we picked up aaron at the mammoth airport and immediately drove to mammoth brewing co. (anyone recognizing a pattern here?).
june mountain is really spoiling us; no crowds. none. get there at ten or so and park in the front row. folks are on a first name basis here. make no mistake, the is a small town ski resort; everyone knows everyone.
when we started skiing with aaron i had some concerns. aaron is a pretty studly guy, 20 something, waterpolo team, rode his bike across the country this summer, (http://2008abikeodyssey.blogspot.com/), etc. but for the first ten minutes i thought, wow, this is going to be a LONG day. lisa asked me to give him some pointers, so what the heck: "keep your hands in front of you, where you can always see them". good. OK, "try to carve by placing your downhill/outside ski knee behind the other knee". good. well, he still was kinda slow. then his sisters started challenging him to races. it's one thing to be a little rusty on skis, it's another thing entirely to get smoked by a four year old.
aaron was getting it and wanted too move on, but we insisted he stay on the green runs until he could link carved turns. after about three runs it was coming together and we moved on to blue. one of the tenets of skiing is that in order to ski a blue well, you need to suffer down a black, so after a couple runs down the blues, we were on a black run. not aarons choice; minnie's choice. and how can any self respecting adult not follow a four year old, even if it's off a cliff?. she gave him some pointers, telling him skiing a black diamond bump run is just like making a series of hockey stops. how hard could it be?
pretty hard, actually. we told aaron that the learning curve on a black diamond bump run was incredibly steep. for the first hundred yards you're certain you are going to die. the next hundred yards you're in denial because you haven't yet died but you think maybe you actually have and you just aren't aware of it yet.
the next hundred yards you fall a lot less, make a few turns where you want, and almost feel in control sometimes. at mile mark 400yd you are WAY past the point of no return and resign yourself to your fate. you HAVE to get down this stupid thing, either on your butt or otherwise. and with a four year old on one side giving tips, and a five year old on the other shouting encouragement, how could you fail? at mm 500yds you actually start to believe you can do this. in fact, if the last ten turns went according to plan and so why shouldn't the next ten? then you realize something really cool. you realize that you're almost at the bottom, that the bumps are a little smaller and the slope is a little less steep, so you make a decision: point the skis straight down hill and go gonzo. holy cow, you made it down alive!
so what did we do next? well, skied a double black diamond run, of course. here's why: it's easier to ski a black diamond once you've suffered down a double black. especially one your five year old sister has already done and asks you to join her on.
mina led the charge over the edge into the abyss called Davos, a narrow, bumpy, fun double black run. I went next, followed by aaron. it's amazing how a double black diamond run brings out all your worst habits. you go into panic mode and you fall back on your bad habits. good thing, because you quickly learn what those habits are so you can fix them. for aaron, it was keep both hand where you can see them, keep your shoulders squared to the downhill and remember to breathe. we talked afterward and decided that the 168 bpm heart rate was due to exertion, not terror.
we did it again and things went well. remember, we were having trouble linking turns on a green run just a few hours earlier, and now we were on a double black diamond run working on details. steep learning curve yields to the flatter part of the curve.
i think what allows some people to learn quickly and others to never progress is simple: you've got to be willing to make a complete ass of yourself to learn anything new. if you never want to fail, fall, crash, or look bad, you'll never have the freedom to try different things and experiment. be willing to look bad and you'll quickly be looking quite good.
so in one day aaron went from suffering on the greens to getting down the double blacks. not a bad day's work!
-g
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