I learned skiing early March this year (2008), and it’s fantastic.
- Monday: learning the basics from friends, how to walk uphill on skis, how to go down-but-not-too-fast, how to turn, how to break, body posture, how to take the skis off, etc. On the practice hill, naturally. On to the piste. I couldn’t get the hang of the ski lift. Fell when I tried to get on, when I tried to stay on, and when I tried to get off it, and have been having trouble with that for the rest of that week. The skiing went ok – I fell plenty of times with that too, but I learned inline skating without knowing how to ice skate, so used to that. Got snow down my shoes. Gloves got soaking wet, fingers cold. Fell everytime I tried to stop at the bottom of the hill. But hey, first day.
- Tuesday, I am trying to forget. We went to a different hill, went down a few times, so far ok, then to the longer ski lift, which ofcourse I fell out of. Went in again, fell out again, and decided to walk the rest of the way to the top. Which took me the better part of two hours, through knee- up to waist deep snow. Having gotten to the top I was exhausted and when skiing down came to a part which I wasn’t going to ski down if you’d put a gun to my head, so I walked down again along the side. Well, walked. Walked, fell/slided on and over rough ice, this also took about an hour. Ankles bleeding, bruised everywhere, dead-tired, vodka as painkiller and back to the hotel, wondering if I should really bother to get up and/or try again for the rest of the week.
- Wednesday was fantastic. Gone back to the first piste, I could ski, without falling everywhere, and hearing the hiss of the snow beneath your skis getting higher (in pitch) and louder as you’re going faster is a RUSH!! Only did that near the bottom of the hill of course, but.. oh, bliss.. amazing.
Thursday and Friday were fine too, but nothing compared to that first time that you’re actually skiing and the balance feels perfectly natural and not falling down – it really felt like I had suddenly remembered the skiing, how to keep balance, from a previous life..
Friday I was confident to make a small movie with my el-cheapo 30-second clip camera:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gjzXe4RkYT8

Those wanting to learn to ski: check with others how to get your clothing sorted out properly (saves getting snow everywhere), and those big diving glasses help against the wind a lot, you don’t want to be blinking a lot while going downhill fast!