Alongside UFC stars Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Sean Strickland, Helen Yee went snowboarding with two individuals who really know the way to do it, and spent more often than not sitting down as a substitute. The sports activities journalist confirmed up at Brian Head ski resort in Utah and admitted right away that she’s barely completed this earlier than, possibly highschool, and that hardly counts.
Snowboarding with Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Sean Strickland
“I arise on my snowboard and I’m not scared till I’m scared,” Yee said, describing that exact second if you notice the hill is transferring quicker than your toes can deal with. She dropped hands-first into the snow and spent about ten minutes crawling down the bunny hill.
Sean Strickland, the UFC middleweight who obtained married in October 2025, changed into an unlikely coach. He informed Yee in the course of the chairlift journey to cease overthinking it. “Everytime you go down, you’re going to place your board straight and also you’re simply going to go straight,” Strickland stated. His complete strategy was stripped down, rotate your physique, step behind the again binding, level your self downhill, maintain it straight. When Yee pushed again about falling, Strickland shrugged it off: “Nothing occurs.”
Joanna Jedrzejczyk, the former UFC strawweight champion who retired in 2022, made it look impressively simple. Yee watched her glide down and stated, “You already look professional, Joanna. I really feel such as you’ve been doing this for years.” Jedrzejczyk simply laughed. The Polish fighter, born in 1987, held the strawweight title with 5 profitable defenses and solely not too long ago stepped away from preventing.
The conversation got real when Yee brought up that Strickland had just gotten married. Jedrzejczyk mentioned his recent wedding, which sparked her going off about the predictable life questions women get asked. “When you get engaged, they ask you when you’re going to get married. When you get married, they ask you about first, second, third baby. Like, what the [expletive]?” she said.
Brian Head sits at 9,600 feet elevation in Southern Utah and gets over 360 inches of snow a year. It’s supposed to be beginner-friendly, though that description didn’t help Yee much. She kept stopping halfway down runs, hands in the snow, while Joanna and Sean disappeared toward the bottom.
Strickland tried to be encouraging about the learning curve. “It takes so long,” he said, then added a warning about how “frustrating” snowboarding turns out to be.
