anarfea | Entries tagged with skiing

So today was another day of ski instructing. My day got off to a rocky start. My assigned student didn't show, so I was assigned to another group I then lost. So I joined an adaptive instructor teaching a private lesson solo. He asked me what grade I was in? Like seriously, do I look that fucking young? But he let me tether, which was awesome. Except this kid wanted to go straight down the hill and not turn, and also went into Adventure land, which is basically a fairly easy obstacle course. So we went through the tunnel and between some trees while I was tethering. Which was kind of freaky, but I did okay.

My afternoon lesson didn't show, so I free skied with some other instructors. It was amazing. It was snowing, which I love. There's nothing better than skiing through falling snow while the fresh powder is accumulating. We skied Easter Bowl, which I have previously avoided as it's marked as a double black on the map, and I tend to avoid experts only trails. However, once we got there, I think it's just a single black. It is steep and has trees on it, but it was not that bad. I did get tangled in a tree at one point, but overall, I think I skied well. Jean, our group's fearless leader, gave me a lesson on how to better use my poles. I tend to hold my hands in front of me, which is fine, certainly better than letting them drop behind me, but she was saying I need to focus on "punching" the pole when I turn to help me get more rotation. I've been told this before. It's good to be reminded.

Anyway, we came down and went to the bar and had drinks. I had an "almond ball," hot cocoa with amaretto and Jameson (and whipped cream!). Anyway, here's me with my apres ski drinkee.

Current Mood: happy

So, today, husband and I ditched work and went skiing. Which was the best decision I've made in a long time. It was a beautiful day, and I had a great time teaching husband to ski (he can ski, but he's intermediate and hasn't skied for a few years, so, I was giving him tips). We spent most of the morning on green runs but I took him on some blues after lunch. We went to the top of the mountain, and I wish I'd taken pictures because the views were glorious, but I didn't so here's some video from someone else's gopro.

Watch on YouTube

Anyway, it was beautiful, and I was glad to share that with my husband. I guess that's why I'm doing this adaptive ski program thing, I love sharing skiing with people. and I've been bugging husband to come up with me for literal years and I'm glad he finally did.

Afterwards, we went to a coffee shop, I got some writing done on Shifting Seasons, and then I came home and cooked a steak dinner with potatoes and asparagus. We had red wine and chocolate cake for desert. It was the best valentine's day ever.

Current Mood: happy

So today my afternoon lesson didn't show and I got to free ski with a couple other adaptive instructors. I went ass over tea kettle twice an conked my head pretty good on the first one. But man, was it worth it. They were both from Albuquerque and not that familiar with the mountain, so they let me pick all the runs. And I took them to all my favorite "secret" places--off piste areas where only the locals go. I love tree skiing. It's my favorite kind of skiing and there are some truly great places for it at Ski Santa Fe. I like it when it's not too steep and there's enough spaces between the trees that you can get a good rhythm going. The trees force you to turn, which makes great for practicing. I tend to "shop" for my turns in the moguls (ski until I find a place that looks easier to turn) and tree skiing makes that difficult. It's also just nice to be in nature. The best glades for skiing are old growth, since you want to be skiing in tall trunks without a bunch of branches sticking everywhere. And there's something so peaceful about just making your way through these old trees. Especially when it's snowing, which it wasn't, today, but the point stands. Anyway, I had an amazing time.

Here's a video of some guys skiing one of the runs we did today. Admittedly there's rather a lot more snow in this video than there was today, but it gives you an idea of how magical tree skiing can be. It captures the whisper quietness of it, where all you hear is your own path through the snow and your breath. So many ski videos put music in them, which IMO defeats the point.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: happy

So, I'm on week two of my six week Adaptive Ski program, and this afternoon a number of students didn't show up, so we had an impromptu clinic on the bi-ski.

A word on what the bi-ski is: it's basically a sled, with two small skis as runners, a seat (which we call a "bucket"), and a trough to hold the skier's legs. Outriggers can either be fixed to the sides of the ski or held in the skier's hands. The outriggers are basically itty bitty skies (mine were actually the tips of regular skis that had been cut off). It's more stable than it's cousin the mono-ski, which has only one, usually wider, ski. These are for more athletic skiers who have strong upper bodies, as they are always used with handheld outriggers. A bi-ski is usually used by skiers with less strength and mobility or who have paralysis higher up the body.

Anyway, this afternoon, I pretended to be a student so that the guys could practice loading and unloading the bi-ski from the chair lift and tethering it. Tethering is basically when someone skis behind the bi-ski using nylon leashes to control it. Primarily you are acting as a brake to keep the bi-ski from going too fast, but you can also steer it by pulling on the tethers. How much steering you need to do depends on the abilities of the sit skier. I have never been in a bi-ski before and have pretty much no bi-skiing ability, so they used fixed outriggers which are basically like training wheels. If everything is going well, the ski should actually balance on the longer skies. But if we get off balance, the outriggers are there to keep the ski from tipping over.

In theory. LOL. Actually, we tipped over a lot. This is why they were using me instead of a real student. But I had fun. The feeling of a bi ski is totally different from being a stand up skier. When you're skiing, usually you are absorbing small bumps and what not by flexing your knees. The bi-ski has a shock absorber which lets it bounce up and down, but it's still a much rougher ride than skiing standing up. And again, they were pretending I was pretty paralyzed, so they were having me initiate turns by turning my head to the right or left (which actually shifts the balance of the ski quite a bit). I could also lean my upper body to the right or left.

I really have newfound respect for our students. I really appreciated the amount of trust a sit-skier places in their handlers. When I was tipped over, I was completely helpless. The ski is heavy and I had no outriggers, so all I could do is lay there on the snow until someone picked me up. It was really eye-opening. Loading and unloading the lift was also fun. They basically picked me up and lifted me, bi-ski and all, into the seat, and then scooted me off and set me on the ground. Also, riding the chair I was sitting way up high, which was a different prospective. But again, it requires so much trust. The ski has a safety clip that attaches to the lift to keep it from falling off the chair. Still, it's scary being way up high and being totally reliant on other people.

Anyway, here's a pic of me on the bi-ski.

Me in a bi-ski with my handler

You can't see the outriggers in this picture; they took them off so they could "bucket" me down the bunny slope. "Bucketing" is when a handler gets right up behind the bi-ski and pushes it. We did this on the bunny slope because it's so flat it's hard to get enough speed to get the bi ski going. The physics of skiing dictate that it's actually easier to ski fast, because you're working with gravity and sort of flowing in the stream of it. The ski naturally drifts towards the fall line (the path a snowball would take if you rolled it down the hill), and you only shift your weight to steer. When you're going slow, it's actually a lot harder to control the bi-ski. This was something my handlers struggled with because they were afraid to let me go fast. But I got to go fast when the instructor was demonstrating, and it was a lot of fun. I'm glad that we provide this experience to our student-athletes.

Current Mood: happy

Okay so I went skiing yesterday. I didn't have a student in the morning because they had more instructors than students so I ended up getting to free ski with some friends. Said friends are much better skiers than I am and I had to really push myself to keep up with them. We skied pretty much all black runs and I got tired.

In the afternoon I had a 19 yo girl with Downs Syndrome. She was such a good natured, happy person. But although she says she's been skiing for seven years, she's still pretty much a beginner. I think it's because she doesn't get to ski that often. She was here just for the weekend, as opposed to most of the students who are part of a six week program. So I suspect she only gets a few days of skiing a year. Anyway, she really needed help with speed control, which means tethers. And since we were short on people in the afternoon, I ended up getting paired with another first year volunteer (usually they pair first years with someone more senior). Because of that, I ended up having to set up the tethers and got to spend time teathering, which would probably normally be the job of the senior instructor. It was a little intimidating but I think I did fine. Teathering is exhausting, though. You have to break for both yourself and another person.

Next week I get a break because of president's day. I'm actually looking forward to it.

Current Mood: happy

So I went taught skiing against last week. No teaching the week before because they had a lot of cancellations and pretty much all the students who did show up were sit down skiers and I can't tether a monoski.

This week I worked with my first adult student. She was pretty easy. She's an advanced beginner. Just starting to ski blue runs but still turning across the whole hill and using a wedge.

I had a lot of fun with the second student--a sixteen year old with autism. She's a strong intermediate skier on the cusp of transitioning to advanced. Most of the lessons I've taken recently have been for learning advanced skills. So I felt like I had a lot to teach this student. She's trying to learn how to separate the upper and lower body. Skiing is really a lower body sport. You want the hips and legs to move dynamically but for the upper body to stay quiet. Basically the lower body turns and the upper body doesn't. This is tricky. Most beginner and intermediate skiers turn their whole body, keeping the shoulders over the feet. Learning to turn your feet without turning your shoulders is hard. It's pretty essentially if you want to ski moguls, though.

So, I've been skiing for a number of years, a few as a child, more as an adult, and for a while a number of people have been asking me to participate in something called the Adaptive Ski program, which is basically a program that teaches people with various cognitive and physical disabilities to ski. I reported to my first day of training today. I have to complete a total of six hours before they put me on the snow with somebody, and I'll be paired with someone more senior (so there are always two instructors per student).

I found the first day of training really intimidating. We went over the program's procedures and there are all sorts of things I didn't think about, like you have to harness people who have a seizure disorder to the lift in case they might have a seizure and fall off, and you have to escort students to the bathroom and what not, and it just reminds me that some of the students are very disabled. Of course, I will probably not be paired with someone who has severe disabilities my first year as a volunteer. But it's very sobering. It's a lot of responsibility.

Also my legs really hurt. I hardly skied at all last year, and I've only been up twice before today this year. I really need to build my own stamina. Granted, I will likely be sticking to the bunny slope. But still. Just hauling around my ski gear takes work, and I am out of shape. There may be some opportunity to do early morning clinics with ski instructors before we start our own lessons, and I am super excited about that possibility, because I've never taught skiing before and I feel a little out of my depth.

I also need to think about what kind of disability I want to specialize in. The first 2 days of training are pretty general. But after that, I have to pick 4 clinics that focus on either dealing with specific kinds of disabilities (like autism or visual impairment) or specific kinds of equipment (like the ski bike or mono-ski). I'm probably not physically strong enough to control a bi-ski or mono-ski. Those are basically sleds that the student rides in while using outriggers on the hands to steer. Like this. When teaching a student to use a bi-ski or mono-ski, the instructor skis behind holding onto the device with tethers. So you have to be a strong enough skier to control the sled, and also be strong enough physically to load the sled onto the chairlift. Anyway, I don't think that's me. I'll probably focus on dealing with blind or autistic skiers, I think. Those you usually just tether yourself to so you can help them steer, or they ski beside you holding onto a pole. All this is still super intimidating to me. But I guess I will sign up for classes and learn.

Anyway, I'll keep you all updated if you're interested.