Call me Zan
Skiing is awesome! It is one of my most favorite things to do and I’m eager to share what I have learned so you can have so much fun skiing too.
I started skiing soon after learning to walk and was self-taught. I skied inefficiently and without elegance. I had tons of fun and could somewhat compensate for my bad form.
What's this about tigers?
What's this about tigers?
You may have in mind a previous attempt at learning to ski, ultimately without success.
From that point on you may have considered yourself a non-skier.
Or, maybe you're visiting Tahoe and seeing snow for the first time!
Maybe you rent equipment and maybe it goes OK. Because it looks kind of easy.
Soon you discover it's not as easy as it looks.
And you're smart. You're educated. You understand the logic of taking a lesson.
This attempt is different.
Within the first hour of that lesson you are sliding on snow, understanding the mechanics of how skis work, and learning how to position your center of mass to control the skis. You easily grasp the integral role that properly fitting boots play.
Before you even arrive I already know this:
You can ski.
My job is to encourage you to believe that you can ski.
Because you can.
What's this about tigers?
What's this about tigers?
What's this about tigers?
The job of the human brain is to keep the body alive. When a threat is real or imagined, the brainstem, in cahoots with its buddy the amygdala, has the ability to take the cerebral cortex hostage effectively neutralizing the intellect and becoming the command center of brain function. Its sole mission is to mount a successful response to perceived danger. Survival mode: the singular focus on a quick and automatic response to neutralize the threat.
Skiing involves a partnership with gravity: skis are a tool to negotiate gravity safely on a slippery surface, on a mountain, at significant altitude. Without the experience of knowing how to effectively manipulate gravity using skis, survival mode comes to the rescue. It senses the danger that exists with falling down a mountain and doesn't care about skills or tools that make sliding on snow a pleasurable sensation.
Your survival response dictates that you lean away from the danger and in so doing, the skis are rendered useless.
The internalized knowledge that a forward position toward the perceived danger is required to manage gravity has not yet been acquired.
The threat is not real.
Let's look at the evidence.
1. There are no tigers
2. The bunny hill does not resemble a battlefield; it is not strewn with broken bodies
3. So many fellow humans are joyfully and successfully sliding down the mountain