes longer to get good control. After the first instruction this seems accurate, and given a few years under the belt, I may get back to you about the last one. You certainly start having fun quicker. After the first few solo runs you start getting the buzz which seems to be the essence of snow sport; controlled, unpropelled speed. On a posh plank. Man, swanky threads and nature at one. But back to present reality.

Shifting your weight to the left and right cause the board to cruise (or plummet, depending on average annual beer intake) in those directions and equalising the weight causes you to straighten up again. Trés simple! Suddenly you get a palpable sense of control. You try it backwards, and wahey, you're off. Of course now you get a bit cocky (second reason, right after combating instinct, that will have you in the gutter, looking at the stars). It's not all bad though, for as you lose the initial fear you enjoy it a lot more, and within an hour and a half I felt like I really had learned a fair whack. The falling isn't that bad either, as you're well padded. You get a shot at cruising with the board pointing straight downhill, and then to finish the lesson, we're brought out to the last quarter of the intermediate slope.

Both David and myself are getting a bit smart and agree to 'boot it' down the last bit, in as much as you can, and I should point out that that's not much. Still, when given our first and last freestyle run of the night I got a nice pace up, before realising I hadn't fully equipped myself with the knowledge to turn at a sharp angle. I invented a turning procedure in my head which, surprisingly, saw me squarely on my arse again. Trial and error, and obviously a lot more to learn, but a pretty good sense of accomplishment at the end of the evening. Everybody seemed to finish at the same level, and seeing as the beginners' courses last over a four week period, I was delighted to hear that we'd more than likely be in the same group with the same instructor for the other weeks. Every group except the very first-weekers get half an hour at the end of the lesson for personal practice so we'll have to wait for that, but I can see the addiction forming in me already.

As the others drifted off, I got to hang about at the advanced slope as the instructors enjoyed their personal time. Their methods looked a far cry from my knowledge of the manoeuvres, but speed-wise, noise-wise and show off-wise they knock skiing into a cocked hat. They even set up a ramp for that added a frisson of flash, though I was reliably informed by one of the jumpers that the skateboard style jumping off the ramps "is so last year". Ah, there's that word 'cool' surfacing again.

One of the instructors, John Smith (surely a Polynesian surfer in a previous life) tested the runs to the max, and tested our intrepid photographer on his ability to photograph a flying man-on-board five feet above him.

Over a few pints of well-deserved brew in the local Golden Ball pub I note that all the instructors really see their work in the club as a way of supporting their rather emergent hobby, and are constantly eager to talk about it. Only one of the guys, Donald (there are alas no ladies teaching in this group), works with anything snowboard related outside their evenings in Kilternan. He has a job in the Great Outdoors adventure sports shop where he's in the rather popular position of being able to bring next season's test boards with him when the group go on their eagerly anticipated boarding trip in a few weeks.

I am to learn one more rather tasty morsel of information from another instructor, Alan Hamilton. This week, in the World Championships in St Anton, Austria, two men, Paul Schwarzacher-Joyce and Colm Columb, have been flying the Irish flag in various skiing disciplines. For a country that gets one decent snowfall every seven years, I was elated to hear this. So if you can't wait another seven to go down the local hillock on a coal sack, maybe what you're looking for is there in north Wicklow. You'll naturally look a lot cooler too.

Our chairman of the board will be supplying regular updates on his progress on the training slopes in coming issues.

For those tempted to tread the board, rates for ski/snowboard tuition start at £65 per adult for four classes. Student rates start at £36 and an under-17 youth rate is available at £32. Season tickets and membership are also available. Sample prices include £220 for adults (inc. membership) and £170 for students. A season ticket for a family of four costs just £440.

For more information on Ski Club of Ireland Tel: (01) 2955658. e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.skiclub.ie