So Thankful to be in West Yellowstone Learning to Ski

In the first three hours, I at least doubled my knowledge of skiing. I arrived and was whisked off to a waxing lecture where the Swix expert talked about putting on base waxes, all kinds of fluorocarbons and molys and then powdering the skis. I was completely floored to learn that there were multiple irons that might be used to apply the wax and the temperature was absolutely critical. The take home point was when in doubt wax for colder temps rather than warmer. It became apparent that I needed three days just on waxing and even then I still might not understand waxing. With our registration, we were given free Swix waxing aprons that proved to be incredibly useful. After going to the waxing lecture, it was obvious that I had waxed skis way too little in my previous years of skiing so we headed to the waxing shed. With Peggy's gentle coaching we managed to wax our classic skis and my skate skis. The fog in my head from the lecture began to clear and I realized that I needed to buy waxing tools. Today at lunch I went to the ski shop to buy waxing tools. The woman at the store completely demystified the art of waxing in a ten minute conversation. Although I was very happy I had had the Swix primer the night before, I thought the ski shop version was more my speed. I can hardly wait to wax my skis and take them out for spin.

Well I always new that I was not the best skier out there but with years of skiing under my belt and two semester long classes, I didn't think I was that bad until today.... when I was put in the most remedial of groups. In the morning, with skate skiing, I expected it. I haven't skate skied that often, with the classes, the instructor was a stereotypical coach, leaving us behind if we couldn't keep up. There was no way to blame the equipment because for skate skiing, I had just bought a new pair of boots that really purred. My skis were actually waxed properly unlike the last two years where I've been skiing on waxed skis but I didn't know I was supposed to remove the wax, leaving only a thin layer of wax. With all the new improvements to my equipment, there was no one to blame but myself. Norm Bishop, a nice older gentleman gave me an accurate assessment of my skiing. He gave me multiple drills to help improve my techniques. By the afternoon session I was ready to show someone that really could ski. Yes and ski I could but I still had no technique.

In the afternoon, Norm realized that we had vintage three pin bindings and quickly tracked down some demos skis for us. He was worried that our three pin bindings would tear up the track. The truth is the track was already in poor shape but I thought it was a great excuse to demo skis. However, I do believe the beautiful equipment was lost on my skiing ability. We were treated to trying Salamon demo skis and boots which came complete with a waxing job from the pros. While everyone himmed and hawed over which wax to use the Swix experts had out two sets of skis waxed and ready to go in seconds. The highlight for me was not the skis but listening to experts melodic Midwest accent. I was delighted to discover the waxing experts were from North West Wisconsin (my stomping grounds) and I relished listening to the long "O"s in their dialogue. They didn't seem quite as delighted to discover that I was from Wisconsin, in fact I think they were surprised to learn that I had lived most of my life there. Maybe they were just distracted by the waxing task at hand. Or maybe I'm losing my accent. weep, weep. Shoot have to go back to my people to pick it up again. They pushed us out the door and asked us if we need poles. We said no but they probably would not like our poles either (they were almost as old as the three pin classic waxable skis.). The instructor humbled me with pointing out my many skiing problems. He also had valuable feed back and good drills.

Tonight after eating a Thanksgiving meal that was not traditional but very yummy, determined to get my money's worth out of the clinic, I dragged myself from the hotel for a lecture on technique. Unfortunately I don't know the lecturer's name but he had some very good take home messages: watch experts because we learn from aping others, work on balance, poling is really the same in diagonal and classic, etc. All of it made sense but the highlight of the presentation was when he told us of his first trip to Norway. He told us of his expectation that all Norwegians would be exceptional skiers. It turned out that none of them had any technique (just like me) and they all loved to be outside (just like me). Nothing made my bruised ego feel better than to learn that a whole country that is looked up to for their skiing abilities actually has no technique. Additionally, he said they don't want to learn to lift their feet or learn technique because they think "it's flashy.". Well I'm still going to try to improve my technique, but in the mean time, I will just take comfort knowing there are others out there. Maybe it's my Scandinavian (Swedish) heritage rebelling against technique, but until I learn it, I just need to remember getting outside with mother nature is what it's all about.