Good morning ladies. I am wondering if anyone can help me with something I experienced this weekend and have experienced several times in my skiing life, although it seems as though the incidents are coming closer together.
This past weekend I was with my family at Stowe and on my first run of the second day I came to the bottom portion of an intermediate run. It is a hill used for races and teaching intermediates--it is a little challenging but I have skied it probably 100 times in my life (I had skied down it the day before) and the conditions with the packed powder were perfect. I got to this section and something clicked off in my head. I can't describe it--it is like I instantly forgot how to ski. More than that, I started to think it made no sense that as soon as I turned my skis to start moving, I wouldn't completely roll down the mountain. I didn't even see how the forces of gravity were enough to keep me standing upright where I was.
I had a complete anxiety attack (out of nowhere) and I wound up side slipping down the mountain. Even when I got to near the bottom where it was basically flat I was still terrified and slipped all the way down.
This happened to me at the end of last season at Killington and I remember trying to get down a run there as well.
This is not the case of just needing a lesson--honestly, I could put a kid through a year of college with the money I have spent on lessons over the years. (I think I had my panic attack at Killington last year on a lovely blue run when just the day before I had taken a two hour lesson on an icy black diamond.) After this incident at Stowe I went straight to the lesson desk and took another lesson with an instructor. It helped only a little because technique was not my main problem.
I read a lot of the threads on this forum about fears of steeper terrain, etc. I empathize with those, but this fear is not that. It is not just gee, I'm scared, how am I going to get down this and where should I turn. It is: oh my god, what am I doing here, how does this even work, what am I supposed to do, how am I not falling off the face of this mountain, I have completely forgotten how to ski.
I learned to ski when I was 30, and over the past 20 years I have experienced quite a few nasty spills as I have tried to get better and ski more challenging terrain. The slopes in the east are frequently icy and hard, so sometimes the spills are bad but I've only really injured something once. I am wondering, however, if all of my prior accidents are somehow accumulating in my brain now that I am nearing 50 and something is throwing a wrench in the gears. I would like to get over this since I don't relish the role of being the skiing gear manager/travel agent for my family without getting something out of it myself.
My husband thinks I need hypnosis or some kind of intervention like that. Has anyone heard of this kind of irrationality and can you recommend a resource that might help me?
Thank you so much.
This past weekend I was with my family at Stowe and on my first run of the second day I came to the bottom portion of an intermediate run. It is a hill used for races and teaching intermediates--it is a little challenging but I have skied it probably 100 times in my life (I had skied down it the day before) and the conditions with the packed powder were perfect. I got to this section and something clicked off in my head. I can't describe it--it is like I instantly forgot how to ski. More than that, I started to think it made no sense that as soon as I turned my skis to start moving, I wouldn't completely roll down the mountain. I didn't even see how the forces of gravity were enough to keep me standing upright where I was.
I had a complete anxiety attack (out of nowhere) and I wound up side slipping down the mountain. Even when I got to near the bottom where it was basically flat I was still terrified and slipped all the way down.
This happened to me at the end of last season at Killington and I remember trying to get down a run there as well.
This is not the case of just needing a lesson--honestly, I could put a kid through a year of college with the money I have spent on lessons over the years. (I think I had my panic attack at Killington last year on a lovely blue run when just the day before I had taken a two hour lesson on an icy black diamond.) After this incident at Stowe I went straight to the lesson desk and took another lesson with an instructor. It helped only a little because technique was not my main problem.
I read a lot of the threads on this forum about fears of steeper terrain, etc. I empathize with those, but this fear is not that. It is not just gee, I'm scared, how am I going to get down this and where should I turn. It is: oh my god, what am I doing here, how does this even work, what am I supposed to do, how am I not falling off the face of this mountain, I have completely forgotten how to ski.
I learned to ski when I was 30, and over the past 20 years I have experienced quite a few nasty spills as I have tried to get better and ski more challenging terrain. The slopes in the east are frequently icy and hard, so sometimes the spills are bad but I've only really injured something once. I am wondering, however, if all of my prior accidents are somehow accumulating in my brain now that I am nearing 50 and something is throwing a wrench in the gears. I would like to get over this since I don't relish the role of being the skiing gear manager/travel agent for my family without getting something out of it myself.
My husband thinks I need hypnosis or some kind of intervention like that. Has anyone heard of this kind of irrationality and can you recommend a resource that might help me?
Thank you so much.