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I went to do my patrol shift today. Apparently since the day was being cut short, I had the option of going home early, which sounded good to me.
It was snowing, and had been snowing all night so there was fresh powder on the slopes. When I got on the hill I realized that I had a problem: I couldn't move. The skis stuck to the snow and I needed to push myself down the hill. After a single run, I knew I was not going to be able to patrol unless I had my skis waxed so I went back in to get them fixed. (That was a chore in itself as I had to do a bit of legwork to get the paperwork to get the job done.) Once the skis were ready, I got back on the hill and my goodness, it was world of difference. I could slide! I'll need to wax my skis more often! (The last time I waxed my skis was over a year ago.)
Early in the shift, I saw KM talking to one of the instructors, so I came down to investigate. Apparently he was giving her some pointers on improving her skiing. Since I was in the area, he started instructing me as well! (She started talking with him to get her din settings changed, but one thing lead to another..) So we spent the next hour or so learning ways to improve on our posture and rhythm. Two things that I need to keep in mind were the position of the arms (shoulders out, elbows further out, and wrists further out) and making sure that the pole plants were in front of me - way in front. Just by doing that, I end up shifting my center of balance from the middle of my foot to the balls of my feet. Something that I've been trying to do for quite some time now but I keep failing on those steeper slopes. In addition, I learned to bounce properly in time with the pole plants, and it's made pointing my skis a heck of a lot easier!
I continued to practice for the rest of the day and I even did some practice short rads during my sweep, jumping off one of the mounds of snow at the bottom of the run. On of the lifties commented,
"Whoa, those were some cool moves!"
Yeah, and it felt cool too! Moguls, here I come!
Oh, when the afternoon shift arrived, I decided to do a bit of toboggan training since my recertification didn't seem to go through last year. *shakes fist* I had planned to go home early, but I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. I ended up doing toboggan work for the next three hours (with an accident in between) so I was basically stuck until closing. *sigh*
As such, I was late to the party at JW's place. There weren't that many people there, but I was a little surprised to see DL and JC there.
We didn't do much. After eating, we played some Settlers of Catan and then watched the New Year's festivities before having some cake. Then I went home.
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