Saturday, back at it!

Saturday was a completely enjoyable day on the slopes...almost.

Got to the hill early and practiced side slipping, wedging, transitions and generally got a better feel for the control of my ski's. It was very enjoyable to practice without the pressure I've been putting on myself to be perfect.

Then, I met up with CraigL, a fellow instructor, and we skied a few runs together which was a blast. Craig's working towards his L3, actually he's ready to take the test, and he encouraged me to follow him on a few runs and just 'track his tracks'. Seeing as he's an amazing skier I was concerned that he's leave me in the dust but it turns out that while concentrating on staying in synch with him, my fears of where my ski's are, where my body was positioned, what the terain was doing and all of that was just not there . . . at all.

I was impressed with my ability to stay on his tails and even more so, was impressed that I was just skiing, without doing any thinking. It was a bunch of fun!!!

Then, I engaged my first few lessons and really enjoyed one particular student; Samantha. What a cool young woman she was. At first, she was horrendously fearful of the slopes, of the speed, of the hill, the entire process. But, after a few successful wedge-runs and the feeling of control that she mastered in our hour together, I got to see her actually wedge-turning all by herself a few hours later. The coolest thing about that was as I was taking the 'magic carpet' up with another group of students, she slid by me down the learner's hill and yelled out "hey, Brian, I'm skiing!". Now THAT was cool.

Then, as my final "act" of the day, I took a 6 year old girl up for her first lesson. She was a really neat little lady and was all gung-ho for her experience. The first half of the lesson was just getting her comfortable with the motions on the snow, me skiing backwards and her practicing "sticks and A" (her version of parallelling and wedging). Then, I made the mistake of skiing next to her with my poles on my knees and her just hanging onto them. That, she LOVED, and it was super tough on my legs as we wedged down the learner's hill. But, I could see her progressing and she would occassionally get into a wedge and control our combined speeeds so I was feeling pretty good.

Then, as we were riding up the magic carpet, she suddently forgot how to walk and started to back peddle. I eventually caught up with her and tried to grab her and lift her off her ski's and ski with her off the carpet but somehow, her ski got caught under mine, she was kicking with her left ski, tripped me up and we both went for a slip down the slope off the side of the carpet. The thing that totally sucked is that while she was ok, (I kind of set her on the ground as we were falling), I got in this totally awkward position and ended up having both my ski's release. I immediately felt a jolt of pain in my right knee and thought I heard a snap. Luckily, that wasn't the case because within about 5 minutes, I felt ok enough to continue the lesson and eventually did some free skiing before heading home. My knee was tender, but no more so than any other time I've managed to do something dumb.

Well, overnight, you can guess what happened...my knee ballooned up and now I can really feel the pain. Ugggggh, I hope I haven't done anything permanently funky. Throughout today I've elevated and iced and the swelling and pain have diminished significantly such that both knees look almost identical to each other. I have no idea what's going on so I'm headed to Zamir in the morning to have a look-see.

So, while in all it was a rewarding day (assisted on 2 calls and actually helped backboard and collar a patient), I'm sure hopeful that I haven't done anyting permanent.

I'll let you know.