An Encounter with Snow!

An encounter with snow – that’s what I would like to call my first skiing experience. Being from south India and never having strayed out, I had not seen snow before; at least not until this January when I found myself in Minneapolis – one of the coldest places in USA. And after having seen the snow, I had to have my rendez-vous with it. Skiing, of course, was the obvious answer. Whew! How I dreamt of gliding effortlessly for miles and miles over the white snow covered mountains. I begged, pleaded, bribed and threatened my friends and colleagues to take me skiing.
One fine Sunday morning, I was finally there! One of my friends was bragging that he would learn it in no time; another friend, who had done it once before, was saying it was not as simple as it seemed; and I was getting all worked up. I had to learn this sport in 6hrs of classes, before I got back to India and probably never return again! The rental guy gave me a pair of huge metal boots. I squeezed my feet in – the boots were a size too small and cramped my feet but I was too nervous and excited to ask for an exchange. I took my skis and went out to the instructor. He taught us to clip our skis on and then first to slide with one ski on and then another and then both. All through, the coach was giving me special attention and telling me it was not a big deal and that I would learn it eventually, everyone did!! He kept telling me to smile; I think my nervousness was too obvious on my face. Anyways, it was good so far. After this, he taught us to climb a little up the hill. We were supposed to bring our skis in a V-shape while walking up to prevent sliding backwards. I kept placing one ski over another and tumbling down and when not doing that, I would completely forget about the V-shape and glide down the hill backwards. There were all learners on that small hill and all trying hard to get up the hill. Now, when I slid down backwards, everyone else behind me would loose control and slide down too - tandem effect. Somehow having climbed a decent slope, I tried skiing downwards. Well, you wouldn’t want to call it skiing, just tried coming down with my skis on. Sometimes, I would slide a bit and then tumble down and some other times I would just walk down. Anyways, at the end of my first class, I hadn’t managed to do more than walk down a small slope with my skis on. Also, the instructor had transferred me to another one because the rest of his students had progressed a little too ahead of me and I needed “special” attention.
After a week, I went for my second class – I told them I hadn’t progressed much in the first class but I guess they did not get a correct picture of how far behind I was and put me in with the other students. This time they took us up a bigger hill by a ski-lift. All the way up I was thinking there would be some small slope on the other side of the hill where I would be given “special” attention while all the others went down the steep slope on this side. Anyways, I had no idea how to get off a ski lift, that part was done when I was separated from the usual class to get my “special” attention class, and so did my tumbling down stunt. Now comes the nightmare - there was no other side to the hill and I was to ski down with the others on the steep slope. I reminded the instructor that I was lagging behind but he again failed to understand and asked me to just relax and follow the others. I followed the others, relaxed or otherwise. In two seconds, I met a fence surrounding a few trees in my way. I did not know how to turn or how to stop and hence proceeded and gave it a violent hug. Thus embracing the fence, I hung on waiting for the rescue mission to arrive. The instructor finally arrived and helped me on to my skis. By now, he had understood what I was trying to tell him and how bad I was but it was too late – I was atop the hill and the only way to come down was to ski and I did not know skiing! Nevertheless, he thought of a brilliant idea to get me down from there. He held his ski poles in front of him horizontally with both hands and asked me to hold on to it too in the same way. He would then slide backwards and me, facing him, slide forwards. Well, I showed him it was not as simple as he thought it was. The gravitational force made its presence felt and I lost my grip on the ground. This time, I added a little more style to my tumbling down stunt - I fell flat on my back and between the instructor’s legs; the poor guy had to balance himself on a steep slope with his legs stretched out 150 degrees wide and his back facing his destiny. We were in this position for a few seconds before another instructor decided to come to our rescue. Thus rescued and supported by two brave instructors, I managed to get to the bottom of the hill. I was now transferred to another instructor, the third one, who took me back to the smaller hill. The adventures continued on this small hill too but I guess I have given a fair idea for anyone to imagine what ensued. But, let me assure you one thing and not leave to your imagination – I have not given up. I have another class next week and I am up to it! Say, hats off to my courage??? Well, I guess it should be three cheers to the brave instructors who risked their sanity to teach me skiing. What say?
[update 28JAN2007] I did ski finally!!!!!!!! hurray!!!