Skiing

So, bright and early yesterday morning, we get up and head for the ski resort.  As I've been taught, I am wearing my ski boots and shlepping my skis over my shoulder.  I try to give off the impression that I know what I'm doing, but I fail miserably.

Ski boots are made to hold your let in the correct position -- which is bent slightly forward at the ankle.  This may be the correct position for skiing, but it doesn't do much for walking, or stepping on and off busses.

We make it to the resort, and the guys in our group go off to ski and snowboard.  Peggy, Linda and I sign up for group lessons.  Peggy is in a slightly more advanced class, while Linda and I sign up for the "Never Evers." 

It's three hours long and there are 9 of us in there.  We spend the two hours or so talking about how to stand when we ski, putting on one ski and trudging around a circle, putting on the second ski and trudging around, and -- eventually -- attempting to ski.

Not true -- actually, it's attempting to stop.  Skiing comes pretty naturally when you're on skis on a slope.  Stand there and gravity takes care of it for you.  What we need to learn is how to slow our velocity and stop.  We do this by skiing in the "wedge" position.  You know a snowplow stop?  When you kick the tails of both skis out (and the tips in?)  You make a giant V and stop proceeding forwardly.  We are taught to actually SKI this way -- move down the hill with our skis in something like a V.  We can alter velocity by the pressure put on the V; we can alter speed by varying the position of the V, and (with effort) we can alter direction by pointing the V where we want to go.

So -- once we've all proven we can stop ourselves at will -- we learn how to use the "First Time Chair Lift" and get to the top of the "First Time Run."  Actually, he doesn't take us down the First Time Run -- there's an even easier path down the mountain (I believe he calls it the Turtle Slope) and we wedge our way down that thing.  Twice. 

It isn't particularly difficult and most of us (including me!) manage to get through the entire proceeding without falling.  (Indeed, most of thefalling was done by people who were trying to do more advanced stuff.)  Yay.  I was skiing.

The problem was, spending three hours with your shins bent slightly forward and your legs in a V is MURDER on the knees, and my knees ain't that hot to begin with.  By the time we finished our second run down the mountain, I started taking off my damn skis before the instructor even told us too, because I was DONE and my knees needed a rest. 

Class WAS over, so Linda and I went to check in our skis with the Ski Valet guy (come to think of it, I think I need to claim my skis from him today) -- actually, Linda returned her rentals to the shop, as she was finished permanently.  I just needed a rest.  And I needed out of the damn boots.

Which wasn't an easy thing to do since my shoes were back at the condo.  Linda and I found a little shop that was selling comfy shoes (lined with fur and all) and we each bought a pair -- even though they weren't exactly in our sizes.

We got lunch, came back to the condo, sat in the hot tub for awhile, and got ready for... the next entry.  :)