Instructor Supervisor: Bec Marbach

Snowboard Instructor Supervisor / Instructor, Steamboat, CO

Bec is an Aussie rider who started as a snowboard instructor in the Southern hemisphere, but has now moved onto the higher-ups and supervises her friends doing the same job she used to do at Steamboat Ski Resort. As a snowboard instructor supervisor, she gets to ride more, has more say in the resort happenings, makes more money, and still loves her job!

How long have you been riding? What got you started?
I learned to snowboard in January 2000. My boyfriend at that time was an instructor at Beaver Creek and he taught me how to snowboard. I thought it was so much fun and I found that pretty quickly I could ride better than I could ski (I had skied for forever and still sucked). Snowboarding seemed to come naturally to me and the clothing was so much better with no stretchpants and no poles to carry around. I was hooked from the beginning.

How long have you been working with ski school?
I started teaching in the southern hemisphere winter of 2000. I had snowboarded like 15 times when I took my first lesson, so I had to lie when they asked me how long I had been snowboarding for. I was lucky to get off the chair lift without falling over!

What is your most rewarding experience on a board?
Probably working with SOS – Snowboard Outreach Society. This organization provides the opportunity for less advantaged kids to come up to the mountains and learn to snowboard for a few weekends in a row. It is awesome to see them stick at something and push themselves to learn to snowboard. Teaching in general is pretty rewarding, especially beginners. When you pick up your fist time student up from the meeting area they don’t even know how to carry their board without looking like a first timer. But, by the end of the day they are a pro and are hooked and can’t stop smiling.

Most frustrating?
That I still get scared and speedcheck into larger jumps…then I land flat…then my legs and spine compress…then my knee hits me in the chin as I bounce down the landing…then I really wish I had gone faster! I have a good friend Dylan who will stand next to the take off and scream at me if I speed check. That helps.

Which do you prefer, instructing or supervising?
Supervising gave me the chance to implement some programs and do some stuff that I had always wanted to see when I was an instructor. It also gives me more time to be involved in training and examining instructors. When I taught I just loved teaching, but I was ready for a change when I started supervising.
bec marbach

What board are you rocking this winter?
I am riding a 149cm Fling. This is K2’s sick new board for chicks that is the go-anywhere-in-the-park-and-kill-it board. I just love it!!! I also rock a 143cm VVV Rocker when I am going out to jib.

How did you get involved with the K2 demo team?
I met Danielle, the international marketing manager, while I was doing the GoodWood tests with Transworld Snowboarding. I had gone into the tent to ‘complain’ that the Duchess was too good a board because I had managed to overshoot all the kickers in Catalyst Park at Copper because it had so much pop and a superfast base! I just loved the K2 boards during the test and have only ridden K2 ever since!

Which of the K2 pro ladies have you gotten to ride with?
I have ridden with Gretchen and Leanne. It is so much fun to ride with these girls and the whole Alliance Team. It is so awesome to get out there with this group of girls who are just amazing and are great people and love the sport.

What’s the best K2 team trip you’ve been on?
That’s a toughie because they are all sooooo much fun. The Alliance went to Kamp K2 which was held at Mt Baker in April – that was a rad trip. We all stayed in RV’s in the parking lot of Baker, and the mountain was open just for us with many feet of fresh snow, plus the nightly parties. It was out of control. I think it was when I saw people riding a tricycle shoving hotdogs into their mouths during a tricycle relay I realized that this trip may be the most memorable ever! Ha Ha Ha

What tricks do you want to work on this season?
There are so many things that I want to be able to do on a board! Two of them would be spinning onto more difficult boxes/rails and 5’s other than switch frontside.

bec marbach What’s your favorite mountain?
I love Steamboat as the whole package – the town is awesome and the people are great and the tree riding is so much fun. For park I love Snowmass, Winter Park and Copper. Beaver Creek is also a superfun mountain with a really fun park that people don’t seem to know about. I guess I shouldn’t have said anything because I don’t want you all poaching my tree lines that will still be fresh the day after a powder day! (Ha Ha I am only joking). And once you are done riding for the day there is plenty of time to watch skiers stand on the metal outdoor escalator stairs in their plastic ski boots and fall really really hard on their backsides…

You did the never-summer hemisphere shuffle for a while, right? How long and what kept you motivated to forsake summers?
I did 14 winters in a row between Canada, the US, Oz and NZ. I live for snowboarding so it wasn’t hard to keep doing them. I had a lot of friends who were doing the same thing so we just traveled around the world together searching for snow. There are so many more places that I would like to ride that I haven’t gotten to yet like Europe and Russia. I always had a goal to ride in every month of the year, but I have never managed it. I have always missed either October or June…there is still lots of time though! I finally had a summer last summer and I learnt how to mountain bike. Now I am beginning to love summers again, but not as much as the winters still!

What’s the best thing about summers now that you get to have them?
I had to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe…that was awesome! I only had one pair of boardshorts before that. And mountain biking – now I ride up what I snowboard down in winter. And I tell you something I don’t understand…there are certain cat tracks that are really flat in winter to snowboard down here in Steamboat…why are they soooooo hard to ride up in summer?

What current trend do you find the most annoying?
The onezie…especially when guys wear them. Sorry, I know I have just offended a couple of friends of mine that wear them, but the last time I considered it appropriate that I wore a one piece was when I was 10 and my parents dressed me.

If you weren’t working at a resort, what would you be doing?
I would love to own my own coffee shop/wine bar. I have no idea how to actually do this but hopefully I will be in a position one day to have a go. There is a café in Sydney, Australia, called Bill’s. If you are ever in Sydney, you have to go there and get their scrumptious ricotta pancakes with lots of coffee for brunch. They are unbelievably great. I would love to open a Bill’s in Steamboat.

And finally, do you prefer pirates or ninjas?
Ninjas…hands down winner…they are stealthy and lightening fast when they attack and get to wear cool black clothes and don’t look stupid in them because they are ninjas. If I dressed up in black and snuck around the place people would just think I was strange and not cool at all.

Posted by Suzanne Akin on 08/13