...Continued...
I began the journey well knowing that I could have experienced setbacks along the way, and accepted the possibility of failing right at the beginning during L1. Had I failed there, I would have let the matter rest for good and be happy to have spent some time receiving firsthand high quality coaching. A thing that I had not had in a long time in the skiing world.
Instead, much to my amazement, all went well until I reached the final step, the full certification course and exams. Even then, I understood that one failure could happen and accounted for. But when the failures became 4, my resolve faltered, and I entered a vicious circle of continuously mulling over these failures. That attitude can still be seen when I started to write this thread. That was not positive in the least,and the two years of CoronaVirus did not help matters at all.
As I said, this thread has been cathartic in many ways. Talking about it, and readying your comments, has paved the way to my acceptance that the past was the past, and instead of looking for reasons why I failed, I took advantage of the lock-downs (which, de facto stopped me skiing for long periods nearly two whole years), since the easiest way to break that vicious circle and transform it into something I could build a positive outcome upon would be to start anew.
Forget about not being in synch with the examiners, which is all too true, it must have been so! Forget about the failures, just concentrate on the future.
Now, I said I did not go in December, right? I was all set to wait till nearly the end of the season for the customary clinic and exam to arrive. But, during the Christmas time, an announcement came that a clinic and an exam would have taken place in January!
This time , I heeded the advice to go, so to speak! Also, my reasoning was, take the clinic in January and then have a go at as many exam attempts as possible until the end of the season or until a score to pass was obtained. Whichever would happen first.
And so, on the same day of MS 82nd victory in KG, I found myself at the one week (remediation) clinic.
The clinician first question was what I thought my weakest point was. To which I quite truly admitted that after a nearly two years stop, everything was rusty, and all had to be reviewed. It was the least I could say, short of saying "lets start from scratch". But that's what we did indeed. A complete overhaul.
The clinician put me to work (amongst others, I was not alone, of course) and in his words, he made us sweat blood and tears for the whole week.
It has not been an easy week, and the outcome was not clear until the end. But this time, I accepted, I accepted the possibility of yet another failure, knowing that I had done all that I could, and the outcome results were depending on me and me alone, even the past failures were so. I simply had to accept it.
I though I had sorted out the boot issue, right? I was wrong, that too, was not a boot issue. It was me, and the clinician helped me understand that and work on it. It thus was my mind playing tricks on me and I had to consciously keep it under check.
Once I accepted that as well, the issue went away, as long as I kept remembering to do work to correct it.
As always, it is the Indian, and not the arrow. I had allowed me to forget that basic principle!
The day the exam came, knowing that I had done all that I could, I was determined to do my best, not that the other times I wasn't, but again, I forced myself not to look back into the (now remote) past and think only about the present. Live the moment.
And I passed!
Was it easy? Not at all, it has been a very hard clinic and exam.
Was it my doing? Yes, but much was also the clinician and the examiners doing. And knowing I had your support. So that this time I skied to the examiners' satisfaction and they said such in the aftermath. Did I suddenly became the new Reilly Mcglashan? The new Weems? Bob Barnes?
No, obviously, and far from it. I am still the same old me, for the good or the bad (a clip shot yesterday of me leading my son around some groomer, made me shiver in orror at how badly I was skiing). I know I will have to actively and consciously work on my skiing to keep it on a level equal to that of the exam day, forever.
Am I done now? Will I teach now?
No, again.
To be able to do that, one major hurdle, maybe almost impossible to overcome and that's what you
@Chris V. are referring to, sits between me and that. Which is the CTT (only the GS race, the "Safety" part, I already passed) I mentioned above. I am not a racer, one for "injected ice slopes with gates"; I am more of the exploring free-skiing kind, whether on a slope or off-piste. But if I want to complete the journey, I will have to measure myself against the clock, and a pacesetter or three, on a GS racecourse.
That's my next goal. Will I succeed? Who knows. But I cannot not try.
Just for reference, and for a fun reading, this was the beginning of my journey (10/2016):
Tomorrow
Thank you all again, and thank you for your comment about my English,
@Jerez...Been studying it since when I was 8 or 9 y.o. I'm not an EL1, obviously, but my mom strongly believed in the English language as the main communication vector between people of different cultures and nationalities and send me off to learn it as soon as possible (at that time the main foreign language taught at schools in Italy was French). Then, I use English at work on a daily basis...And last but not least, I started to roam the internet many years ago with the purpose to keep up my language skills, possibly in conjunction it with a subject that was of great interest for me...what else could have been, if not skiing?
); but with the knowledge that if I were to fail to attain full cert status, all would have been for naught.
