If you’ve ever tried to ski before, you know it is no cakewalk. It’s likely you’ve struggled your first few times skiing along with the rest of us. You know what it is like to desperately try not to make a fool of yourself but ultimately failing. Whether or not you’re a pro at skiing now, you are all too familiar with the stages of learning to how ski.
Actually getting your skis on
Feels like rocket science, right? It can take a while to perfectly line up your boot.
Deciding whether or not to go with poles
You think you don’t need them, and you really don’t want to hold them the entire time. Yet when you get stuck on the side of the slope or you’ve fallen and you can’t get up, you think maybe they aren’t such a bad idea after all.
Pizza and french fries
Every first time skier is taught to shape your skis like a piece of pizza to go slow, and like french fries to go fast. Of course, we all know you spent the majority of the time making a pizza.
Learning how to walk in skis
Mostly you shuffle along, especially if you don’t have poles. But we know your first time skiing you can hardly navigate yourself, making it especially difficult to get on the ski lift in time.
Knocking your skis together on the ski lift to get the snow off
True, not everyone does this the first time they ski, but many people do. The result? Your ski falling down to the ground 30 feet below you. Now you have to clumsily get off the ski lift on one ski and try to retrieve your missing ski. Great.
Falling down all the time
Sometimes on purpose to avoid a person or to stop, but most of the time because you just really don’t know what you are doing.
Thinking you can master a more advanced slope, but quickly realizing you can’t
So you pretty much pizza the whole way down.
Feeling like a pro when you can finally zig-zag down the slope
Another technique used to not ski so fast. You feel like the next Jean-Claude Killy.
Taking your skis off and trying to walk gracefully in your ski boots
We know this is an impossible task. You basically clunk around, the top of your ski boot digging into your thigh every time you set your heel down. Just forget about stairs.
Happy winter, Collegiettes!