There are many theory's in which snowboarding got started. The first theory is it got started in the 1970s in Utah. Another theory is that it got started in Michigan in the 1950s using a board called the snurfer, which is the first design of a snowboard that was created. In 1979 the first ever World Snurfing Championship was held at Pando Winter Sports Park near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jake Burton Carpenter, came from Vermont to compete with a snowboard of his own design. Jake Burton is the creator of one of the most successful snowboard companies in the world, Burton Snowboards. You can go to this website if you click the link to your left called burton snowboards. There is also a picture of him below.

There are three main types of snowboarding styles. First of all there is free riding which is just going were ever you want and snowboarding whatever you want. Free riding is one of the oldest but most popular types of snowboarding. The freeride style is the most common and easily accessible style of snowboarding. It involves riding down any terrain available. Freeriding may include aerial tricks and jib tricks borrowed from freestyle, or deep carve turns more common in alpine snowboarding, utilizing whatever natural terrain the rider may encounter.It takes place mostly in mountains as you can see in the picture below....

The next type of snowboarding is freestyle. Personally, I think this is the funnest type of snowboarding. In freestyle snowboarding you use man made obstacles such as jumps, rails, and boxes. The intent of freestyle is to use these terrain features to perform a number of aerial or jib tricks. The term "jib" refers to the rider doing a slide or press on an object not made of snow. This most commonly refers to tricks done on boxes, rails, or even trees. You can see an example of freestyle riding in the picture the one of the right is an example of a jib. The picture on the left is an example of a grab called the indy grab.

The last type of snowboarding is called free carve. Similar to skiing, this race and slalom focused style is still practiced, though infrequently. Sometimes called alpine snowboarding, or the 'euro-carve', free carving takes place on hard packed snow or groomed runs and focuses on the ultimate carving turn, much like traditional skiing. Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline. My opinion on this type of snowboarding is I think its a waste of time to be honest. Snowboarding is all about being free and being able to go and do what you want. So if you are thinking about starting to snowboard i strongly suggest not to get into free carve, it will not be very fun for you at all. Although if you like going really fast you actually may like this snowboarding style.