Guess I’m putting the Adaptive in Adaptive Skiing. It was a very cold day in New Hampshire today, but the cold conditions and recent snow fall made for pretty good conditions in the morning, at least (a lot of stuff was scraped up and icy by the afternoon).
I was expecting to have forgotten every thing since my last time (and first time) on a three-track setup, but I seem to have improved a lot, graduating to New England hard icy blue runs! I still do not like icy conditions with 50% less edges than before. But, if I’m going to become a decent skier again, I’m going to have to get accustomed to handling all conditions. And if ice isn’t one of them, well, there won’t be very much skiing to be done around here because that is what New England slopes are known for. One habit I had leftover from learning to ski on straight skis (and never really changing my technique when we all moved over the shaped skis), was hopping/unweighting my legs a lot to initiate turns. So I worked on really carving instead of doing that, and also trying to maintain a more upright (really tilting my pelvis forward) posture but still pressing my shin against my boot.
Unfortunately I did not get any good vids or pics, so these will have to do. You will see that my form isn’t great as I was getting tired and bending at the waist and leaning on my outriggers more (a big no-no, especially on ice). But still, I did a better job of keeping my shoulders facing down the fall line than before and edging pretty well (an artifact of my able-bodied skiing experience, I guess).
That wobble was me hitting an icy patch and recovering from it.
I certainly have a bit more stamina (linking a lot more turns and getting most of the way down runs before getting really tired) than my first day a few weeks ago. But as I am moving faster and dealing with bumpier terrain, I’m feeling it a lot more in my back, since there are less free vertebrae to absorb impact. Left butt (because I don’t have much glute max function, so rely on smaller glute mid which fatigues more easily) and left hip flexors are pretty tired though.
My lessons were taught through a wonderful organization, New England Disabled Sports. It is a real testament to their organization how established and well run the adaptive ski program is, and how they make it financially accessible to almost anyone. The cost of my lesson, equipment rental and access to the mountain was less than the cost of a full day lift-ticket! Still a lot of work to be done and a lot to improve on, but NEDS have got me off on the right foot (*groan*).
Ong Strong 