It just occurred to me why I'm not crazy about skiing...I'm not a super expert, but I've achieved a higher level of skill skiing than any other activity I've ever participated in. This makes it that much more special to me.
I'm a pretty quick learner when it comes to sports, except when it comes to skiing!
I'm usually able to achieve "above average" level in about a season or two in most sports I tried. Not in skiing. It took about 5 to even be an average intermediate. By then, I've pretty much lost my motivation and moved on to x-c skiing. Not to mentioned by then I also moved away from the snow belt... No skiing of any kind for two years!
In that time, I also had my first, then second knee injury. The first time I had ANY sports related injuries, EVER! That was absolutely scary. :(
It took a ski crazy boyfriend and a couple trips to Europe to got me re-interested in downhill skiing. Though my objective in skiing has changed, from a sport to an excuse to see the world, to places and in seasons others don't travel.
Busting through the "intermediate plateau" was very important. But then the "lift ticket plateur" got in the way. And not having any more ski crazy friends to ski with put an end of my second period of ski enthusiasm...
It took another ski crazy "significant other" to got me going again. Though this time, epic.com was able to sustain it after that the ski-crazy half left... Having the opportunity to visit resorts I never thought of going alone, with local bears as guide, help re-ignite my interest in my "tourist on skis" way of vacationing.
Now I can say I'm a decent skier living up to my own expectation. Still, it's not anything I'm proud of, compared to other sports I can do well with ease. Aslo, unlike most other sports, skiing has many of those "mini" plateau periods in which you can't seem to make any progress for a long while. And having to pay good money to NOT improve just feels so much worse...
Sorry for whinning on a thread that's suppose to be "how skiing empower my life" thread. Let me go get my coat...