With Attitude, You Can Get ‘Amplitude’

Along with other Olympic-obsessed Americans, I sat in my living room and watched spellbound as Ross Powers, 23, Danny Kass, 19, and J.J. Thomas, 20, threw wild stunts in the air and swept the medals in the men’s half-pipe. And it’s not just guys who do corkscrews and catch air. Girls do it too. Kelly Clark, 18, won America’s first gold medal in the women’s half-pipe with her daredevil moves. Is there any sport so cool?

For the first time in my life I felt cheated by history. I’m 35 years old, and I was born 10 years too early. Raised a skier, I’ve ridden a board four or five times. But not like that. I never got to drop into a half-pipe, hang in the air or spin around upside down with a plank strapped to my feet. When I was at my most daring, and my bones had the most bounce, there were no boards to ride.

The Olympics fired me up again. Last week I headed to the mountains for a two-hour “Get Better Quick” snowboarding class at Big Bear Mountain Resort. For $69 I got a board, some of those funky space boots, a lift ticket and a lesson. I didn’t dare to dream of soaring 15 feet into the air like gold-medalist Powers, or throwing a corkscrew spin and two upside down twists like silver-medalist Kass.

Dude, I just wanted to get some “amplitude.”

It’s not just the hip lingo that NBC announcers tossed around during the Olympics that is intimidating to those of my generation. Snowboarding makes you feel old. Falls hurt, and you fall a lot. Just getting up can be a feat. Every time you reach the top of the mountain you have to sit on your rear in the snow to buckle in (at Bear Mountain they provide benches to prevent you from getting a soggy backside).

Some geriatric boarders can get up facing downhill (and in the snowboarding world, over 30 is geriatric). But stiffer adults have to raise their feet into the air, roll over onto their knees like big babies, and push up from the snow that way. Seeing your friends do it is hilarious. Doing it yourself is humiliating.

In fact, for the over-30 set, learning to board is a lesson in humility. As adults, we generally stick to the things we are good at. As I tumbled forward, backward and sideways, giving myself whiplash, sore wrists and a tender tailbone, I reflected that after a certain age, most of us structure our entire lives so as not to look stupid.

Once you have tossed pride to the winds, however, snowboarding brings pure, bellyaching laughter of a sort I had not experienced since childhood.

Snowboarding was born in the United States in the 1980s. From 1990 to 2000, snowboarding increased from 1.5 million participants to 4.3 million, a jump of 187%. Nationally, snowboarders make up about four of every 10 people on the slopes, according to industry experts. The numbers are even higher in Southern California. Winter sports enthusiasts already are predicting that the high-profile medals in the Olympic snowboarding events will propel the sport further into the mainstream. The bulk of riders, though, are the young. From 1995 to 2000, skateboarding and snowboarding were the fastest-growing sports for boys ages 7 to 17, according to the National Sporting Goods Assn.

Our class met at the foot of the hill just after lunch. After a test on a tiny slope, we were divided into beginners, and slightly more advanced boarders who could “link,” or do turns.

We ranged in ability from a 39-year-old skier-turned-snowboarder (dubbed “stiff-leg” by our teacher) who spent most of his time on the ground, to a South Bay dad who took up snowboarding three seasons ago at 42. He carved curves with grace and athleticism and knew all the lingo from a video he gave to his teenage son. (“That’s a bonk,” he said, as we watched a girl in pigtails fly off a lip of snow, hit a barrel and fly into the air.) Another 39-year-old dad from Hawaii, a triathlete from Coronado and a bunch of kids rounded out the class.

Our teacher Keith Bates, 30, took each of us where we were, and tailored his advice to us personally.

“Ninety percent of this is your attitude,” he told us before leading us up the mountain.

When we reached the top, Bates, a bronzed boarder with a spiky hairdo and a mischievous, easy smile, ran through a quick review of snowboarding basics. Arms should be outstretched tip to tail. The front hand points down the hill to guide you, the back hand stretches behind to balance and steer you like a rudder. Drop either in a quest for cool and you are doomed to go down. It feels counter-intuitive, but you have to lean into the front foot. If you don’t, you will fall.

“Pick a word to center yourself,” Bates told us all. “Whenever I feel out of control, I say, ‘Elephant.’ ”

That turned out to be good advice, because I felt out of control a lot.

For our second trip down the hill, Bates led us into a terrain park. This was getting closer to my Olympic-induced snowboard fantasy. There were no half-pipes, but there were a lot of jumps. Bates told Mark Saroyan, our oldest and most skilled member, that he was ready to “catch some air.”

“Bend your knees when you take off,” Bates coached him. “Pretend you are still on snow. Lean forward when you land. It’s easier if you get up some speed.”

I thought of the Olympians, effortlessly throwing 720s, and 1080s off the lip of the half-pipe. I could do this.

Bates took off the jump, easy, relaxed. He clutched his board in the air like the Olympians. Awesome.

Saroyan went next. We all yelled out, “Elephant!” He soared into the air in perfect form, then disappeared. When we saw him next, he was sliding on his back. I went for it. I got up some speed, flew toward the sky, landed and crashed. The 12-year-old attacked the jump most fearlessly of all. He took off, rotated 90 degrees in midair and landed square on his tailbone. The older members of the class winced in empathetic pain. He just bounced down the hill laughing.

Although half our class was older than 30, only one of those people was a really good skier. The best skiers, I suspect, are the least likely to abandon what they know best and cross over to snowboarding. Take my boyfriend. An elegant, aggressive skier, he won’t waste a day at a top ski resort on a snowboard. But he agreed to try it for one day at Bear Mountain. After an hour or two in a beginner class mastering the basics, they set him loose on the bunny slopes.

It is here, I realized, that the deep animosity between skiers and snowboarders is born. The beginning boarders appeared ignorant of slope etiquette, skills and spatial relations. I watched as my boyfriend wove deliberately from one side to another, diligently applying the lessons he had learned in class. Suddenly an out-of-control grommet on a board took him out from behind. While my man writhed on his back in pain, the youngster yelled at him: “Dude, you can’t be going back and forth like that!”

It’s a form of abuse most adults are unwilling to endure.

Back in the terrain park, I jumped and jumped, and fell every time. My fellow classmates watched and cheered each other on.

“How far off the ground was I?” I asked Saroyan at one point. “A foot?”

“Oh, more than that,” he said, generously. Twenty minutes before the lifts closed, my hips, wrists and tailbone aching, I zipped off a jump on the bunny slopes. There were no witnesses, no one to attest to my “amplitude.” But I caught some air and landed my mini-jump. I was elated, a gold-medalist in my own mind.

I dragged myself off the slopes bruised but happy. Bates, our teacher, said novice boarders need to be careful. Newcomers fatigue easily, as they use new muscles. That can lead to accidents. “Fatigue will kill your snowboarding,” he said. Done well, the sport looks effortless, but frequent snowboarders will build up impressive thigh muscles. “It is the greatest cardiovascular workout,” Bates said. “The only thing that would make it better would be to run up the hill.”

In my case, despite the slow lift rides, long stretches of sitting and slogging through the slush on a warm February day, I had burned 1,216 calories in four hours and 45 minutes. Even if my body was thrashed it was a great workout.

Dude, I can’t wait to go again.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

SNAPSHOT

Snowboarding

Duration of activity:

4 hours, 45 minutes.

Calories burned: 1,216*

Heart rate: Average, 115 beats per minute; high, 145.

Time in target zone:

1 hour, 45 minutes.

Soreness indicator: Soreness, stiffness, bruising from repeated falls. Slight fatigue in legs.

Where to go: Mt. Baldy, (909) 982-0800; Snow Summit Mountain Resort, (909) 866-5766; Big Bear Mountain Resort, (909) 585-2519.

*This information was obtained using a heart-rate monitor. The time in the target heart-rate zone is a measure of the intensity of a workout. The target zone varies based on one’s age and individual heart rate.

(END TEXT OF INFOBOX)

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Hilary MacGregor can be reached by e-mail at hilary.macgregor@ latimes.com.