From grasping to glide

Looking for friction where friction free is the natural resource
Wanting to control every movement and every moment
Ends in a mess and disappointment perhaps a tumble
Until you are shown another way to engage
To choose to commit to topple,
let go
Grip happens at a new edge 
pressure builds steady
and ready
To choose to commit to topple, let go
Glide happens at a new edge 
pressure builds
steady and ready
To choose
Let go
Receive
Held and steady
Ready to choose the weaving turns down the mountain
Flow happens sometimes
When you choose
To commit
To trust
Letting go
Arrive at the next turn
Ready to choose
To let go of the last turn
Release
With patience
Just for a beat point straight down the fall line with biomotional integrity over your own feet
Change happens
Steady
Ready
To choose
Roll
Release
Receive
Roll
Release
Receive
As simple as a breathing

This poem was inspired by my ski season journey and in pariticular a micromoment of choice, a micro-“letting go”, the moment when your skis are flat in the transition from one set of edges to the next and pointing downhill, momentarily going faster to slow down as you skis turn across the hill on new edges. A moment shown on many an arc drawn in the snow during a ski lesson. something Casey and every ski instructor in recent memory has talked about before, but I only began to feel it and manage to do it this season reliably, and not every time. Now I can distinguish the difference when I’m skiing a round arcing turn and when I’m not. And OMG! it’s a surprising and delightful brief moment when it works on a steep pitch for the first time.

I have fallen in love with skiing this winter in a new way. Skiing makes me so damn happy. It may be partly a tiny bit of fatigue and sleep deprivation + sun + the outdoors + oxygen debt at altitude? + a micromovent practice – MMIA (myofascial magic in action / movement of magical inner awareness ) + stunning beauty of the mountains + the skiing + the company (Thanks Anna, Cathy, Cathy, Christine, Heather, Laurie, Meg and the rest of the group) + some pretty amazing instructors, (Frazer and Ash, coaching us the last day when Frazer was ill) helping a bunch of older, wiser, amazing women to level up their skiing. So far I’ve skied 24 days and one last one coming up. About a third of my skiing this year was with the Ladies Day ski program, a weekly set of lessons at Lake Louse Ski Resort. I also took a couple first tracks lesson which were memorable in different ways, a true powder day in February and a quiet fresh snow day in March.

Looking back at my weekly notes, I see that I had a list of feedback from the first lesson and that the list eventually got shorter. I also remember the not so graceful moments, but still fun, and everyone survived intact. I applaud the patience and skill of our ski instructors. I really appreciated that our young ski instructor, teaching a group of women mostly older than his mother must be, did not take it particularly easy on us and had us skiing in challenging and varied terrain. In the beginning, I was not even registering what I was doing, only that on the given terrain it was barely adequate, but I wouldn’t die either, which was motivating to give something else a try. All the bad habits were revealed and little by little change happened. Once I was able to position myself over my skis in a balanced position, new micromoments of choice become available. Each one of those was a small thrill. It was a new choice that I did not have before and making small adjustments has transformed my skiing. I am so much improved. I ski faster and in terrain I would not have been happy skiing a few months ago including my least favourite run, Men’s downhill, which I could not get down last year without falling. This year I could get down without falling and at the end of March, I skied down with little drama and I turned to Ash and said, that didn’t feel like Men’s downhill. I want to be a beautiful skier and I want to be skiing for many many more years. At 52 years old, I’m skiing better than I ever have. Sometimes it is beautiful. It’s not always beautiful, but it’s so much fun and that’s a joyful thing!

If you actually read this and would like a bonus ski limerick or two, I wrote a handful, two inspired by some middle school silly, yet to the point ski tips that came up in yoga class on Tuesday. (Thanks, Heather and Suzette.) Just ask, and I’ll share them. I’m not promising I”ll share them publicly. They’re pretty innocent silliness.