Snowboarding Dry Slope

Sheffield Ski Village has been undergoing some major improvements recently, one of the most drastic being the delivery of almost £11,000 worth of new Dendix that will be used to replace the worn out parts of the snowboarding dryslope. The summer period at UK dryslopes can be very quiet and so staff at Sheffield Ski Village will be taking advantage of this and replacing the larger sections of the slope in preperation for Autumn when the snowboarding dryslope starts to get busy again.

Living in the UK, you would not expect there to be any snowboard instructor courses, whats the point, we don’t have any mountains?. Chatham Dry Ski Slope offer a 24 week snowboard instructor course that will allow you to teach at various snowboarding dryslopes across the UK providing you qualify.

The snowboard instructor course is structured into two halfs. The first 12 weeks will be spent breaking down your snowboarding and going through everything you’ve ever learnt on your snowboard all over again. Snowboarders that have completed this instructor course in the past have improved their boarding vastly in the first half of the snowboard instructor course. The second half of the instructor course will concentrate on how to teach a snowboard lesson so that it safe, fun and informative. You will also be taking guinea-pig snowboard lessons with (volunteers)  to get you used to how a snowboard lesson should be taught.

The surface at the snowboarding dryslope at Chatham is Perma-Snow which is a great surface to teach snowboarding on. If its not a surfaces you’ve ever snowboarded on then I would definitely recommend you give it a try (especially if its raining!).

The snowboard instructor course costs around £15 a week for the first 12 weeks, for the last half of the snowboard instructor course you will be effectively sponsored by John Nike Leisuresport, the owner of various dry ski slopes in the UK and so will not have to pay anything for the last 12 weeks.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, this qualification will allow you to teach snowboarding across snowboarding dryslopes in the UK. If you are planning to do a snowboarding instructor course abroad then this course is a great stepping stone and will give you a major advantage over other snowboarders on the same course. It will also improve your snowboard technique and general understanding of the sport.

Perma-Snow is a revolutionary artificial dry ski and snowboard surface. The surface has been developed to try and create a surface that feels like real snow. Even more so than the existing dry ski slope surfaces like Dendix, and snowflex.

Perma-snow is produced in rectangular white mats. Each mat is made up of thousands of small plastic hoops which have just the right amount of flex to allow ski and snowboard edges to push between them and allow for turning and carving on your skis or snowboard.

In my opinion, the perma-snow surface is most like skiing or snowboarding on hard packed snow. The surface is also much easier to ski or snowboard on when it is damp, so I would recommend getting out there during or after it has rained (unless of course your local perma-snow dry slope has a sprinkler system of course). The only downside to perma-snow when it is wet is the fact that it can be very difficult to stop on at high speed and it does tend to feel more like ice when it comes to slowing yourself down.

One of the main advantages to learning to snowboard on perma-snow is the fact that it has a spongey underlay which will help to cushion your falls and there aren’t any holes in it that you could catch your fingers in, like you can on dendix.

The surface is relatively new and is only available on a few dry ski slopes in the UK but if you feel like giving it a try, you can do so at the following snowboarding dry slopes and ski resorts in the Uk…

• Bracknell Ski Slope
• Chatham Ski Slope
• Llandudno Ski Slope