All About Skiing! The First Post
Ok, here it is September 15th, 2013 and I'm writing my first post in All About Skiing and I will admit to you that I'm really excited at this opportunity. Why? Simply put, I love to ski! Whether it's my daily winter workout at the local 'hill' where I live, or on one of my trips to various mountains, there is nothing that gives me the sense of freedom and exhilaration that skiing does...it's so intense that it relaxes me. Yes you read that right, I relax when I ski. Let me explain...Are you one of those people whose mind is always on the go? You have thoughts constantly going on in your head? You're thinking about this or that possibility, working out some particular problem or challenge or just thinking about how good (or otherwise) life is in general. Well I am too and skiing allows me to get into a place where my mind stills for a moment. The way I've explained it to friends is like this- I'm lucky to have been skiing most of my life. In my younger days I competed as a 'freestyle' skier, back when there was still the ballet discipline. My competitive career peaked with my qualification and participation in the Canadian National Championships which were known back then as the Shell Cup in the spring of 1977...ouch that's a while ago! After that I headed to Whistler where I skied and skied and...skied some more from '78-'83. For those who haven't had the BIG mountain experience, you have to try it, it opens up a completely new world of skiing possibilities. All of this experience (and practice) has gifted me with skiing skills that allow me to enjoy a full range of skiing pleasure, but there are two specific skiing experiences that are now the pinnacle of enjoyment for me...powder (duh!) and speed. So...how does this relax me?
It's really pretty straight forward. I have to be in the moment of skiing or else...I'm going to get hurt! Last winter, thanks to new technology in phones, I was skiing at my local hill as I do everyday for an hour or two (instead of going to the gym, I go to the hill. Lucky me!) and I was skiing with a guy (Dave) who I hadn't skied with before. We connected when we found ourselves together sliding onto the chair after I'd caught up to him going down the first run of the morning. (He'd been on the first chair up, and I was on the second.) As I glided up beside him he was a little taken aback that someone was there. As we started up the hill we were talking and he commented how it wasn't all that often that someone would catch him from behind to which I responded "I like to go fast". He laughed. We took a few runs together and it turned out that both of us enjoyed the thrill of speed then he told me of this new app he had in his phone that told him his average speed on a run and he checked what the results of the last run were. First, you need to understand that we're talking about a hill with approximately 600' vertical drop, sad but true. (Hey, enjoy what you have in your area!) Like almost every hill I know, the operator's want to maximize the acreage, so there's the flat at the top and the flat at the bottom. Well, even in those circumstances his average speed was 78 kph and I was the first down the hill... :-) BTW, we were not trying to go our fastest by any means, but we do like speed. How does that put you in the moment? Think about it...if you're not concentrating at that sort of speed, if anything distracts you from what you're doing, things can get out of hand very quickly and on the Eastern hardpack, when you go down well, it hurts! Skiing really does force my mind to stop whatever else it's thinking about, and rest in the moment!
This Ski Blog And What It's All About
So now you have a little perspective on what skiing is for me now let's talk a little about this blog. In short, this will be about the what, where, why, when and how of skiing...the who is us of course! The plan is to share stories and information that will entertain, motivate and ultimately help you enjoy your skiing that much more. I can't tell you now just what it's going to contain because I haven't made the map yet, but, more than anything else I hope you'll engage with me on our journey and who knows, maybe sometime soon will connect on the slopes together!I'm just about to head off on a hike, this is part of my pre-season conditioning and I'll spend some time thinking about what will be in the next post. If you have a suggestion, be sure to share it with me, I'm completely open to research anything on skiing and then write about it. Hey, if you feel like you'd like to contribute a post yourself, again, I'm open to the possibilities...isn't this great?! Now...how should I sign-off? How about...
To endless ups and downs!
