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Skiing: Friday 1st February

Today was my first experience at skiing in a fubuki. It was not overly pleasant, but the snow was unbelievable!! The compressor didn’t go over any course so they were all powder and some a little bumpy. I can not begin to explain how awesome skiing in the powder is!! It was a great opportunity to work on my technique because I could ski straighter without a major increase in speed. Here are some of the highlights of my day:

Hotel A Course

I finally braved a mogel course and the end result: I’m so so proud of myself!! The start and end of the course had humungous bumps and the middle part was quite easy in comparison. Naturally, it was all slow, slow, slow and very big zigzags but it has certainly improved my confidence when the other courses are a little bumpy. There were only two really bad things about skiing this course. Firstly, I could only just see my feet let alone anything that was in front of me! It was so foggy and so snowy. Hence, how the second problem came about. I ended up waist deep in snow. Partly because I couldn’t see properly and partly because I couldn’t stop properly. So, here I am stuck waist deep in snow facing my right, which meant any attempt to keep moving right would land me off piste in the trees, so first thing was to turn around. It was so HARD! You’ve no idea! All up I spent about 5 minutes trying to get out of that pile of snow and when I finally did, I was buggered!! On my way down, two Aussies I had met the day before came through and they are so good! After a quick hello, they were gone out of sight. Anyway, when I finally saw the shed for the lift my first thought was “Woohoo!!!! I made it!!!!!” But it wasn’t quite the end. Remember how I said the start and finish were really hard? Well, the end was so steep! I think Pei said it’s 32 degrees. Yikes! I did a little bit of zigzagging and then just went straight. Not the smartest move on a bumpy course! I didn’t fall though! =)

All up, it took me 20 minutes to go from top to bottom and that includes wading through waist deep snow, falling over a few times, having to try and put both skis back on once after falling over and one ski on once after falling over, rest breaks and, of course, the skiing. Pretty quick in my opinion!

I met my coach!

In an earlier blog I mentioned a ski instructor, who, whenever he saw me, would start yelling out “PUSH, PUSH, PUSH!” Well, today I actually spoke to him because he wasn’t teaching but was skiing with a group of guys who all wear jackets with “Akakura Masters” on the back. I didn’t notice him until I heard the “PUSH, PUSH, PUSH!” from down the hill. So, I skied down to him and asked him to explain what he actually meant by ‘push, push, push’. It’s basically to do with my turning and even though I kept saying “yes I understand but it’s not that easy”, all I got as a reply was “It’s fine, it’s fine!”

Improvement!

After meeting my coach I tried what he said and it really helped!!! If I had the slopes to myself as I normally do because it’s a weekday and no one is there, it would’ve been so good. (Like last week, there are 250 uni students here on a camp, so it’s kind of busy.) So, if you take away the having to dodge heaps of other skiers and the fact that the course was a little bumpy and therefore still caused a few moments of panic, I’m gaining more control when I a) speed up and b) ski with little zigzags. Also, my right turn has improved. I still have a triangle but it’s a much narrower one. The problem is that I feel unsteady when I shift my right heel to make it parallel and I’m not sure why. But still, getting there. I’m probably going to go night skiing on Monday night. Pei and I are both wanting more ski time, but if we do that, we need to pay for the lift ticket as well as a taxi home. So, maybe one or twice a week? Not sure yet.

Painful end to the day

Obviously this is not a highlight but it’s what happened when I was skiing back to my dorm. From the Hotel B course, there is a turn off which leads straight to my dorm and that’s how I get back. Today, I skied along this path as usual but because it was so foggy, I couldn’t see far in front and when I came to the level part of the road a truck had driven up and left a massive wall of snow up the sides and when you need to cross that… It was a similar thing on Monday, except on that day, I made it through. Today I didn’t. It was too thick and too high. My skis got stuck and fell flat on face and although I know it seems funny, if freakin’ HURT!!!! Thankfully my boots came out of my skis, but I still managed to hurt my left knee, wind myself a little and I must have hit my chin because I had a sore jaw. OUCH!!!!!!!!! I did this after receiving news that a friend had fractured her spine horse riding and my dad had broken his foot on a 4 inch high step! Yes, let’s all just injure ourselves! Anyway, I’m feeling better now. My knee still hurts a bit walking up and down stairs, but it’ll be fine in the morning. To Dad and Jen, I hope you’re feeling at least a little better! To everyone else, I don’t want to receive news that one of you has injured yourself, so stay safe!! Apart from night skiing, I won’t be out on the slopes again until the 13th February because I’m off to Tokyo on the 5th and won’t come back until the 7th. Depending on the weather on the 13th, I’ll probably try my hand at Champion A course. Can’t wait! =D

Ski Goals

These seem to keep changing after each day of skiing!! After my first lesson, my long term goal was to ride the gondola and ski down before I left… did that on my second day! My next long term goal was to ski from the top of the mountain before I left… did that on my third day! Then I thought I need to do an advanced course… done that and thought it was easier than one of the intermediate ones! Next goal was to do a mogel course… did that today! I suppose my goal now could be to do Champion A, but I will do that in two weeks. So, what I’ve decided is that my long term goal is: Before I leave I want to be able to ski Hotel C, Hotel B, Hotel Main, Hotel Beginner courses without stopping and with only small zigzags. I think that’s a challenging yet realistic goal. I could always say I want to be able to ski Champion A like a pro, but I don’t think that’s going to happen!