Tele Bootcamp Weekend

My telemark skiing resume looks something like this:

Winter 04-05: Learned at Alta, "staff development" with Jenn.
Winter 05-06: Garden City back country with Olivia...and didn't we do something else that winter?
Winter 06-07: OH ya, had a kid, didn't ski.

I've had good intentions at learning to teleski, and since this winter has provided some of the best snow Utah has seen in a long time I thought that perhaps this would be the year. To freshen up I rented tele's for the weekend and planned to hit it hard.

Friday
Location: Green Canyon
Plan: Follow the advise of Urmas at www.telemarktips.com and spend my first day going down a hill getting use to skis and bending my knees.
Outcome: Great, really how hard can it be to ski down Green Canyon while bending your knees.
Photo: To the right. No I did not fall over while holding my ski out like that.

Saturday
Location: Beaver Mountain
Plan: Work on a few turns.
Outcome: Overall, not so great. I realized something about myself that I already knew; I'm a strict visual learner. I tried to picture Urmas, but all that did was make me mad, I felt like he deceived me by making it look so easy. As soon as I got off the lift I suddenly had no clue which knee was suppose to be where, I was bending at the the wrong times, finally landed on my side ten minutes into it with a few blasted blasteds and told Joe I was heading to the car to get my snowboard. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my snowboard left with Chad, Lacey and the kids (my sister came up and we took turns skiing). I was stuck with the skis.
I used the skis as downhills until I got in line behind a couple in teles. I tapped the fellow on the shoulder with my ski pole, explained that I was learning and asked for pointers. Turned out it was my old visiting teaching partner and her husband so we got to the top of the hill, he explained a few things to me and I followed them down the hill. When I was behind them I could actually kind-of turn, but as soon as they were out of sight I was totally lost. Quite discouraged to say the least.
Photos: 1. Headed to Beaver. 2. Me on the bunny hill at the height of my frustration.

Sunday
Location: Old Main Hill
Plan: Have Chad show me a few things before he left town.
Outcome: Chad's new to the scene as well, but he could turn and as I followed him I did a few sloppy turns myself. Unfortunately the snow was really heavy and deep and buried our skis.

Monday
I had good intentions to get out today before my skis were due at 5:00, but Chad and Lacey stayed an extra night and Ari didn't sleep well so I didn't get out in the morning like I intended to.

The thought has crossed my mind several times that perhaps I'm just to old to learn a new sport; that perhaps I should just stick with one thing and get good at it instead of trying to take on something new every 5 minutes. The phrase "Jack of all trades master of none" definitely applies to me. Call it ADD, well rounded, or curious there’s just too many things I want to learn.

My new plan for learning to tele is still in the developmental stages. Since none of my teleing friends live in Logan anymore this might be a little tough. What I need is to download video tutorials from friends on my iPod then fasten the iPod in front of my face in some sort of headgear and keep my eyes on the iPod.

On a brighter note I accomplished part of one of my new years resolutions. I skied twice as many days as I did last year.