Kids (7-14) Shredders – Group Snowboard Lessons

Alpine Shredders meet at 9:45am by the children’s animal flags at the on-snow meeting area at the base of the Champion #1 chairlift in Akakura Resort.

Your child’s instructor will check their ability and goals with them and with you. They will then match each day’s program to give them the best possible experience, together with the other children in the group. If you have any special requests please let your child’s instructor know and they will be glad to accommodate. Supervised lunch is included each day at one of the restaurants in the Akakura Kanko Resort.

The priority of our children’s group lessons is “SAFETY, FUN and LEARNING!” in that order.

Due to the physical requirements involved in snowboarding, it is generally more challenging than skiing for children to learn. To help overcome this, the maximum number of children per snowboard group is 5 (skiing is 8), thus allowing each child to have more personal assistance from their instructor. The price is therefore higher to reflect the smaller group size.

The snowboarding progression can be a little slower than skiing. We therefore highly recommend a minimum of 3 days of lessons for your child to develop the skills and confidence to have the best possible snowboarding experience.

We try to offer as much consistency as possible by keeping the same instructor with the same group each day. Occasional changes may occur due to our weekly roster change-over, or if your child progresses at a rate different to the rest of the group.

Alpine Shredders is run throughout the combined Akakura Kanko and Akakura Onsen resort areas.

A valid Akakura Resort lift ticket is required for all participants. Lift tickets are not included in the lesson cost but can be purchased at the resort’s ticket office or any Myoko Snowsports front desk. Please chat to our team about what is the most appropriate lift ticket for your child as there are different requirements for different ability levels.

Our team of instructors will welcome children at the on-snow meeting area and check their general snowboarding ability level and goals. They will then allocate children into the most appropriate group to join from Level 1 (first time) to Level 5 (advanced). If children seem to be in the wrong group, our instructing team will communicate with each other to ensure they are in a group most suitable to allow them to progress. Alpine Shredders features a maximum of 5 children per instructor.

For the best experience, we recommend all children go into the appropriate level group, even if this means being apart from their friends or siblings. They will possibly have lunch together in one of the on-hill restaurants and will make friends with their classmates. However, if two children would like to stay together in the same group may do so. In this case, they will be placed into a group of the ability level of the lower child. The stronger level child may find the group a little slow, but their instructor will give them more challenging things to try to continue having fun and improving.

The minimum age for Alpine Shredders is 7 years old. The reason for this is that children aged 6 years and younger generally do not yet have the physical development required to stand up on a snowboard and manoeuvre by themselves. We are glad to offer private snowboard lessons to children aged 6 and under which will give them the personal attention required for snowboarding at this age.

Alpine Shredders is offered as a full-day only. The reason for this is the full day allows the group to stay out on the mountain for the whole day and have lunch at one of the on-mountain restaurants without wasting time returning to the meeting area. It also means children in groups progress at a similar rate to each other. If you would like time to ride together with your child, you can fit a few runs in from 8:30 am to 9:45 am. If you are riding for 7 days you could book your child into Alpine Shredders for 5 or 6 days and then ride together on your final 1 or 2 days.

Program bookings of 5 days or more may include one rest day of your choosing if you would like. This can be done when you make your reservation online or by speaking to a Front Desk team member. Please make sure to talk to someone in the office as we want to ensure that we have sufficient space for rearranging your child’s lessons.

Almost all dietary requirements can be catered for. Please advise the Mini Mountaineers check-in team of the details at the morning 9:30am meeting time and provide any relevant information to them. Epi-Pens should be labelled with your child’s name and placed in a zipped pocket on your child for the duration of the program. Our facility is a NUT-FREE zone!

Both group and private lessons can be great depending on your goals and budget.

Group programs are a great way to meet other skiers of a similar ability level during your programs and are at a lower price but lesson goals must consider all participants’ goals.

Private lessons are the best for the quickest skill improvement and for meeting your personal goals but are at a higher price. Please see the Private Lessons page of our website for additional information.

Yes. All our instructors are either native or fluent in English and all lessons are run in English. We have a large number of instructors from around the world, as well as from Japan.

If you have a request for a lesson in another language (Korean, Dutch, Spanish, French, Danish, Czech) please check with us for availability for private lessons.

If you are interested in lesson programs run in Japanese please let our reservations team know and they can recommend another local Japanese snowsports school to you.

We recommend booking well before your arrival to ensure availability, particularly from the 20th of December to mid-February. Please contact our team at akakura@myokosnowsports.com if you have any questions.