Awe … cumahn! No takers? I promise the meetings are completely anonymous. You can’t get help until you admit a need. I attend TA meetings (Technique Anonymous for those endlessly discussing technique) and, though I realize that my post on the other thread may not indicate that I’m doing so well with sobriety (one more 24 hour sobriety chip and my TV will be level), at least I’m going to meetings (granted per order of the ski probation dept.). I’m the guy who makes the coffee (and drinks it all).
… and, as it turns out, the name of your new corrections officer on the magic carpet is Jimmy, a longtime member of AIA and … the most experienced magic carpet instructor in the industry!
For prospective members, a sample of AIA meeting dialogue:
Jimmy:
“Hello everybody, my name is Jimmy and I am an advanced intermediate.”
Group:
“Hi Jimmy!”
Jimmy:
“Hi. I am not doing so well. My edges are dull, my bases are dry, my boots hurt and my goggles are constantly foggy. Recently, I got caught stealing tips while following closely behind a clinic I was too broke to pay for and have since been banished to teaching on the magic carpet by my Ski School Director. My kids have now far surpassed my ability and they no longer wish to be seen with me on the slope. I think my technically disgruntled wife is getting “instruction” from an L3 behind my back.
I have been “cruising” with other advanced intermediates, passing around clever sounding tips and constantly getting high on “aha” moments that, in the end are fleeting, proving to be a smoke and mirror show cocktail of unbridled enthusiasm mixed with inferior stacking and dampened coordination. I actually had a major slip in the lift line the other day - at the very one place that nobody is supposed to be able to tell that I am not a sober expert! That snazzy helmet and goggle combo (literally gape-less) looked cooler in the ski shop mirror than during my lift line face plant. And, here I thought “shrinkage” only happened in the swimming pool. Nope! It happens in snow too. Always jumping around in desperation from quick fix tip to quick fix tip, never really getting anywhere at all and relinquishing a fundamental motor pattern recovery for every new tip I fondle with. Damn it!
I keep spending my last dollar on the next ski that is going to make all my problems go away ... but, because I never find the strength to work on honest fitness and mature coordination, that new ski always ends up kicking my ass and, right when that new Amex bill comes swooping in on me from behind. Regardless, I’m always jonesing for more product and looking for new hookups on CraigsList. Every morning I say to myself that this will be the first day I no longer submit to my dependence on compensatory movements. However, I eventually end up right back where I was, tweaking on poorly timed knee jerk neurological responses that have been haunting me since childhood.
I should have never gone off alone skiing with my technical deadbeat weird uncle Joe at such a young, vulnerable and adaptively impressionable time of life. Sometimes that makes me feel like damaged goods on a pair of sticks. I have recently failed to complete the program at the last two clinics I attended and I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t feel like I’ll ever get off that magic carpet high, but, every time I try to get off that sh*t, I pretty much slide right to the bottom. Still though, why do I struggle so much? Well, I’m a skier and everybody here knows that I, we, will never have a choice but to ski … "
Group member: “Jimmy, just remember: It’s one slay at a time and KISS (keep it skiing stupid)."
Group: “Keep coming Jimmy!!!”
- Right now the AIA group is just Jimmy and me and, honestly, Jimmy may just be a figment of my imagination. Though, I have yet to confirm that affirmatively (broken kaleidoscope). Maybe “I” am Jimmy but … then, who the frick is Dobyman? Awe Jesus ….