I slept quite poorly last night and was not feelin' it. But, I am pathologically incapable of not being very close to the gondola in the parking lot. There was no way I was going to park out on the road and then shuttle back and forth to my car, so on my 4 hours of sleep I drove to Sunshine. Once parked I considered napping but instead took a TON of time to get ready, and took the 25 minute gondola to the village, then walked up to Standish lift, put in one airpod... and the other one had fallen out of the case back in the car at the base. SIGH.
I wasn't going to drill skills all day without tunes. So, did a run or 3, went back down to the base to get my airpods, took the gondola back up to midway. Did a couple runs, mojo was low, snow was good but firmer than I like, legs were tired, ... early lunch at 11 with the plan of doing some drilling. An inauspicious beginning, to be sure, still feeling rough. But--I had made the plan today to bring CURIOSITY to the hill, to be less despondent because I hadn't figured out how to ski exactly like I saw others do and more interested in "what happens if I do this when I side slip" and take mental note.
Around noon, I finally got to where I was going to work on sideslipping. My plan was given that the snow was firm I could spend quite a bit of time just seeing if I could side slip better. Wow, did this plan ever work out! (I'm not one to bury the lede!) I spent 4 hours doing 30 runs on Short and Sweet (short blue) and Larch Glade (mellow green), starting with side slipping.
Where the magic happened:
At the beginning, I could only really jerkily release pressure, couldn't really keep my torso facing down the hill (still harder on one side than the other...) The first 5-10 runs took so much longer--because I couldn't flatten the skis out with rolled ankles! A lot of practice over an hour on both sides made it so that I could slip probably 5 times faster than I started. And then a little miracle happened for me--the snow softened and it also started to snow, edged into hero snow territory. And after one of the side slips, I just let myself fall into a turn in green-pitch steepness at the end of the run. The magic! A released turn!! I tried to see if it was repeatable in this one area--it was! (See the picture as I farmed 4 of these turns side by side).
AND, the best part, at the very end of the run after doing all the side slipping, in this super soft snow and greenish steepness, I found a bunch of mojo, and was able to carve turns like I haven't been able to all trip, and it was SO MUCH FUN. I mean I get that my technique for carving sucks and will have to be rebuilt so that it works on steeper and firmer terrain--but it still feels GREAT even doing it wrong for now. I accepted that the progress/improvement was going to happen on finding neutral and sideslipping into falling leaf with an eventual goal of pivot slips, and rewarded myself at the bottom 15% of every single single run with 12 delicious carved turns. At the end of the day this is what the runout looked like, all me (AND BONUS! something I'm doing right is fixing my A-frame, I actually have railroad tracks for the first time ever!!!)
As the day went on, sideslipping at the start got easier and faster, more runs happened, and I started playing with the entrance to the run which is a natural half-pipe. I would steer up the side of a pipe with torso facing down, throw it into neutral to come back down and uncoil to facing down the fall line, then steer up the second half, playing with what neutral is like. Someone had asked me if I had a half-pipe at my mountain--I wonder if this is why? Then more of the way down, side slipping, gradually getting more comfortable more lean down the hill, more rolled ankles (just connecting "rolling ankles" with flattening), and then a joyous reward for the hard work of getting to absolutely RIDICULOUSLY overwork a green pitch with ostentatious and tasteless over-carving.
can you IMAGINE the woes I've been having without having neutral?! Everything is a huge commit, you get frozen all the time, hung up off piste when 2 quick turns are required, initiation is a big THING, etc.
I mean, it's certainly not fixed yet, I cannot yet do pivot slips, but I'm starting to get a little sense of what it might be like to, you know, be able to take the f*cking skis off their edges when I choose to. It was a confluence of circumstances and ideal conditions, some excellent advice here from many people who kept mentioning maybe do these drills
And big thanks to
@James who provided me with the material and guidance I needed specifically this morning to do this all day. Lots more to do tomorrow in the same vein.
Bonus (don't read this if you're a curmudgeon) was setting the 9th highest CARV score all season (147) across all skiers at Sunshine in the MOST LAUGHABLE way, sideslipping down 90% of the run for drills and then carving 10 turns
Though I also did a real 146 in the SECOND MOST LAUGHABLE way, carving down Larch Glade, which is super ridiculously mellow. It was the absolutely sweatiest performance ever done on this run with me side to side very unreasonably
So yes, CARV scores are not strongly correlated with overall skiing ability.
Things I've learned:
I find the counter rotation to a full 90 degrees, with skis across fall line, difficult, and harder in one direction. Need flexibility and stretching I suspect over summer.
I can flatten the skis pretty well in good snow, but not enough to do a pivot slip.
I was finding a very gentle falling leaf thing reasonably easy, but maybe doing it wrong (or am I supposed to be getting like Deb levels of falling leaf?) Rolling the ankles was the tougher part.
Anyway. What started out as a blah day where I had little get-up-and-go turned into an amazing day, I feel like there's lots to explore with this and I can see where it is going to apply with turn initiation, with speed checks, with just changing direction or not being so jammed or locked!
One more day tomorrow!
