CRASH COURSE

I do love Wednesdays. I participate in the Bud Light Locals Challenge races that are held on 10 Wednesdays throughout the ski season. I have learned an awful lot about myself that I never realized so deeply into my bones. For instance...I have finally realized that my primary learning style is kinesthetic. I need to process new information by physically experiencing it. Much as I love to read and write, it was a conditioning provided by school and not always in a positive fashion. By college I became quite successful at "doing school" but there was a cost. Kinesthetic learners by nature are the hardest for teachers to cope with in a classroom because they are forever restless, doodling, craving motion and talking. They seem not to be paying attention but really, in order to attentively listen, they need to be doing something else at the same time. I don't know exactly when it happened but somewhere along the line, I began critisizing myself and running tapes in my brain that sounded familiar...like the voice of a frustrated teacher who would say things like "why aren't you listening...pay attention...follow directions...be quiet...sit still." Or later, "you'll hurt yourself...people will see how clumsy you are...you don't know what you're doing...what will THEY think?" There was very little opportunity to develope confidence in a unique and individual style that was constantly pitted against "how I SHOULD do it". So...last year was my first year racing. On ten Wednesdays, I planted myself in a starting gate much to the dismay of my more cautious fearful self. The thoughts would swirl...the fears of getting hurt, looking stupid or doing something really dumb in front of the people watching. But because I had sat on the sidelines most of my life, I was fed up with the the inner dialogue and when I would hear the starter say Racers Ready, I'd say shut up to the whining and go ahead and do it anyway. It's about goddamn time and Lord knows why it's taken so long but the truth of the matter is, I believed all those shitty critisisms for years. Standing in the start gate and saying So What to the fearful ruminations gave my body a chance to practice saying no...I'm going to do it anyway. And I've learned that my body can do alot more than my mind would allow it to do. And I have finally learned the moment of choice where I get what the old tapes are trying to say but I can choose not to listen to them. How else can a person grow? You have to leave the comfort zone and try new territory if you want to believe in something better about yourself. So...ski racing has become a zen master for me and on one particular day I had no thoughts of insecurity and on my first run, I thought I'd done something wrong because it all felt so easy. Come to find out, thinking I screwed up was my inner prelude to breaking my own record and doing my best run in two years.

Last Wedsnesday, I did my two runs more cautiously that usual. I was later to the course and both runs were rutted and shiny. My confidence level is not so strong that I could choose to let the ruts take me and to make use of them for increased speed. Speed isn't my priority at this point and I found myself feeling for the snow...turning higher or lower than the precarved ruts and it cost me time. I wasn't very impressed with my performance but I finished whole and thats the main idea. It turned into a bluebird day and Stephen and I were skiing some fun runs. The snow was hero snow and I was having fun and going fast...no pressure...no fear. Everything was RIGHT! Ripping down Risky Business, I caught an inside edge and did a complete yard sale right under the lift...on stage if ever there was one. It all happened so fast that I still try to replay what happened physically when I wake up in the middle of the night. I couldn't get up and so a ride down the mountain on the toboggan was my last run of the day and perhaps for the season as I have done something serious to my MCL and I'll be keeping my leg up for awhile. And there is the interesting irony of it all...when I feel like I've screwed up, I'm probably my best ever and when I'm confidently doing my best and having a blast doing it...well..I don't want to create a new tape that tells me to avoid having too much fun or I'll hurt myself. I haven't quite figured out what my body learned last Wednesday doing a somersault under the lift but I didn't give a hoot what anyone thought. It was nice though, to feel how much people can really care. Wish it didn't take me hurting myself to really learn that. Now...I think I'd like to take a course on using brain and body equally...engaging my fully human animal intelligence, but I'll have to use this time to read. Getting a leg up may mean dancing between brain and body.