Flying on the sky--my ski beginner notes with pain yet joy

Ski gave me more pain than any other sports, but no matter how much I complained, I was always attracted back, magically.

Not kidding, ski is probably the sport which gave me the most pain, not because of falling down (I was too slow to feel pain when falling), but because of the sore muscle and painful knee suffering from the pressure.  Every time after ski, I felt my whole body was broken apart, every piece of my body was screaming and complaining how much they hated ski. No need to mention how “user-unfriendly” this sport is: strict requirements for the weather and geology, thus every year when I restarted this sport I was nervous how much I still remembered from the last year. Oh also the cost for the equipments (rental or purchase) and entrances to the ski resorts are very expensive.

There was a funny story when I ski in Austria for the first time, which was sort of celebrating the wedding we had in Zee Am See at Alps the day before.  Romantic sounding isn’t it. However, Tim and I underestimated the difficulty of the "beginner run" in Austria, and Tim overestimated my ski capability and over encouraged me by saying "come on you can do it, ski down the hill". So unfortunately I got stuck on the middle of no where, and ended up walking down the hill with the stupid heavy ski boots. Although Tim was carrying my ski for me and ski slowly companying me, I still felt really painfully as the ski boots are uncomfortable and embarrassing for walking. Even worse, I did not see any hope that how could I possibility improve! I said this to Tim hatefully:" I am not going to ski anymore, defiantly not!" 

But in the second day, the whole family went up a tall hill called “Kitzsteinhorn” by a cable car, and I watched again that how the advanced skiers fly on the mountains like birds, I forgot my swear one day before, and told Tim:”You know what? I think I am going to try again."

The reason I want to write my ski notes now is that I feel very cheerful about my ski experience in the past weekend. Last Sunday it was the first time I had a taste of the wonderful feeling of flying on the mountains. Although only on the beginner blue runs, but I managed to continuously ski from one hill to another, which are connected by cable cars and chari-lifts. One important reason was that the ski resort in Kitzbühel is really good for beginners, slow and wide slopes everywhere on the top of continuous mountains. 

But what made me so cheerful was that I improved myself when I did not realize I could. In the end of Saturday, I actually felt too exhausting to bear even one more step on ski. Until Sunday mooring I was still not sure if I can go ski again in Sunday. I am so happy that I finally decided to give it a go, even if I thought I was not going to last long. Surprisingly it turn out that I improved my ski skill a lot in Sunday. It is so true that when one’s muscle feels sore, it is the best timing to learn! In my case, because my right leg is more powerful than my left one, I always rely on my right leg more. However when my right leg struck, I had to use my left leg, and in that way I managed to learn how to use both legs more equally. Also because I always used the low-efficient snow-plow position to speed down, my knee was suffering from pressure since Saturday. To decrease the pain, I had to learn how to decrease the pressure by overcoming my scarceness of fast speed, and turn my ski to be more parallel rather than snow-plow. There are what I always wanted to learn in my brain, but  you know even if the brain understands, the body might not listen to the brain. I am pleased with myself about the improvement I got so far, and wish to push my comfort zone further, hopefully sometime not long in the future, I can challenge the medium-level red runs.

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My ski timeline:

My hometown is in the southeast of China, there are many hills, but hardly any snow. So I didn’t have any idea about ski until 2010.

20100127 Beijing Olympic Park (A ski toy)

I called it a toy as it was indeed a manmade toy: a small and slow slope covered by manmade snow. But it was perfect to be my first taste of ski. That year the Beijing Olympic Park was transferred to a ice&snow world, and I went to there with lots of friends as the annual department event. My friend XiaoFeng taught me how to use snow-plow to slow down in a straight line. That was basically my first lesson. Simple but a good start for me to be interested on ski.

20110108 & 20110116  Smoky Mountain in USA

That winter I went to Tennessee, where there is a huge mountain range-The Smoky Mountain National Park. I went to ski twice there. The first time when I saw the ski-resort there, I was impressed about how big it was. Comparing with the only ski-resort I have even seen (the toy one in Beijing Olympic), probably any resort would look impressively big… When I posted the post online, one of my friends in Europe told me, oh that is a tiny one. I was confused until later I moved to Austria, and saw the real ski mountains.

In Smoky Mountain, Tim told me how to use turning to stop. Tim does not like snow-plow, which is indeed a low-efficient position, so he tried to teach me how to ski with parallel ski plates. I could not continuously ski, as I did not feel safe about the fast speed when I feel I could not control it. Instead I used turning to stop, and then start again, stop and start again. A bit silly, but worked well for the blue runs in the Smoky mountain resort.

20140214 Zell Am See, West Austria

After 3 years without any practicing, I tried ski in Alps.  Since I could do the blue runs in Smoky mountain, Tim and I thought I can try the blue runs in Alps too. We were very wrong! The blue runs are also called “beginner runs” in Austria, but they are much more difficult than the blue runs in Smoky Mountains… Anyway, what Tim tried to teach me did not work anymore, as using turning to continuously stop also costed a lot of muscle work. My muscle is never strong, which can only last for ~1 hour for this kind of intense work. So I got stuck in the middle of a long blue run. Now I can probably ski over it for 10 mins, but you would be surprised how long it took to walk down. 

Before restarting ski this year, I was reading an article called “Top 10 Tips for Beginners” to refresh my memory about ski, and found the No.5 is as below: 

5. Don't Learn From a Loved One

This may come as a shock to you, but your wife or husband who is a professional ski instructor should NOT be the one to teach you how to ski. Learning a new sport will no doubt get you frustrated and scared, emotions that can often turn into anger and resentment towards the person that is teaching you. Getting into a fight in the middle of a ski slope is not the best idea as you might wind up by yourself with no one to help you get down. Trust us, get a lesson from a stranger whom you're more likely to be nice to if something doesn't go your way.

I have to say, each single sentence of this paragraph is soooo true! I wish I had seen it last year~

20150221-25 Saalbach-Hinterglemm, West Austria

I had not thought about paying for a ski instructor, as Tim is good enough for me, and also sometimes I feel embarrassing to talk with strangers I do not know. But I was soooo lucky. Right after I nearly lost my hope on improving ski from the last trip, my boss organized a workshop in his wooden house inside Alps. And even more wonderfully, he was working as a ski instructor when he was in college. So I managed to get some professional lessons from him. He is a wonderful instructor, as he knows what is called “ordinary beginner”! We had the training at a slope near his house, which was called “a baby slope” by him. And indeed on the slope there were a group of 4-5 kids who might attend a ski school. 

I learned how to stop at the hill when ever I want, by snow-plow, and how to use body weight to turn, rather than only using the leg muscle. By lowing down my body, I can make sure my weight was on the front part of my feet, and I felt much safer with the steep slope.  This was the most important ski trip for me, it gave me the comfort feeling that I am safe, therefore I am more willing to try more.

20150301 Stuhleck, near Vienna

Stuhleck is one of the most closet ski resorts from Vienna, about one-hour train distance. But because Vienna is at the tail of Alps, the hill in Stuhleck is not too tall, the snow is not as good as further west Austria either. But it is one day trip from vienna, rather than 6 hours train to Kitzbühel. I practiced what I learnt a week ago, and found out oh dear I was not as comfortable as before. This is the difficulty of ski. Can not practice easily at anytime or any location.

20160213-14 Kitzbühel, West Austria

Last one was the one we went last weekend, the most wonderful ski experience I had so far. At Saturday it again took a while for me to find the feeling back, and right at the beginning I got stuck at a red-run slope between two blue runs, because the map doesn’t mark it clearly. Luckily everything is getting better after a while. Have to say, finding a proper ski resort is soo important. It can not be too difficult than your capability, otherwise you lost the hope. It can not be too easy, otherwise there is no fun. I love that people built all sort of different runs with different levels in Kitzbühel, especially the blue ones on the top of hills. Because even beginners can also appreciate the wonderful mountain scenery and enjoy flying on the sky!