Things I Learned While Skiing

JD and I had had our skiing adventure today. I wasn't excited about it. I wanted to stay home and watch movies all day while he skied, but JD wouldn't let me get away with that.  Truthfully, I also knew that if I skipped it, I would regret not even trying it. So off we went. In a lot of ways, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. 

1. Skiing is a lot of work: I mean, when you watch someone ski, it looks so effortless to just glide down the slopes. While it's true that gravity does a lot of the work, there's nothing natural about moving around with skiis attached to your feet. Moving around on flat ground requires a lot of effort (especially at the very beginning when I wasn't even using poles yet), and  trying to get up after falling is ridiculously awkward (imagine laying down on the ground and trying to get up without being able to bend your legs enough to have your feet flat on the ground- you basically have to wedge the edge of your ski into the snow).  But what surprised me the most was that the boots (even without the skiis) were outrageously heavy. Imagine the feeling of walking in very stiff ice skates. Then imagine super gluing a brick to the bottom of the skates.... And trying to walk on snow. I have a feeling my ankles and knees will be on fire tomorrow morning.

2. You will fall, but mostly on purpose: I was able to maintain balance pretty well, even for a newbie. Every time I fell, it was because I had started to go too fast for my comfort level, panicked, and fell backwards to stop myself.

3. Skiing is very cold: Should be a no-brainer, I know, but you'd think being all bundled up and moving around would keep you nice and toasty. Not so much for me. My hands got pretty cold and that's ultimately what did me in. By mid afternoon, my fingers were starting to go numb, and I finally went into the lodge when I couldn't take it anymore.

4: JD can be a good teacher: Maybe it was my previous blog post that whipped him into shape  or maybe I just learned faster this time (he did say I picked it up quickly), but I'm satisfied with my first ski experience and he seems impressed as well.  We got through the day without fighting (including a near miss when he made it seem like we could do the slope I wanted using a different lift, but I was forced to do a more difficult slope I wasn't quite ready for).

All in all, I enjoyed my first ski experience and would do it again.