Skiing is an amazing thing. Connect two long boards to the bottom of your feet. Find a high place covered with snow and ice. Throw yourself off the high place in the direction of a lower place. Now, if all goes well, those boards slide on the snow, you stay upright until you reach the bottom, you enjoy the experience...and then you do it again.In a way that was how I learned to ski.
Of course it started long before the actual day I learned how to ski. As a young child I found my grandfather's skis, stored for years in his garage. They were long and they were made of wood. I would strap them on (somehow) and go looking for a mound of snow to slide down. Finding a mound or hill of snow was not a problem where my grandparents lived. But getting the skis to slide was. The only way they would slide was if the slope was extreme (if the skis ever had wax or a finish, it was long gone). Once the required slope was found, I could not maintain my balance for even short distances.
So, as with so much of my early, practical education, a cousin was quick to the rescue. While still in high school, one of my cousins determined to teach me how to ski. Of course it was not a planned or well financed training. But a Dry Farmer is not bothered by that. It is the end result that is important. A quick modification to our work boots with a table grinder, produced a grooved slot for the ancient skis' binding cable to hold (at least partially) our shoes to the skis. A small local ski lodge (it was not a resort!) with a Poma lift would get us up to the appropriate slope to train on.
Now, I had hardly any experience skiing...so holding on to a rope attached to a 12" wooden seat, anchored between my legs and being hauled UP the hill was fairly traumatic. Thus, the first lesson was how to ski UP the hill. Learning to ski is also coming to grips with being totally embarrassed. It took awhile to get up the hill...and a lot of patience from the tow operator and others trying to use the tow.
But once up the hill the immediate problem became obvious: How do you get down the hill? My cousin knew the answer and shared it with me at that moment. Point your skis down the hill. Remain standing unless you begin going to fast. If your speed becomes excessive, sit down (if you don't sit you are going to fall, he said, sitting is better). With this method of braking, I was concerned that the snow completely covered the rocks on the hillside. It sounded similar to how I had previously skied...except the hill was higher and once started it seemed you were committed for a much longer (and obviously faster) ride.
He must have sensed my unease, so he said he would just show me. And he did. I watched as he started, slowly at first and then with more speed. He began to teeter, trying to keep his balance with the increasing speed. About half way down the hill he sat down. At that point I lost sight of him. He became part of a large cloud of snow and ice. Not until he reached the bottom of the hill, and the snow settled was he visible. And then, covered with snow, he began waving anxiously for me to follow.
I don't remember that first trip down that hill. I do know we did the small hill a few times before he told me I had mastered the technique and was ready to go to the top of the mountain. The poma lift was difficult to use just to reach the top of this first hill. Now we took it to the top of the mountain. Somehow we made it... skiing uphill, pulled by a rope attached to this small wooden seat between my legs; skis following the rutted, snowy ground.
It was sooo cold. It was a small local ski lodge (long since closed down); but the mountain WAS HIGH...even as measured by my limited experience. It took us three hours to get down that mountain, that day. We went around rocks, through (literally) trees and fell frequently, because just sitting down was not enough, to slow us down.
So I learned how to ski that day. Of course I did learn a few additional techniques on my own in subsequent trips. If I went at an angle 'across the hill' rather than straight down, I would not go so fast. Turns were difficult until someone showed me the 'snow-plow' as a way of making a turn at the end of crossing the face of a hill. Thinking that I had mastered skiing, I went on skiing trips with my friends and began to teach my siblings how to do it. But when I went skiing with my friends I often skied alone, they seemed much more able to handle steeper hills and obviously had advanced methods of turning and balancing.
A few years later, on a trip with a close school friend, I had the chance for some additional training. He proposed that we pool our money and get some tips from a professional ski instructor. I wasn't very excited about it...we would each pay $10!...to get a half hour's instruction ($20 for a half hour seemed outrageous). But he convinced me. The first part of the training was an evaluation. He asked us each to ski towards him and then stop so he could offer some advice and training. My friend went first. When it was my turn, I felt confident and capable, how far I had come from that first training with my cousin! I could have been nervous about stopping correctly or steering in his direction but I was confident... and skiing down the gradual slope, I pulled up in front of him and stopped, waiting for one or maybe two suggestions for improvement.
He said, "you've never had a skiing lesson in your life, have you?"
Well, I did learn how to ski better that day. And I have learned more since. I'm not a good skier...but I can do more than get down the hill. I enjoy the feeling of moving and steering down a slippery slope. It is a feeling very similar to flying.
The Dry Farmer is not opposed to learning. In fact learning is one of his strengths. But he may be easily misguided or depend on folklore (or kin-lore?). Because he can make do; and because he will make do, he may miss the real thing. Believing he knows, when he does not.
He is a Dry Farmer.
