# First day on jumps



## SobeMike (Jan 13, 2010)

I went up to Verbier to get a lesson on jumping on Saturday and I learned a lot despite whiteout conditions. The biggest thing I learned is if you find yourself 6ft in the air and you have no chance of landing, keeping your tongue in your mouth and keeping your jaw shut is good practice...

My first two runs over the 3 jumps went well but the last run I ended up going way too fast on the third jump and lost it. I think I hurt just about every part of my body and gave the instructor a heart attack. I remember being stoked after run number 2 but then losing all confidence after the big fall. Hopefully I can get back up there on Sat and try it again with better visibility and see how it goes. 

On thing made my day however, the instructor said that it was easier to learn how to jump the way I was doing it, after becoming an advanced rider! Considering I started snowboarding around Christmas I was pretty stoked with that ;-) I told him so and he said advance was a big box and I'm at the bottom of it but I'm in it... Sweet!


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## ChuChu (Dec 28, 2009)

SobeMike said:


> I went up to Verbier to get a lesson on jumping on Saturday and I learned a lot despite whiteout conditions. The biggest thing I learned is if you find yourself 6ft in the air and you have no chance of landing, keeping your tongue in your mouth and keeping your jaw shut is good practice...
> 
> My first two runs over the 3 jumps went well but the last run I ended up going way too fast on the third jump and lost it. I think I hurt just about every part of my body and gave the instructor a heart attack. I remember being stoked after run number 2 but then losing all confidence after the big fall. Hopefully I can get back up there on Sat and try it again with better visibility and see how it goes.
> 
> On thing made my day however, the instructor said that it was easier to learn how to jump the way I was doing it, after becoming an advanced rider! Considering I started snowboarding around Christmas I was pretty stoked with that ;-) I told him so and he said advance was a big box and I'm at the bottom of it but I'm in it... Sweet!


You are going for 6 feet of air on your first day jumping? It would be less painful for you to learn/practice on smaller jumps with 6 inches of air before you go launching off-balance 6 feet into the air. The mechanics will be the same, just less consequences. Just sayin.


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## SobeMike (Jan 13, 2010)

ChuChu said:


> You are going for 6 feet of air on your first day jumping? It would be less painful for you to learn/practice on smaller jumps with 6 inches of air before you go launching off-balance 6 feet into the air. The mechanics will be the same, just less consequences. Just sayin.


Yes, but not on purpose...


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## david_z (Dec 14, 2009)

SobeMike said:


> The biggest thing I learned is if you find yourself 6ft in the air and you have no chance of landing, keeping your tongue in your mouth and keeping your jaw shut is good practice...


Yes, you do not want to bite your tongue in half 

I took a drop like that last Monday; it was icy, I was going a bit too fast, and I went over the lip off-balance. Looking at the video we shot, it looks like I'm about 6-7 feet above the knuckle. Knocked myself out cold. I'm pretty sure I was able to keep the board under my feet on the "landing" but slipped out and came down hard on my right hip/ass-cheek. Truth is, I don't remember a second of it.

The way it feels is almost like I had dislocated it, but I know that didn't happen. My right hip area is still pretty tender, but it didn't start to bruise up until yesterday. 

Fact of the matter is that you can eat sh*t like that any day, not matter how long you've been riding - I've hit that one jump and landed it 100 times if I've hit it once - but until you get pretty confident on smaller jumps I'd stay away from the larger ones.


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## 10xdeep (Feb 25, 2010)

david_z said:


> Yes, you do not want to bite your tongue in half
> 
> I took a drop like that last Monday; it was icy, I was going a bit too fast, and I went over the lip off-balance. Looking at the video we shot, it looks like I'm about 6-7 feet above the knuckle. Knocked myself out cold. I'm pretty sure I was able to keep the board under my feet on the "landing" but slipped out and came down hard on my right hip/ass-cheek. Truth is, I don't remember a second of it.
> 
> ...


i have done that too. it sucks  haha


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## rasmasyean (Jan 26, 2008)

david_z said:


> Yes, you do not want to bite your tongue in half
> 
> I took a drop like that last Monday; it was icy, I was going a bit too fast, and I went over the lip off-balance. Looking at the video we shot, it looks like I'm about 6-7 feet above the knuckle. Knocked myself out cold. I'm pretty sure I was able to keep the board under my feet on the "landing" but slipped out and came down hard on my right hip/ass-cheek. Truth is, I don't remember a second of it.
> 
> ...


Looks like cleared the knuckle really good. Hehe.

That’s what happens when you try to show off to the camera. :laugh: I did that once and tried to go “fast” to get more air. Ended up in what musta looked like a double cork double cartwheel landing...at least what I was able to see from the snow, sky, snow, sky, snow…rofl! Had to rest in place for like 5 minutes while my friend with the camera held off all the other jumpers. Then crawled to the side and sat there for another 10 minutes. Got lucky that time with just a lesson. Never will be that foolish again!


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## crazyface (Mar 1, 2008)

dont go off jumps on the first run. last sunday i took my first run through the park to see what the conditions were like and to see if they were worth coming back to. it was 40+degrees so i thought it would be pretty slow. couldnt have been more wrong. i guess my wax job made me go faster than i expected and i flew way over the first jump that really doesnt even have a gap you have to clear. landed way on my nose and fell HARD on my left hip. hip was sore the rest of the day and i got the wind knocked out of me, but i was the most sore teh day after. it feels like i was hit by a train! both of my quads/groin regions are extremely sore whenever i try to sit down nad stand up. and my neck hurts like hell from whiplash.

moral of the story: test the snow before you jump.


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## rasmasyean (Jan 26, 2008)

crazyface said:


> moral of the story: test the snow before you jump.


Yeah, once I slipped out on the ramp and landed on my chest and face bounching off the knuckle. A couple of my friends who were going to hit it right after me just came down to see if I was OK because they just saw me launch off sideways completely horizontal in the air before I disapeared. :laugh: Then they decided not to come back to the terrain park.


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## david_z (Dec 14, 2009)

rasmasyean said:


> Looks like cleared the knuckle really good. Hehe.
> 
> That’s what happens when you try to show off to the camera. :laugh:


yeah i definitely cleared the knuckle. I might've cleared the landing, too 

wasn't going for anything huge, but in the 30-45 minutes we were taking a break, temps dropped and conditions hardened. that jump got way faster than it had been earlier in the night, and that was my first run after the break. should've done a speed-test on it first. Lesson learned, I guess.


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