| Product: |
Skiing |
| Date: |
17/03/02 (257 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Great exercise, Great views, Great Times
Disadvantages: Expensive, Have to travel to even more expensive places
Now what I am about to do here is write about skiing. Writing about sports is always a bit of a grey area for me and rarely will I write on topics in sport that affect me in any way, for example I do not see what is so wonderful about football. But forget about football, this is a completely different section, lets all learn about the strange and rarely written about world of snow sports.
What is a snow sport? Well they involve some physical or recreational activity on loosely packed ice crystals arranged into a manner by hydrogen bonds between the water molecules. Now forget about Chemistry and concentrate on what the sports are. Usually you will hear about the big international skiers at the big events such as the Slaloms or the incredibly fast downhill events usually shown on television in the winter.
What is also being included in these winter events is snowboarding. Snowboarding has come a long way over the past ten years and I believe it is now considered an Olympic sport. These two methods of going down a slope both have the slalom and downhill categories plus they also have the trick contests, which are certainly a sight to see. Self -explanatory as to what they involve, basically the competitors show off and are judged on their performance.
Remember thought that skiers and snowboarders do not really get on very well. Rarely will you find a skier who also enjoys snowboarding and vice versa. Skiers will say that “snowboards are too slow and they are always landing on their rear end or dragging their knuckles along the ground”. Sometimes snowboarders are referred to as “Knuckledusters” (a kind of insult) or “Shredders”. A female snowboarder is sometimes referred to as a “Shredbetty”. Snowboarders will say that skiers “look stupid” and complain that “those ski poles they carry can put someone’s eye out”. Also sometimes the good female skiers are referred to
as “Skibunnies” but I don’t know where that came from. But anyway, enough of that.
Myself? I ski. I have skied since I was in primary school (about when I was nine or ten years old) and I have been on a total of five or six ski trips. I have been skiing in France, in a place called Valloire, The Extreme North of Italy in the Alps, and to America several times, once to Breckenridge in Colorado (famous, big events held there regularly) and twice to two small resorts called Bretton Woods and Loon , which are near to Mount Washington in New Hampshire.
Skiing is like riding a bicycle, once you learn, you never forget. At a basic level all skiing is involves keeping your legs together and keeping the pointy things strapped on the end of your feet facing down the slope. The problem with this is that you tend to accelerate at a violent velocity down said hill. Most people don’t appreciate travelling at this speed, so firstly you will need to learn how to stop.
Aha! Stopping!
How ya do that then? There are two considered methods, the first involves skiing until you fall over, and the second involves moving your skis into a “wedge” shape. This is commonly referred to as a “snowplough” as beginners tend to drag half the mountainside down with them whenever they perform this manoeuvre. From this shape the skier then digs their heels down into the slope which applies more pressure to the skis which in turn makes said skier slow to an eventual halt. From this basic method of stopping comes the basic method of turning, the snowplough or “wedge” turn (latter more commonly said in America). To do this the skier applies more pressure to one foot than the other, thus causing the skier to turn slightly. Think about it, push harder with left foot and you will progressively turn right and vice versa. Ahh complex? Think not.
Really it’s a lot simpler than it sounds. But from
this initial silliness of looking like a complete tube going down the hill with your legs spread out in front of you, follows the best part of skiing. Learning the “proper” method of turning, “Parallel” turning. This is a rather tricky method of turning which is an advanced form of the wedge turn. Basically you don’t spread your legs “akimbo”, you keep them together.
What you do instead is rather hard to describe. If anyone knows anything about skiing, the way you travel is to turn your body downhill (“tits to the valley as they say”). Though trying to tell someone to do this on a black diamond slope will quickly get a reaction from that person, usually somewhat profane. Fear not people, skis are designed nowadays for this type of thing. What I mean by that is next time you see a pair of skis, look where the ski boots clip in. Now you will see that the distance from the toe of the feet to the end of the ski is much longer than the heel of the feet to the heel of the ski. This ensures greater balance and better steering. Also if your skis are that far forward, you can really not fall over them. Try it someday, maybe you’ll thank me.
But back on how to parallel turn. Really what occurs is three things, and I’ll try and put them in order. Firstly you are traversing the hill, this means that your skis are “edged” into the hill and your knees are bent. Pressure is put on the downhill ski i.e. the ski that is further down the hill. If you put pressure on the up hill ski you’d push yourself downhill, we want to keep ourselves upright so we push “uphill”. Pushing the uphill ski will make you fall over, and we don’t want that. Next as you approach the place you wish to turn, you straighten your legs, take pressure off the downhill ski and stop edging, make sure you’re facing downhill and apply the pressure on the uphill ski midway through the turn so
it becomes the downhill ski. Your downhill ski will no longer be the uphill ski so stop applying pressure to it otherwise you’ll fall over. Due to this method it is possible to traverse hills on one ski. That is of course if you understand a word of what I’ve just said.
Once you’ve got the intermediate parts of skiing learnt, there is only a few other methods that you really can learn. These methods are a bit show-offish and I’ve really never had the need to use them. One in particular is called the “pole plant” method. It ties into the “turn” portion of the parallel turning that I have previously mention. It just basically gives you a place to balance or “a point of reference” to turn with, so you don’t slide too much down a steep slope. Depending on where you go in this world to ski, there are many schools of thought. Instructors in Breckenridge in the middle of America will put more emphasis on the pole planting for example, whereas the East coast New Hampshireans will be more concerned with the edging technique.
Enough of my lecturing on skiing. Time to talk about the good things about skiing. Skiing is a great sport to try and learn, because after you learn you will never forget how to, and you will want to go again. At least I do. Skiing is also a brilliant source of exercise as most skiing takes place up high mountains, a few thousand feet in most places. This means that the slight drop in oxygen levels means that your body will grow extra blood capillaries to your lungs, hence you’ll take in a lot more oxygen and by golly you’ll notice it when you get back to ground level. Plus, when you go to any decent resort you are guaranteed some great scenery of some mountains if you’re into that sort of thing. I prefer to ski and take little notice of the breathtaking views. This sport is also a great thigh burner, those leg muscles will get a superb workout every t
ime you do a run of the mountainside. Though after an initial day of skiing those legs can feel a little stiff, so be sure to do some stretches before and after you ski down a hill. Doing so will reduce the chance of you injuring yourself.
Oh my god this is turning into another one of my rants.
Ah, injuries. Hmm, hard to say really. I’ve never really injured myself badly at all. I’ve fallen countless times going down slopes at terrific speeds but I have never damaged myself badly. One example I will recount, I was in the French resort of Valloire. Now it was the first day and we were coming down a “Blue” slope. Europe has a lot of grades for slopes, from green, blue, red, black and any other colour that can fit in. The Americans have simply Greens, Blues then Black Diamonds. Anyway, I was coming down a narrow blue slope and I was having a terrible time trying to get my skis to stop. I was trying everything, wedge turns, snowploughs, parallel turning. I just could not slow down, I was convinced my skis were waxed by a previous owner (rental skis) and were buffed up to too good a shine. The group I was with had stopped ahead and I was approaching. Fast. I had three choices. The first was the ski into the group, possibly injuring myself as well as others, the second was to ski off the mountain, which would certainly injure me but no one else. My third choice was to ski into the safety net beside the group. I chose the latter, and headed for the plastic safety of the red chevrons. I can’t really remember what happened next, I tumble a lot, got slightly tangled in a net, lost my skis and one of my boots.. My hat and goggles had flown off and one ski-pole was lodged somewhere in the snow behind me. Nevertheless I got straight up without so much as a bruise. Strange no?
The only time I have injured myself badly is quite recently over the Christmas holidays. I went off a fairly large ski jump, or “kicker”
and attempted a trick for the first, and possibly last time in my life. I attempted a 180 degree turn, which is where one tries to spin and face the other way in the air. I spun perfectly. Shame was that I landed right on my rear end from a height of seven feet after flying about ten feet. It hurt like hell and I thought I had broken something. All it was, was a badly pulled leg muscle that took a month or so to heal properly. One month of leg stretches later and I was as fit as a fiddle.
Finally, it’s over. I’ve been writing this sermon on and off for the past two months or so. Anyway people, I hope my pathetic source of wisdom instils something within you that’s useful. Hopefully I’ve encouraged more people to take up this sport, or at least educate them on it.
Be sure y’all try it sometime in your life now.
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