 Poster: A snowHead
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You said in my 'bindings' thread you are of similar stature and in another I notice you are struggling to move from snowplough turns to parallel, but are further down the road than me cos I have not even tried yet! I also find turning to the left a real challenge sometimes!
To me this swoosh swoosh, gentle, apparently effortless, rhythmic descent looks so easy - so WHY can't I just do it???
I had a few lessons at Castleford before my inaugural trip to the real stuff and got to doing very slow snowplough turns on the nursery slope, but the main one scared me rigid! WHen away I conquered a chair lift and managed to get reasonably confident doing s/p turns on steeper terrain (well it seemed steep to me LOL), but there were sections on the "easiest" blue that freaked me out! My 1st run down that 1100m slope took me about 45 mins! It didn't help that in the steeper bits it sloped away to the right, meaning that turning in my weaker direction meant I was having to turn uphill at the same time too, and my decreasing speed as I psyched myself up for each one (yes, I am scared of going too fast!) meant I kept grinding to a halt!!
On going back to Cas I managed to move on and now can ski without supervision, managing the whole slope, but the knees still knock all the way down the steepest bit, tho the lower half is getting much easier!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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NewSkier, we've all been there - and I remember only too well what it was like! Give it time - and practice, and you'll get there!
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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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I know it seems odd, but speed helps. Moving from snowplought to parallel is much easier with anit more speed
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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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NewSkier, a couple of very helpful things that did wonders for Mrs PeteMillis.....the instructor pointed out to her that she should only look a couple or few turns ahead. The bottom of the hill is "in the future" and not to be worried about. And to help with turns, imagine you are squeezing an orange with the toes of your right foot when you want to turn left, and squeezing an orange with the toes of your left foot when you want to turn right. Forget about all the angulation and pressurising skis crap. Within a few minutes my wife had gone from strictly shaky snowplough turns to stem parallel turns and was much more confident getting down the hill.
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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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Persist! (both of you) My incredibly nervous friend has been skiing 3 times, and always been bona fide terrified of slopes most of us consider normal blues. This year he magically gets it and was happily tootling around the blues and reds of valloire in a very professional looking parallel turn. I've no idea what happenned but thought you might appreciate the ray of hope! 
aj xx
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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NewSkier, You've no idea how many chords in me you strike in your post, I totally get:
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To me this swoosh swoosh, gentle, apparently effortless, rhythmic descent looks so easy - so WHY can't I just do it???
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Boy do I get it, sheesh.........
By the way I'm 38 yrs old - that may also be similar, but in build we are very close - even down to identically sized boots!!. I've skied to point of getting down a very simple blue slope for two weeks (one last year and one this year) - I also skied for two separate weeks about 10 years ago, but never got beyond the kinder lift. In the last two years I have maanged 7 x 1hr private lessons on holiday - 4 this year. I don't know what is driving you to try and ski, but with me it is the fact that the kids are learning and to some extent I will need to be able to roam across a mountain and be in the same vicinity as them before too much longer. Last year I was completely elated to find that I could snow plough down the easy blue slope - I never thought I had it in me, so this year with encouragement from the  's got some boots as a reward. I'm still waiting for the a.j., 'I've no idea what happened' concept to happen to me though. What I did do this year was to look into myself and decide that I was determined to do my best with it, and to some extent got a little cross with myself. There are steeper bits on my slope (followed by an uphill 5-6m or so) if you hit them at a certain direction. So I decided I wouldn't be happy until I could get down it, and reasoned that if I could get down then the uphill sloe would stop me enough to get turned. Once I could do this I found that pure practice, practice found me turning on that bit too - though I must have gone across it 40+ times. My parallel is making progress, but I still find myself sicking to a good ole snow plough turn when I think it is too steep - though I have to admit on the odd occasion that I was going too fast to easily snowplough and panicking this year 'cos the muddy section was approaching, that I turned and somehow it felt great - it came parallel and seemed to flow, so there might be something in this speed thing. Another thing I found was to switch off sometimes and think about something else - for example when my kids were on the hill and I was half watching out for them I think I skied better because I stopped worrying about it.
It's a pity Castleford's so far away from me - I checked it out on the map yesterday - I'm near to Maldon in deepest flatest Essex. I think we could bolster one another up if we skied together - so far the only people I ski with have been doing it since they could first walk, and that's sometimes rather demoralising when..........you can't work out why YOU/I can't GET IT.....Aaargh.
However, if you want encouragement off the slope you won't do better than this bunch here. Don't forget if you have something that you don't want to admit in the open here you can always PM me - I might not know a solution, but there's every likelihood I could empathise with the situation.
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Megamum, I too understand what you and NewSkier, are feeling, when I watch others flowing beautifully downhill I think one day, please one day, let me be able to do that!!
When I watched myself on the video, nothing of the sort!!
But I will say on my 2nd trip (at christmas), conditions were not great, very icy and much scarier (I actually sobbed), but I kept thinking I'm only here for a week, get on with it, so I did, let myself go a bit quicker and relaxed a little... and triumphantly completed a red run!!  and enjoyed it 
Although we had morning lessons we skied with the kids in the afternoon, although the eldest are both competant and confident, my 7 yr old thinks he's a pro, but goes too fast for my liking which made me very nervous and not at all relaxed,
therefore mr feefee and I along with our friends are going to LDA this weekend, without kids!! I am hoping if I just have to worry about me it will all come together, fingers crossed 
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feefee, Good for you - go for it - I think we ought to have a sticky new beginners thread to all egg one another on in.
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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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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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feefee, I'm sure at times I had the ski sunday music going through my brain - whether this coincided with skiing I'm not sure!
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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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Megamum, how far is Milton Keynes from deepest flat Essex? As you say, skiing with someone who can empathise could help and I could get down there for a day from time to time as I only work part time.
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Its about 90 miles or so from me - meeting up is not impossible, but family commitments means I have to carefully plan such things. At this time of year the goats are kidding for the next couple of months, but after that if you get a possible day then please let me know.
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You know it makes sense.
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Sounds possible - my time gets easier in the summer too as much of my work is with uni students in normal semester time - after Easter they are into revision/exam time. May or June might be good .
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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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At some point in your skiing you may suddenly forget to be scared and the feeling of just 'swooshing along' takes over. And you suddenly find that when you relax and let just the skis go it all falls into place. Skiing is 10% technique and 90% confidence after all
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Poster: A snowHead
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Sounds OK to me I'll leave it to you to suggest dates
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Scarpa, someone did tell me that gluhwein for lunch is an excellent aide to forgetting your fear in the afternoon ---- for some reason I didn't try it!
Um.... when you say "it all falls into place" I kind of get the vision of the place everything falls into - the white stuff on the ground! Seriously I do take your point and know that only time/practice will raise the confidence levels, which is why I intend to go along to the indoor snowslope when i can during this year.
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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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Megamum, Ok - will do so when I know what the post-Easter diary looks like, but give me a nudge if I seem to have forgotten!
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FAQ
