Monday, August 28, 2006

Skiing

Well, I finally got to visit the South Island! I made one major error in that I flew down at night and so couldn't see any of the views that I was looking forward to seeing. When I flew back on Sunday we flew over the sea so again didn't see anything (but it was my first time flying in a airplane that had propellers rather than jet engines!).

Porter Heights Ski slopes
I did however get to go skiing for the first time ever! It was kind of fun but I think I moved to from the started slope to the beginners slope a little too quickly in that I always felt I was going too fast so would fall over in panic. This combined with how I woke up the night several times panicking that I was going downhill too fast in my sleep demonstrates that I have control-freak type issues going on!

I did develop my own method of turning as I couldn't get the hang of the way I was taught. My method basically involved shoving my sticks as deep into the snow as I could and using them as a pivot to turn my body. This worked but I have never been in as much pain as I was that night, and this from one days skiing!

My legs ached from trying to snowplough so hard my arms ached from my unique turning method. I ached! And this after 4 hours, how do people do this for a week? Add in to this a depressing array of small children who it seemed could ski with their eyes closed and probably do backflips. I guess it is good to be humbled from time to time.

Now at this point I want to make a brief aside about sport. Why is it that at a certain point in our lives it is how much we hurt after doing something that defines how good something is rather than how much fun it was? Example would be going to the gym and coming home in agony but feeling good because as some level we hope that because it hurts so much it most have done some good to our bodies somewhere along the line.

Rants aside I did kind of enjoy skiing and I would gladly go again (and probably will next year). I will endeavor to be a bit more laid back about it. And I am going on a tour of parts of the south island in October so more on there then.

3 comments:

Natalie said...

heheheheheh...
james has a blog!!!
time for INVASION OF THE NATALIE.

i like skiing. i go wooooosh woooosh woooosh and this year i made it off the learners' slopes! you are right though, it does make you ache everywhere and have skiing dreams but it is SO TOTALLY WORTH IT! and i love being on chairlifts: best chance for God time EVER: you are alone, uninterrupted, and are surrounded by totally amazing stuff that God has made.
let's go skiing now!

Natalie said...

INVASION OF JAMES' BLOG PART 2

oi! hurry up and post, mister!!

either that or come visit me on my blog.

amomo said...

Interesting, James. I remember my first time skiing while I was in Japan, I sort of had my own way of going upslope, but I can't really remember now.

Let your aches be gone in Jesus' name :P