To Ski or Not to Ski? that is the Question

I've been skiing since I was about 6. I'm not aiming for the Olympics or anything, but I can hold my own. I don't overthink things, but when considering it's one person standing on two slabs of wood and hurtling themselves down the side of a mountain, well, it doesn't sound HARD, does it? Scary, maybe, but not hard.

Balance is key. We use the art of balancing when we walk, run, ride our bikes, rollerskate, stand up, you get the picture. It's a basic thing. When you're on the train and it starts you move so you don't fall. That's balance. Everyone has it, everyone uses it-even subconsciously.

A couple of years ago I decided it was time to get the family involved. None of the poor deprived people in my family had ever been skiing. With excitement and happiness in our hearts we headed for the ski resort. My husband and son and I were fitted for skis, poles and boots and bravely set forth for our wintry adventure.

Our first obstacle turned out to be walking. Ski boots are made to hold your ankle still so your foot is permanently at a right angle to your leg. It takes some getting used to to walk, and as we discovered, getting us all down a flight of stairs without hurting ourselves or the innocent skiiers also braving the stairs. With the stairs behind us walking didn't seem like such a big deal.

The resort we went to offered lessons for new skiers and "brush-up" lessons for people who hadn't skiied in a while. We all signed up and had a private lesson with a wonderful woman named Sue. My son and husband did everything she asked them to, but the differences in their styles was obvious from the beginning. My son will try and keep on going. If he falls, he'll get up like nothing happened and keep going. Eventually he'll just be going. My son is the Energizer Bunny. My husband, by contrast, and probably because of his age and knowledge of cause and effect, was more hesitant, overcorrected like a new driver and spent most of his time skiing backwards downhill while pinwheeling his arms.

At one point Sue watched my son and said "Great try, you're getting the hang of it now!" With my husband it was more "Try putting more weight on your right foot." or "No, that's not what I meant." and after my first response to her instruction "Oh, you know what you're doing." We learned starting, stopping, turning, and how to ski across the mountain to come down slowly vs. straight down like an avalanche. My son did so well, when Sue left us to our own devices I rode up the chair lift with my husband. If I remember rightly, there was also one time he got off the chair too soon and skiied backwards under the chair and down the hill they made so people could ski off the lift. (He's a wonderful man, he really is.)

We stayed to our recent lessons and my son took off making a "garland" across the mountain, back and forth, all the way down to the bottom. My husband followed him, overcorrecting, unbalancing himself, falling occassionally or trying to catch himself so he didn't fall and turning himself 180 degrees and skiing backwards, looking over his shoulder with panic in his eyes and pinwheeling his arms. Yes, it was hysterical. :) I love that man.

We did make it down a couple of times down the smaller run, then decided to try a little tougher hill down a more slender trail through the trees. My son just went. I went with my husband (to make sure he made it down, or to go for the Ski Patrol should he not make it down). The trail was steeper, in the trees (he was worried about hitting one) and had a drop off on the right (he was worried about going over and never being seen again). This led to panic once he started sliding which led to overcorrecting and skiing backwards. I called out he was ok and let him know he wasn't near the drop, just relax, turn his foot, etc. None of that helped, however. Fearing the drop off he did a split and fell over forward with his arms outstretched. I think his plan was to fall forward with his arms out so he could grab things to hold on to when his skis went over the drop. Like I said, though, he wasn't very close to it and just looked, well, funny. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

In all honesty, the poor guy didn't do all that badly. He did manage to actually ski for a while and said he had fun and wanted to go back sometime. Now that I think about it, you know....he never did.