I had my nephew out with me for his first time today so while he was out on my skis cutting his teeth in the snowkiting world (he did great!) I strapped on the snowboard for the first time. With a few deep breaths I did the "water start" thing, sliding along on my butt until I got the dive right to pull me up to my feet and once I got up seemed to be OK. I was heel side and had all my weight over my back leg and was consciously making sure my frontside edge was lifted and that I was leaning back against the pull of the kite.

I found it a delicate balance leaning against the kite but not falling backwards. Slipping the bar in if I felt I was going over backwards seemed to keep me upright. Is that the correct technique or should I have had a bit more power?

Made out pretty well UNTIL it was time to head back.

Here's the deal, I tried - honest to goodness I tried. Every time it seemed that I would carve HARD and end up darn near facing the wind or I'd catch a frontside edge and eat snow. Fearing a mother of all walks of shame I thought I'd give toeside a try and managed my way back without major issue. Got a good clip going both out and back too so that was cool but......

So, when I told the guy that we took kiteboarding lessons with that on the ATB I just couldn't confidently ride goofy but could go toeside without much issue his response was "well, first you gotta forget that you know you 'can't' do it - then you just have to teach yourself."

Is it just a matter of more practice or should I maybe head to the local bunny hill and work out my relationship with the board?

(Oh, and I'm definitely in the camp of "snowboarding is WAY HARDER than skiing". Mass respect to those boarders out there. I used muscles today that I don't think even knew existed - let alone me not knowing they existed.)