Monday, January 16, 2006
Skiing
Hola Blogers,
I have just come back from my first weekend of skiing. I can't walk very well, pero bueno (as we say). Wow! Why didn't I start skiing earlier? Its amazing. I'm totally hooked. We drove up to Andorra on Friday night and had two full days on the slopes in a truly beautiful setting.
Although I have never been before, Jose Ramon has ben skiing ever since he can remember and so, as you might imagine, he is pretty damn hot! Thankfully, for me, his talent is matched by his patience and ability to impart his knowledge. So he dedicated the weekend to teaching me. He decided to jump right in there with me and teach me in a different way to how he has taught people before. He says this is because he had every confidence that I was going to be really good at it and learn quickly. So, he didn't bother with green runs or the snow plough position .......and he just tok me straight on to a fairly difficult blue run and got me doing the turns.
I must say that when we first began I was a little frightened. The gradient of the slope in some places was somewhat of a shock and to the left hand side there was a sheer drop followed by painful looking pine trees. This meant that I streered (as much as you could use that word) well away from that side due to fear. Jose was really trying to push me over there because by not using the full width of the slope, I was falling every time I got to the right hand side as I hadn't left enough room to turn around over there. All very annoying and lots of time spent on my bum (which I actualy didn't mind as it was very comfy really and not wet as I had imagined).
That first slope took an age to descend but Jose said that despite my fear of the left hand side, I was actually showing potential. I kept looking up at some of the other slopes high up the mountain and thinking that it must take years to be able to come down those in the manner that the skiiers were doing. Anyway, cut a long story short, within a couple of hours I was doing really well (for a novice) and I was starting to feel like the control to luck ratio was turning around. At that point, Jose revealed to me the fact that we had been on blues all morning and that there was in fact a thing called a green slope, that was much easier. Some of you who have learnt to ski (as an adult) might empathise with me as I questioned his logic of starting me off on the second level! Anyway I managed to hold back on abuse as we made our way to the green slope.
I realised on the green slope what Jose had been up to, he had been making me learn better technique by starting me off on a slope where you really did have to use technique to be able to get down. I could have got down the green with just luck .... and that way I wouldn't have learnt so much. After struggling on the blues, as I was able to fly down the green with perfect turns, as though I had been doing it for years. Yippee ! Confidence soured and big smile appeared.
More struggling ensued on harder and harder blues. More technique was imparted (we even went into some fancy named extension thing that involves jumping through your turns) and by the second day, no joke, I was flying down red runs at an amazing speed with total control! I couldn't believe it, and neither could Jose. I was going down the ones I had seen previously seen and thought would take years to learn to do. Was I chuffed! At times, of course I come into problems or feel like I am going to loose control ......but my good teaching of the basics means that I have learnt how to correct the problems or simply slow right down or come to a stop to regain control.
I think I took to it because of my childhood roller booting days. When I was around 6 to 14 I spent virtually every moment possible on a pair of roller boots and I could do whatever I wanted on them......backwards, jumps circles, racing cars, holding onto the back of boys bmx's and jumping bmx jumps - you name it, I would have tried it. I was somewhat of a crazy speed freak dare devil on those things. The sensation of going fast on the skis really reminded me of those days and so I didn't feel scared. Also, once I had got the movement right, I knew, just like the roller boots, that I was in control (rather than the skis) and so I felt like I could go for it.
Needless to say, we are going again in February.
S xx
I have just come back from my first weekend of skiing. I can't walk very well, pero bueno (as we say). Wow! Why didn't I start skiing earlier? Its amazing. I'm totally hooked. We drove up to Andorra on Friday night and had two full days on the slopes in a truly beautiful setting.
Although I have never been before, Jose Ramon has ben skiing ever since he can remember and so, as you might imagine, he is pretty damn hot! Thankfully, for me, his talent is matched by his patience and ability to impart his knowledge. So he dedicated the weekend to teaching me. He decided to jump right in there with me and teach me in a different way to how he has taught people before. He says this is because he had every confidence that I was going to be really good at it and learn quickly. So, he didn't bother with green runs or the snow plough position .......and he just tok me straight on to a fairly difficult blue run and got me doing the turns.
I must say that when we first began I was a little frightened. The gradient of the slope in some places was somewhat of a shock and to the left hand side there was a sheer drop followed by painful looking pine trees. This meant that I streered (as much as you could use that word) well away from that side due to fear. Jose was really trying to push me over there because by not using the full width of the slope, I was falling every time I got to the right hand side as I hadn't left enough room to turn around over there. All very annoying and lots of time spent on my bum (which I actualy didn't mind as it was very comfy really and not wet as I had imagined).
That first slope took an age to descend but Jose said that despite my fear of the left hand side, I was actually showing potential. I kept looking up at some of the other slopes high up the mountain and thinking that it must take years to be able to come down those in the manner that the skiiers were doing. Anyway, cut a long story short, within a couple of hours I was doing really well (for a novice) and I was starting to feel like the control to luck ratio was turning around. At that point, Jose revealed to me the fact that we had been on blues all morning and that there was in fact a thing called a green slope, that was much easier. Some of you who have learnt to ski (as an adult) might empathise with me as I questioned his logic of starting me off on the second level! Anyway I managed to hold back on abuse as we made our way to the green slope.
I realised on the green slope what Jose had been up to, he had been making me learn better technique by starting me off on a slope where you really did have to use technique to be able to get down. I could have got down the green with just luck .... and that way I wouldn't have learnt so much. After struggling on the blues, as I was able to fly down the green with perfect turns, as though I had been doing it for years. Yippee ! Confidence soured and big smile appeared.
More struggling ensued on harder and harder blues. More technique was imparted (we even went into some fancy named extension thing that involves jumping through your turns) and by the second day, no joke, I was flying down red runs at an amazing speed with total control! I couldn't believe it, and neither could Jose. I was going down the ones I had seen previously seen and thought would take years to learn to do. Was I chuffed! At times, of course I come into problems or feel like I am going to loose control ......but my good teaching of the basics means that I have learnt how to correct the problems or simply slow right down or come to a stop to regain control.
I think I took to it because of my childhood roller booting days. When I was around 6 to 14 I spent virtually every moment possible on a pair of roller boots and I could do whatever I wanted on them......backwards, jumps circles, racing cars, holding onto the back of boys bmx's and jumping bmx jumps - you name it, I would have tried it. I was somewhat of a crazy speed freak dare devil on those things. The sensation of going fast on the skis really reminded me of those days and so I didn't feel scared. Also, once I had got the movement right, I knew, just like the roller boots, that I was in control (rather than the skis) and so I felt like I could go for it.
Needless to say, we are going again in February.
S xx
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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