Video of My Skiing :(

[bounceswoosh]

I think - based on a lot of experience - that when average (i.e., not professional athletes) males are presented with images of themselves skiing, for example, their first thought, regardless of what is happening on the screen, is "Wow! I look awesome!!"

This may be true, but I think it's also somethong more subtle. My husband is well aware of his skiing faults and works diligently to correct them. But they don't *bother* him. He doesn't think "I suck" - he just keeps having fun and working on it. (He's also a disgustingly good skier, as @nopoleskier And @Olesya Chornoguz can attest.)

I think women (in general) are much more invested in needing to be perfect before we think we are worthy.

There was an article a few years ago about women in the workplace - how women don't apply for the job unless they meet every single requirement. Men just figure "what the hell - let them do the rejecting." I think this was the article that coined or popularized the term "imposter syndrome." Then Sheldon Kerr - a mountain guide I've had the distinct pleasure of skiing with - wrote an article about how that relates to outdoor professionals. This seems very much in the same vein. I'll dig up the links later.

 

[Serafina]

Right? This pursuit of perfection is crippling! And the impulse is there even if you don't want it, and even if you know about it and work hard to stamp it out.

I think the equivalent man, even after looking for flaws and/or having them pointed out, just regards that as "hey, something to work on" and doesn't internalize it or feel ashamed of it or think it reflects on them negatively.

 

[Serafina]

Boy, Serafina, what a great observation. What IS it that we are so hard on ourselves? I think I need to get more video. Maybe I'll ask VickiK to get some of me today on a run where I can let myself rip a little more. I was thinking about my video, and it was at the end of a very challenging full-day lesson, the light had gone flat (behind the mountain) and it was on a run that is a giant bowl that always challenges me anyway. So, I was skiing it VERY conservatively, trying TOO hard to make beautiful turns, and the conditions were tough as it was also cut up a lot with random piles of soft.

Maybe I'll edit it down later (it's really long) and load it. Right now, it lives nowhere but on my phone and my hard drive.

We're hard on ourselves because we learned it from our mothers, and because society reiterates that message constantly. There's another Dove ad that shows just how this kind of thinking gets transmitted across generations.

So what you're saying is that your skiing in the video isn't because you suck, but because it was the last run of a really long day under flat light (where everyone's skiing gets worse) on challenging terrain? You skied a hard run at the end of the day and you're cheesed because you didn't ski it pretty enough? I wish I could say I didn't understand this, but I do. My initial response to the most terrifying run of my entire life so far (unfamiliar black, soft rockered powder skis, run turned out to be a solid sheet of ice, with no exits, and dark coming on) wasn't to say "WOW! I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT DOWN THAT WITHOUT FALLING!" it was to curse myself for making such an ugly job of getting down the run. I get it. And I still doubt that you would look as bad to us as you look to yourself. No need to upload the video if you don't want, but I did want you to think about the possibility that the rest of us would look at you and see something quite different than you saw when you looked at yourself.

 

[Fluffy Kitty]

It's like that Real Beauty video where women are describing themselves to a forensic artist, and then someone else describes the same woman, and you get totally different pictures.

Even after they see the sketches, their reaction is "I have some work to do on myself"... as opposed to "Oh, I'm gorgeous! Cool."

 

[bounceswoosh]

Ahah! Found the articles. The relevant term is "confidence gap."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-confidence-gap/359815/
https://www.outdoorresearch.com/blog/stories/closing-the-confidence-gap-with-sheldon-kerr

She’s been consciously addressing her mountaineering confidence over the past year, with a variety of different approaches. “All day, every for the last six months, it’s all I’ve been thinking about,” she says. “These recurring themes, from the book Women Don’t Ask, or the Atlantic confidence gap article, or Lean In. To me, they have everything to do with women in high-risk sports. I feel this drive now to go for it in a way that I didn’t before.”

 

[bounceswoosh]

Possibly related - I *just* flipped to Facebook and saw this shared by George Takei:

https://shareably.net/how-female-brain-works/

(And it's not one of those jokes that makes me cringe - it's pretty accurate, I think, at least for me)

 

[Serafina]

Even after they see the sketches, their reaction is "I have some work to do on myself"... as opposed to "Oh, I'm gorgeous! Cool."

I saw that...I thought they meant they had to do some "interior" work, because they'd just gotten a reality check that showed them how much they run themselves down.

 

[pinto]

Yeah, that's fair. Most ski videos we see are not attainable in any realistic sense. And cherry-picked stills are definitely much more flattering.

I do find video helpful sometimes, though, and thinking, "Well, everybody else already knows this" helps me view it without getting bummed about it. @Skier31 's suggestion to look at it with a specific goal in mind makes a lot of sense. Also when instructors use it as @Bluestsky described - although I did always find it frustrating that her instructor would focus on the positives, maybe he was on to something - a different instructor asked me last weekend to describe what's good about my skiing, and I couldn't think of a. single. thing. Finally stammered something about being good at smearing. This is probably underselling myself just a wee bit.

Yes, it is definitely helpful. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't.

 

[Fluffy Kitty]

I saw that...I thought they meant they had to do some "interior" work

Yes, but it was still a self-criticizing response.

 

[Jenny]

Maybe some of it, too, has to do with WHY you're looking at the video. And by that I mean, if I'm looking in the context of a lesson, then I'm looking specifically for things that need fixing. that's the whole reason for reviewing it. Whereas, if my focus was just looking at the video for fun at the end of a great ski day, then the flaws might not be the first thing that stands out.

 

[bounceswoosh]

One thing I've noticed is that my tracks usually look a lot better than I'd have expected from all the things I knew were suboptimal while I was skiing. Looking back at my tracks often shows nice, round turns even when I felt like I was doing everything wrong.

Maybe the internet fora don't help, because I'll read about something an intermediate skier is struggling with, and I think, geez, I'm struggling with that, too - I must be an intermediate skier! If we were skiing together, I'd probably have a very different perception. Rationally, of course, I know that skiers at every level are working on the same basic issues, with finer degrees of granularity. Or, as David said in the lesson last week, we carry our flaws with us - even very high level instructors are always working to reduce some aspect of their skiing that they have carried since they were intermediates.

 

[Serafina]

My instructor says that when he makes perfect turns every time, he's going to give up skiing and take up snowboarding.

 

[contesstant]

Possibly related - I *just* flipped to Facebook and saw this shared by George Takei:

https://shareably.net/how-female-brain-works/

(And it's not one of those jokes that makes me cringe - it's pretty accurate, I think, at least for me)

Oh yes, that's me! Wheels are always a turnin!

@VickiK took a few snippets of video of me today. Looked a lot better. It was on terrain that was steep enough, but smooth and I just went for it. I have a MAJOR A frame on my right leg, the same one that gives me fits with my boots. I was thinking on the drive home that I am trying to ski well when 50% of the time, I feel like I have very little control over that ski/boot. If I can ever get that crap fixed, I might actually leap right into the advanced category overnight. **sigh**

 

[bounceswoosh]

Oh yes, that's me! Wheels are always a turnin!

@VickiK took a few snippets of video of me today. Looked a lot better. It was on terrain that was steep enough, but smooth and I just went for it. I have a MAJOR A frame on my right leg, the same one that gives me fits with my boots. I was thinking on the drive home that I am trying to ski well when 50% of the time, I feel like I have very little control over that ski/boot. If I can ever get that crap fixed, I might actually leap right into the advanced category overnight. **sigh**

You could just accept the A Frame. If I recall correctly, @RachelV has more or less made peace with her A Frame, because fixing it causes other issues - she's still a better skier than me.

 

[contesstant]

You could just accept the A Frame. If I recall correctly, @RachelV has more or less made peace with her A Frame, because fixing it causes other issues - she's still a better skier than me.

No, something is still WAY off on that leg/boot. It truly throws my skiing out of whack. The A frame is a symptom of whatever is happening, including that I can NEVER get that ski to edge very well, nor stay balanced over it. So frustrating!

 

[snoWYmonkey]

I often try to look at only the skis, as this can take the pressure off the skier, especially a self critical one. Are they parallel, are the angles similar, is the snow spray coming from the whole length of the ski? Are the poles moving, statoc, early, late?It would be great to have a tool that removes the skier and onlyvleaves the skis.

The best video is the one I play in my mind, whenever I ski, of my favorite women skiers that I want to emulate. I look nothing like them. I never will. I am OK with that. But that is the image that matters. Occasionally seeing my less than perfect video just helps me see the difference, rather than hear it from my coaches. We all learn differently. I bet even Lyndsey Vonn does a ton of video of herself and studying other racers. Not looking for pretty, looking for efficient!

 

[bounceswoosh]

The best video is the one I play in my mind, whenever I ski, of my favorite women skiers that I want to emulate. I look nothing like them. I never will. I am OK with that. But that is the image that matters

I like picturing the women skiing in the Alaska segment of Pretty Faces. Great for steeps, but I need to find a more appropriate image for my mogul skiing ...

 

[RachelV]

... If I recall correctly, @RachelV has more or less made peace with her A Frame, because fixing it causes other issues...

I just don't feel like getting my boots canted, because then that will be ONE MORE THING I have to do every time I get a new pair of boots.

 

[Fluffy Kitty]

We have a tendency towards anterior pelvic tilt (or as an old ski instructor used to call it, 'the T&A position'.

So, is this with the back side concave? I've actually been jealous of people who (can) do that, at least when walking, because I tend to slouch/lurch forward. Since reading your post, I've noticed people (yes, mostly women, especially older) doing that while skiing, and realized that subconsciously I've been analogizing it to horse-back riding, gymnastics, and such, and assumed it was a stable/comfortable/cool/aesthetically-pleasing position. Guess not.

And what is "T&A"?

 

[bounceswoosh]

And what is "T&A"?

LOL. Um. First letters of two body parts. Term used in, for example, porn. T**s and A**.