 Poster: A snowHead
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Would you teach other half how to golf?
Thought not!
And you don't even fall in golf
(Mind you a whack oveer the head with a golf club will hurt more than a ski pole)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Stylister wrote: |
| Who thinks it is a good idea to encourage their other half to ski or snowboard? |
I think it's a bad idea, generally. If your partner wants to do it, fine, but I'd still recommend that you arrange lessons from someone else, and don't ride together until your partner can ride at your level.
The sexes are different in this respect, based on what I've seen:
(1) If the male's better, then usually she can take it, but his presence often increases her stress and reduces her confidence. This is a nightmare for guides, who have to try to separate the pair without them noticing that they're being managed. If you don't do that, she loses and he gets angry.
(2) If it's the other way around, when the bloke is weaker, it just gets ugly. I've yet to see a male who can take getting his back bottom kicked by his partner plus a bunch of other blokes, they hate every minute of it. For blokes, their whole manhood is at stake, they really do find it extremely hard, to judge from what I've seen.
I just don't want to ride with pairs who don't ride at the same standard, irrespective of which way around it is, because I know how it ends.
Medium term it seems to me that such pairs are heading for trouble. The better partner has to settle for pootling around, or just give the sport up. The same is true of most other sports which require significant skill - windsurfing, climbing, caving. Usually they try the "pootling" thing for a while and then give up. My advice: the partner who rides should just give up the sport if they can't bear to be away from their partner. The other way around doesn't usually work.
Riding with someone else's partner on the other hand can be a delight.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| philwig wrote: |
| Stylister wrote: |
| Who thinks it is a good idea to encourage their other half to ski or snowboard? |
Riding with someone else's partner on the other hand can be a delight. |
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I've skied with a couple where one half who was perfectly capable has just ended up freezing and being unable to move at more than a snail's pace, resulting in an escort from the mountain by patrol. All because the other half had taken them where they perceived they didn't like even though objectively it was identical to other places they'd skied perfectly happily all day. Couple psychology is weird. To be honest was tempted to ditch the pair of them that day.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| peanuthead wrote: |
| (Mind you a whack oveer the head with a golf club will hurt more than a ski pole) |
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Quote: |
All because the other half had taken them where they perceived they didn't like
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Fnar
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Richard_Sideways, Maybe that was the true reason
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philwig, think you pretty well encapsulate it all pretty well in your post 
As many know come a bluebird powder day many are engulfed by almost the same sort of red mist that people get when nearing a summit, and the last thing you want is being beholden to your other half (who if weaker) will hold you up getting to the untracked that might still be left.
This year whilst I was in Tignes we took a guide with us for three half days, we were also joined by a couple, one far stronger than the other, and it was a nightmare. Rather than "her" gently bowing out after a couple of runs for a coffee pitstop as it was so obvious "she" was holding us back, "she" insisted on staying with us but was then adamant in what terrain she wished to ski as opposed to what the majority of us wanted 
It was total brain feck, and her husband just went along with it, by the end of the second day my other half could see my blood boiling at the thought of doing another morning with her, and bravely sacrificed herself by suggesting that her husband and I should go off with the guide to do our own thing the following day, even then hubby kept saying that she would be able to handle the conditions, in the end I had to really spell it out to him, it was almost as if he had blinkers on to it!
So it did not affect him, he loved the idea of his dear wife with him regardless of the impact on him and on others.
Being in the mountains can be so tortuous at times with partners, and great on other occasions. I'm blessed in that my other half will bow out if she can sense my frustration at seeing untracked going begging and maybe a tad demanding to reach, again the red mist scenario.
However I love ski touring with her, as she's pretty damn fit at climbing so no issue in waiting around, and after climbing for 1000m you do tend to take your time on the descent and not get so wound up as to where to get the next stash of fresh, because you know once down that's often it for the day.
If we have a guide then she is far more confident in her capabilities (which says a lot for me), where as if it's just the two of us she's definitely more nervous, hardly surprising as I have been known to fall off cliff's, that said we have a great time in the trees
There is a core group of around eight of us (male), out of the eight two of the partners are good off piste skiers and will do most things. However we still do our "boys" week's because both of the partners know they would not be up to it, or we'd allow them to come out with us on the last day maybe 
It's not a sexist thing, if one of our group was a female and could hack the conditions then fine. I've had my legs ripped off on more than a couple of occasions by the wives of some Swedish guide mates 
But for the vast majority of non seasonairre Brits I'd guess you'd be lucky to see upwards of 5% females skiing hard?
Think a couple of years ago when I spent a couple of days with some Snowheads on the Spring Off Piste Bash there was not one woman skiing with us on those days, though think HellsBells made it over to La Grave later in the week.
So I spend a lot of time with the other half, doing everything from x-country, piste cruising with daughters and the like and friends who stay with us, ski touring,off piste, skiing and snowboarding (though she will not kite) plus a couple of trips to the Arctic, but she does have the capability to recognise when to let me go, and that is brilliant 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Weathercam, you are Stylister's husband, right?
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miranda, yes, and it's been interesting watching people accuse her of being sexist, which is so far from the truth, I really had to stop myself from weighing in yesterday.
Oh is there some SnowHeads rule that I'm not aware of that forbids other halves from posting on the same thread 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Weathercam wrote: |
Oh is there some SnowHeads rule that I'm not aware of that forbids other halves from posting on the same thread |
Of course there's no such rule - why do you even ask?
The opening post to this thread displays a sexist attitude, irrespective of whether Stylister generally displays a sexist attitude in life.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Stylister if you had said, "I know about the woman's perspective because I have to encourage/teach my husband to ski and get held back by him at times, so I want to know what it's like for men who have to do the same with their wives"... fine. In fact you said you didn't ask about women because you already have the woman's perspective, and in doing so you assume the woman's perspective is being the one that needs encouraging/teaching and the man's perspective is that of being the one that needs to teach/encourage. That is why your post was interpreted as sexist by a few people, me included.
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You know it makes sense.
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Weathercam, yes, of course it was sexist - as phrased it assumed not only that "teachers" would be male but that "she" might hold him up wanting to have lunch and cruise the blues. It could easily have been rephrased to avoid any gender assumptions. The fact that the OP was a woman is completely irrelevant to whether the post was sexist - the sad fact is that many people are completely oblivious to their sexist assumptions. In fact we all are, sometimes - it's something to guard against (e.g. saying that "men" will waste an hour driving around rather than stop and ask the way whereas we know that only some men are that daft). 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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I guess it doesn't really cater for my gay friends, or the trans people... and I've no idea where it leaves my deaf snowboarding mates, or my sit-ski buddy, or those who have no "partner" at all. I'm still finding it hard to get offended though.
| Quote: |
| ...in the end I had to really spell it out to him, it was almost as if he had blinkers on to it |
Yeah, that's exactly how it is. If you've a weak guide, or a very rich pair of married people, it's going to end badly.
And for those who're tired with sexism, here's some ageism:
The other way this one works is when you get a parent and child. Almost always the children are spoilt brats who can barely ride, but their parents insist they're Franz Klammer. Almost every time they turn out to be just kiddie skiers who'd be happier somewhere they could not die. Once again the "other half" of the pair "doesn't notice" that little Tiffany/Oscar is in fact wasting the day of the rest of the party....
I guess you would not put yourself in that position if you had any concern for other people, so perhaps this is inevitable.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I don't like the stereotyping going on, either. I also think the question is too vague to get good answers.
There's a world of difference between 'encouraging' and 'teaching'.
Many people aren't good teachers to begin with, so mix that with a personal relationship and you have a recipe for trouble in most cases. The same applies to parents teaching their kids to drive. So, 'teaching your other half to ski' is usually going to be a bad idea. If rob@rar doesn't want to teach his partner, the average holiday skier is unlikely to do better!
If you love to ski, surely it's a good idea to encourage your other half to try it to see if they'll love it too? If they don't like it, that's fine and you can go with other people and let your partner indulge their hobby at another time. If they do like it, they're obviously not going to immediately be as good as you, because they've only just started!
I feel sorry for people whose relationships can't handle one half being more or less skilled than the other, at skiing or indeed anything. Surely if you go on holiday with your partner you want to spend time with them and you'll ski more gently to adapt to their level? I enjoy spending some of my holiday skiing more challenging stuff alone, or with randoms, or with an instructor, but I also enjoy pooling around easier slopes with my husband. I also really enjoy seeing him improve his skills. I'm fairly confident he doesn't feel emasculated that I ski better than he does, and our relationship seems to be able to survive a few hours spent apart!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
it was almost as if he had blinkers on to it
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That's pretty much it! Whether it's intimate relationship or strangers in a group, MANY people are simply too self-centered to notice nor understand what other people are going through.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Maireadoconnor wrote: |
I feel sorry for people whose relationships can't handle one half being more or less skilled than the other, at skiing or indeed anything. Surely if you go on holiday with your partner you want to spend time with them and you'll ski more gently to adapt to their level? I enjoy spending some of my holiday skiing more challenging stuff alone, or with randoms, or with an instructor, but I also enjoy pooling around easier slopes with my husband. I also really enjoy seeing him improve his skills. I'm fairly confident he doesn't feel emasculated that I ski better than he does, and our relationship seems to be able to survive a few hours spent apart! |
+1
Depressing to see a guide suggesting that partners shouldn't ride together until they're at the same level and that men can't handle it when their female partner is a better skier than them. For a long time I was much better at skiing than my husband and, when we skied with a group of blokes who were also much better than him, sometimes we'd all ski together and sometimes the rest of us took a different route and met up with him afterwards without any grief.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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There's an enormous difference between "all of the men/women I've known in that situation have fit this description" (not sexist) and "...therefore because you're a man/woman I expect you will fit this description" (sexist).
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It depends entirely on the persons involved. I was taught to ski by an ex-gf (not an ex through any clash of minds in skiing, but through other circumstance) and it was no hassle at all. She was patient, I listened, she'd been skiing since she could crawl, she discovered I had quite possibly more natural ability than she did and it all was fine ! She was, however, and no doubt still is, a much better skier than I will ever be, but then she lives in mountains and I live in a flat village in England. It was never a problem - I loved the challenge of keeping up 
Teach my wife ? Not a hope in hell. Reasons ? Easy.......
.....no possibility of annoying the hell out of each other when it's not going well - let someone else deal with that !
.....she'd learn quicker and better with a better, more professional instructor than I
.....she'd listen to an instructor more than me
.....she can have a laugh learning with no fear of looking silly in front of me because she cant do something she feels she ought to be able to (in her culture, this is a big no-no), I'll have a laugh skiing and we'll have a laugh together when she can string a few turns together and get down an easy red - doesnt matter if she comes a cropper once she's got the hang of it a bit, cos she's already skiing then !
.....I cant afford a divorce !
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| philwig wrote: |
| Stylister wrote: |
| Who thinks it is a good idea to encourage their other half to ski or snowboard? |
(2) If it's the other way around, when the bloke is weaker, it just gets ugly. I've yet to see a male who can take getting his back bottom kicked by his partner plus a bunch of other blokes, they hate every minute of it. For blokes, their whole manhood is at stake, they really do find it extremely hard, to judge from what I've seen.
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This is a typical alpha male characteristic. Try riding with people who have a better balance of empathy and testosterone ! 
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| Quote: |
For blokes, their whole manhood is at stake,
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another sexist generalisation. I was a better skier than my OH and I think it's true to say he wasn't bothered by that at all. And when our kids were little he was the stay-at-home parent when I went out to work (because he was dedicated to an academic pursuit/research which wasn't ever going to make any money but which was very important to him).
Not all men have their manhood based on such a fragile premise that it is threatened by a partner who can ski better than them.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Encourage? Nope. She'd have to be into it already, or at least previously keen on the idea of trying. If they're not interested in the activity I'm probably not going to be interested in them
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I have taught two partners to ski, & the 1st split was for other reasons, & I quite enjoy the challenge. I was tested, however, with the 2nd as on the 1st trip, sharp peaks of Chamonix above in the morning, she shouted at the top of her voice (that loud the lift attendant 200 yards away looked up) while she was curled up in a huddle in a blzzard in the afternoon - 'get me off this f-----g mountain now'. To which I explained we would have to ski down to - pointing to the bemused lift attendant. That was 10 years ago, tried to teach her to snowboard instead the next year but those damn drag lifts on the nursery slope weren't cooperative. Tried paying for lessens but that did not work, so I cut my losses and hired some blades, then short skis, then daily a bit longer, by the end of the week she had forgotten all that snowplough crap I could get her out of, and has parallel skied ever since. does the whole range of pistes and mogul skis the severe blacks like Le Face, Val d'isere. I cannot persuade her off-piste however, and have now bought a mono so that we are at a similar speed. The challenge continues though, as it is my passion, a bit like warm summer holidays are hers, which I detest, so it's fare swap given my arm twisting for skiing holidays every Xmas.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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[quote="pam w"]
| Quote: |
Not all men have their manhood based on such a fragile premise that it is threatened by a partner who can ski better than them. |
You're right, probably about 10% of males so that still leaves 90% of us that are out and out sexist chauvinist pigs, and long may we reign
Satire is based upon generalisation
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I think the only time gender has come into things is when OH was trying to encourage me to get into road cycling and I really wasn't taking to it very well - I just found it really uncomfortable and, literally, a pain in the back bottom which kept putting me off going out, which also meant I couldn't improve and therefore saw no benefit and wanted to sell the bike. OH and our male friends were a bit "rule 5" about the whole thing and just kept telling me that it would get better but I had to battle through to get there.... thankfully I mentioned this on here and Batman 123 told me that was nonsense and to get a proper women's saddle. This made the world of difference and meant that I finally enjoyed cycling and was happily going out and cycling up the col on my own without any need of encouragement (thank you so much by the way Batman 123)... Just wish the saddle didn't have a pink flower on it and wasn't called "Diva" 
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You know it makes sense.
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What with all the housework and nail painting it amazes me people have time to search the net looking for sexist remarks to get offended by
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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philwig, so according to your reasoning, us birds should never presume to do any kind of sport (or indeed other activity) with a bloke unless we are a) rubbish at it or b) prepared to pretend to be rubbish at it. That's sounding very boring to me.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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When I took my boyfriend home for the first time, almost the first question my Mum and Dad (ski nuts) put to him was "Do you ski?"! (he had been once with his school so he said yes and I was allowed to marry him a few years later!). My sister's boyfriend had to answer no ( or rather "not yet") and so he went off to a dry slope and learnt...!
For our first few holidays together my OH and I both went to ski school - he to learn, and I to find like minded people of similar standard to ski with. All of my class was "other halves" of beginners/intermediates for several years running - fun and sociable for both of us, skiing with people at the same level and also with each other after lessons. You don't have to spend every minute together.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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abc, why not just get some pink flower stickers for your saddle? You'll find plenty of appropriate sticker books in the kids' section of any newsagent.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Sat 23-11-13 18:41; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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There are some threads where it really is best to just STFU . . . just saying like 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| miranda wrote: |
| abc, why not just get some pink flower stickers for your saddle? You'll find plenty of appropriate sticker books in the kids' section of any newsagent. |
Are you sure they'll stay put? With sweat and all the rubbing a saddle has to endure...
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abc, you might find you could suffer from some chafeing. Or chaffing, as some cyclists on snowheads insist on calling it.
And please don't talk too much about all that rubbing on your saddle; Boris might venture into this thread and you'll get him going..................
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Wow... there are some interesting attitudes on here!
My wife taught me to ski, I taught her to kitesurf...she picked it up in a day, She rocks!
We learned to climb together, and pushed each other up the grades!
I don't find it hard to accept instructions from her... out anyone who is better than me, or has more knowledge, as I have always found that my ego is best left at home when indulging in potentially dangerous sports or activities.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I have to say I reacted just like pam w, to the initial opening question, which seemed to presume that "laydees" a. Are always inferior skiers to start off with and b. only ski blues then head off for lunch and wimp out the rest of the day. My OH and I were middling to good skiers when we got together and have enjoyed improving together over the last 8 years. We don't teach each other, but thankfully we seem to be pretty much on the same level. He is more adventurous and faster than me, but then I am the one who, if we are off piste, makes sure we don't end up in the wrong place, exercises the appropriate level of caution, and I am the one who gets her head around the piste map. He is definitely my favourite person to ski with. As the boys (18 and 21) get older and do their own thing, and Mr P's best mate is invalided out for this season, he has to put up with me even more!
We are both equally obsessed with skiing (currently our weekend morning routine involves both lying in bed with iPads: I'm on the forum typing this, he's watching ski videos, having checked the snow forecast for next week and brought me my Sunday morning tea and toast!  )
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| abc wrote: |
| miranda wrote: |
| abc, why not just get some pink flower stickers for your saddle? You'll find plenty of appropriate sticker books in the kids' section of any newsagent. |
Are you sure they'll stay put? With sweat and all the rubbing a saddle has to endure... |
you just need to ensure that you smooth in lots of Assoss anti-chafeing cream before you go for a ride.
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