Every year, someone here loses their enthusiasm for skiing. Some post about it; some do not. I've been dealing with this myself for a couple of years.
When I think of skiing, it's about flow. Imagine a leaf that has fallen onto a stream. The leaf moves with the stream ... it is not part of the stream and yet it shares the stream's flow. By contrast, imagine a pinball machine. Like the leaf, the ball is moving. Sometimes the ball is moving slowly, predictably. But the ball hits things and rebounds off of them ... sometimes into a whole different direction ... sometimes at a speed that maybe wasn't what we expected. I want my skiing to be more like the leaf flowing with the stream. For a couple of years now, I've been more like that pinball. Skiing has been frustrating. Instead of being a pleasure, it has been a struggle. I have not been able to work through the difficulties. The analyst and planner in me developed a plan for fixing it.
Some interesting things have surfaced as I've started down this path. I plan to post my experience in this thread. Perhaps it will help someone else who is struggling to not feel alone amidst all the stoke or help them devise their own plan for improvement. Perhaps it will provide drills that an instructor or a student might try. I'm at the beginning of this journey, so I don't know where I'll be at the end of the season.
Background: I started skiing at age 50 and have had two season-ending injuries, a proximal tibia fracture and ACL damage (slow, backwards fall), and a horribly sprained ankle and strain of everything from knee to ankle on both legs (bindings not releasing). After the second injury, any confidence I had was replaced by self-doubt. I have spent a couple of seasons trying to get back, skill-wise, to the level 5/6 I was skiing at. But something is missing in my skiing. Progress has been slow and frustrating. Performance and Confidence are much like Chicken and Egg.
The plan: I decided last season that I'd spend this season at Loveland and get their 3-Class Pass ... 3 group lessons should get me heading down the right path.
Next Up: Lesson One
When I think of skiing, it's about flow. Imagine a leaf that has fallen onto a stream. The leaf moves with the stream ... it is not part of the stream and yet it shares the stream's flow. By contrast, imagine a pinball machine. Like the leaf, the ball is moving. Sometimes the ball is moving slowly, predictably. But the ball hits things and rebounds off of them ... sometimes into a whole different direction ... sometimes at a speed that maybe wasn't what we expected. I want my skiing to be more like the leaf flowing with the stream. For a couple of years now, I've been more like that pinball. Skiing has been frustrating. Instead of being a pleasure, it has been a struggle. I have not been able to work through the difficulties. The analyst and planner in me developed a plan for fixing it.
Some interesting things have surfaced as I've started down this path. I plan to post my experience in this thread. Perhaps it will help someone else who is struggling to not feel alone amidst all the stoke or help them devise their own plan for improvement. Perhaps it will provide drills that an instructor or a student might try. I'm at the beginning of this journey, so I don't know where I'll be at the end of the season.
Background: I started skiing at age 50 and have had two season-ending injuries, a proximal tibia fracture and ACL damage (slow, backwards fall), and a horribly sprained ankle and strain of everything from knee to ankle on both legs (bindings not releasing). After the second injury, any confidence I had was replaced by self-doubt. I have spent a couple of seasons trying to get back, skill-wise, to the level 5/6 I was skiing at. But something is missing in my skiing. Progress has been slow and frustrating. Performance and Confidence are much like Chicken and Egg.
The plan: I decided last season that I'd spend this season at Loveland and get their 3-Class Pass ... 3 group lessons should get me heading down the right path.
Next Up: Lesson One