Ski Oldie

When I arrived at the chalet I was not the healthiest ‘kid on the block’. I got my bearings and tried not to cough too loud and often. Even so, I realised things were not too good on the Monday of the first week. I bought a ski pass, registered with a school, got my skiing equipment and had a lesson with a teacher.

From that I learnt I was not fit to continue. After the lesson, the lady at the school suggested I stay in bed/take medicine and get better before I return. I took her advice and retired to my bedroom. The problem was that I could not always sleep in my bed(s) or bedroom.

I had pains in my neck/collar bone when I put my head on a pillow in addition to bouts of coughing. I ended up propped up in the sauna, or dozing on the sofa in the communal room, before ending up back in my bed. What a strange week!

The second week started better so I returned to the piste. This time I joined three senior gentlemen to form an Oldie Ski Gang! I coped with that okay but after a couple of days the course ended. I wanted to continue so I took private lessons.

I was very lucky to have a superb teacher. He took me on some slopes to see what I could still do and decided I could ski on blue and red slopes okay but I needed to improve my turning technique. We set to work on this and I just copied what he did. At first nothing happened. I just made all the old lazy moves and could not get my left leg/ski to move to the right position for a clear short turn.

I think it was on the Wednesday of the second week when I took my camera with me and decided to take some shots of me trying to be ‘Oldie Perfect’. Before then we practiced again and suddenly WOW!! everything clicked into place. I followed the teacher and did what he did. And I did it correctly. I had a very strange feeling and cannot even now explain what happened but I did everything right and without thinking.

I gave the camera to my teacher and he took a series of shots. Here you can see me starting the lessons with Herr Flachmann hidden in the inside pocket of my ski jacket. Then I started down the slope and you can see from the shots that I had the correct posture and movement of the legs when  I turned, did a small jump sometimes and repeated it. We were both more than surprised and happy!