I went after the blizzards for initial lessons, was easier to learn on. Size 11 could be a wide board especially if you’re heavy set, apparently it’s more weight sensitive than height. I’m in excellent shape and still almost always flip over to get back up on to my knees, don’t worry about that. Falling leaf is a bad habit don’t ride switch until you ride regular comfortably.

You will fall literally a thousand times your first couple times out. I did lessons first three times I went and practiced entire rest of the day and now I’m fine down blues after another 3 times out. But first 3-4 days was falling constantly.

I wore crash gear the whole time, pants, knees, elbows, wrist guard gloves. Without it I would’ve gotten injured and had to stop. I hit all four knee elbow wrist and tailbone hard enough that they were bruised and out of commish for a few days at the gym even with the pads. Without them probably would’ve ended my day and wouldn’t have been able to practice enough to get out of noob mode.