Do you ever just Practice?

Do you ever just spend days practicing your skiing or is it just adventure and challenge all day long?

A little back ground to the question. This past weekend was the 1st of several what I will call "Ikon" weekends in New England. The wife and I went up to Sugarbush Resort in Northern Vermont.

We arrived Saturday knowing it had rained last Thursday and it would most likely be somewhat slick. It certainly was but nothing a seasoned eastern skier has never seen before. Started working on the Gatehouse trails, getting used to the snow (and the cold) and ramping up for a fun day. 3rd run down was an intermediate run called Sleeper. Seems like they had done some snowmaking on it but the surface (and whales they had blown) were pretty hard and kind of weird. Well what happened next I'm not really sure. It kind of seemed to me like on of the Hollywood action movie scenes where the characters get launched from an explosion behind them. I know it started with a patch of ice but the only thing I know after is I was air born and the ground was approaching fast. My wife who was below me didn't see the fall either just heard the thud and groan as I hit the ground. Skis were 40 yards above me stuck in the snow, like I said not sure what exactly happened.

Well approaching the the big 60 falls are not what they used to be. 2 years ago on my first day back from a western trip I hooked a tip on the home bump and came down on my shoulder hard. It took me a year and a half to recover from that one and I couldn't play tennis for a while because I could'nt toss the ball for a serve. This crash was some what similar in that In the way but I think I was able to get my forearm out to block the landing and only jammed it, but make no mistake I was in pain. Must of hit my knee on the way down to as I had a twinge of pain there but fortunately no pain in walking so I'm thinking that it may just be a bruise.

Anyway the fall "Shook" me. These were days 11 and 12 for me this season so coming into the weekend I had been feeling good, hitting a nice stride and had visions of going up and hitting Castlerock for a couple and adventuring around Mt Ellen Sunday. Well that all went poof in those moments I was on the ground. Changed the whole purpose of the weekend. We continued on and skied for a while but knocked off early and went to do some other things then back to hotel to take a hot tub and diner. The wife was wonderful enough to apply a nice dose of Mineral Ice to the shoulder before going to bed, but I went to bed fearing that I my have really messed up my season, which still has a long way to go and many more trips (including the west) to be taken.

Woke up Sunday determined to go hit it again but not with the same aim. No longer about the adventure and challenge but about recovery and getting the "mojo" back. Fortunately we hit Mt Ellen and started the day over in their terrain park hitting the nice cord on the side just getting turns and the confidence back. Spent the day on the easier runs doing much the same for the rest of the day. Not what I visioned going up there but a useful day all the same.

Got 4 or 5 days to work out on the home hill before our next weekend trip to Stratton. Hoping I can get the confidence back and ease my self back in to the moguls before then. My next full ski days will be all about practice.

 

Most of my skiing is patrolling at a 250' bump, and when I'm not skiing there, I'm skiing at Ontario Canada ski resorts, or maybe Tremblant. It's all practice; there are no challenging adventurous (for me - I'm jaded) runs. The only challenge is seeing how far I can push the turn I'm in (cleaner arc-2-arc tracks, faster speed and smaller radius at apex) without getting launched and ending up upside down or messing up the next turn.

BTW I know what you mean about taking longer to recover as we age.

 

Working on stuff is always part of my ski day at the home hill. On a ski trip maybe not so much.............................

 

Always practicing something. Can’t help it

Edit: So far, only 8 days this season. But, I’ll wager that I’ve made more turns than a super-majority of recreational skiers that have put in 30 days

 

I do at least some drills most of my days out. I'm one of those ski freaks that actually likes breaking things down and working on things. Some days I just go up to my local mountain and ski alone so I can work on stuff. Of course, if it's an epic day, or I'm out west/Europe, or running with some of my ski buds, then drills are not on my mind. This is a sport that always needs to be fine tuned and honed in order to not only improve, but ski at your max potential for any given age or physical condition.

 

Practice practice practice.. always.. every time.. Good foundation skills make for better days. Unless i'm first chair on a powder day (aka never), the first few runs are always a "warmup" and practicing turns, edging and balance, and trying to reinforce proper posture to maintain good muscle memory. Working on the basics is never a bad idea.

Here's how i generally plan my day.. warm up.. hit the challenging stuff i want to do that day, take a few easy runs, lunch, hit the next challenging thing, then take it easy the rest of the day. What I want to do.. lap the challenging stuff from bell to bell.. but age and conditioning and the fact that if i'm hurt its not just my ski season that will suffer, it just doesn't make sense to do it

 

Every run is only practice for the next run. I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that there is a lot of stuff to think about when I'm skiing, so it is always a work in progress.

 

I almost always do some drills when I’m on the slopes but have been doing more than my normal lately. I’m back skiing this year after some time away and have been working to just find my way back to where I was a few years back. It’s not so much if I can still ski at the same level as trying to reinforce good technique and tactics so I can ski without over thinking things. Put another way, I can still do it but I don’t really own it right now.

 

I will often throw in some side slip drills or do a run focusing on keeping my hands where I can see them, but I take a lot of lessons so I focus more on exploring and having fun when I'm not in one.

 

As an instructor 2 days/ week its mostly drills and troubleshooting students inefficient movements. The other free ski days during the week a few drills as a tune up in the morning.

 

Yeah I try every time out, more so now that I am finding I’ve becoming right leg dominant. Every season I go through this and find if I work on it things get better.

 

If by practice, you mean doing drills, I never do that. But every run seems like practice for the time I do everything right. Hasn't happened yet.

As far as injuries. I just hit the ground yesterday on the MTB. Barely felt like I hit the ground. But my elbow seems to think otherwise. When drinking coffee is painful, I know it's gonna take a while to heel. And, I'm not quite as old as the OP, but gettin close.

 

“Practice” can mean lots of different things. I was in an instructor clinic yesterday (in the PNW we have had a week of freeze/thaw cycles) and we were working on edge control in the firm conditions. The clinician had us do a drill where we held a tuck position and worked on medium and short radius turns, to isolate edging and short-leg/long leg transitions, rather than rely on rotary and pivoting at the top or apex of the turn.

To more directly answer your question, typically my ski days are a combination of practice and free-skiing, our teaching, practice and free-skiing.

 

I don't practice. I go for fun. I pay attention to what I'm doing and adjust as needed, but I do not, nor have I ever done drills.

 

Hanging burr? One day I was feeling extra good through some moguls, my ski were so close my boots were clacking. Then tips crossed and I was flying through the air. I had taken my old skis out of retirement and the guy at the shop gave them the race treatment for the fun of it.

 

How many days on icy bumps this year? Sometimes it's not recent days on snow that counts, but recent days on THAT kind of snow. Icy bumps never had an appeal for me and now that I respect recovery time from injuries, icy concrete bumps were easy to give up. Icy spots? Well those aren't ever going away.

When I do something like you describe, it's for one of 2 reasons:

1) I was coasting along not really paying attention, not focused, not on top of my game.
2) I was taken by surprise by an unseen obstacle.

It's almost always #1.

 

There is always some drills in a day. On a big hill it might only be edging drills down a cat track, or playing with a groomer's spine (which is fun anyway).
At a smaller area there is normally something that is good for me on most runs.

 

I agree. This was/is what I consider a trip, and the intent was to get up to the Castlerock's and Mt Ellen summits but there will be other days. I have skied Sugarbush before and will again. Heck I got three more tickets and am tempted to hit it again this season. (more tempted then I was before this trip) Got trips coming up out west and want to be ready

or over thinking it sometimes. That may be my biggest problem till I get the good feel back.

Hope I looked that graceful, I think it was more like a belly flop. Think I doing ok, only stiffness is in the shoulder which like I said I think I just jammed. The pain in the knee which is what really scared me Saturday is thankfully gone and that includes my weekly dry land stuff that I just completed this morning.

While I wouldn't call these icy bumps, I get more of those then you might think at the home bump in PA. The conditions were not a surprise to me. I was prepared and I wasn't skiing particularly fast. Something grab on to them (I'm thinking maybe the brake caught on something) These were snowmaking whales with a very weird surface on them.

For me it is somewhat the mental game now. The fear that I did something really bad and am killing the season is past now and I've got to get the stride and the confidence back. I was skiing somewhat tense on any ice I saw yesterday. A couple of days on good snow which the home bump should have this week will help greatly.

 

Skiing a short radius ski at speeds without actually engaging the edges in a pure carve runs the risk that you can hit a patch of snow and suddenly have the skis decide they want to turn a lot faster than you can. Just say'n.