I had my first taster of learning to ski independently this week. As some of you may know, I started to ski towards the end of last year and my first session was enough for me to decide that this was something I wanted to do properly. I’m not the type to do things by halves so when I saw other people skiing on their own in a sit-ski I knew that was what I wanted to achieve.
I usually ski in a mountain man bi-ski, which consists of a bucket seat and foot rest (that also has sides to stop your feet falling off). I get strapped in, practically from head to foot, with straps around the feet, knees, thighs, waist and chest (seriously, there’s NO falling out!) I
should mention that this is not the only type of sit-ski – there are several types, some of which have two skis on the bottom (a bi-ski) and some of which have one ski on the bottom (a mono-ski).
As usual, I was using the mountain man bi-ski this week. These tend to be used for people who have little to no upper body strength and who therefore need to ski with someone directly behind them. I was given outriggers which, in my case as someone using a sit-ski as opposed to standing up, were effectively short crutches with velcro straps around my forearms and short skis on the bottom. These could be flipped up to work like normal crutches by tugging a
string under the handle.
Easier said than done.
For a start, I didn’t have the strength in my fingers (as someone with cerebral palsy) to be able to ull the string so someone had to pull it for me. This isn’t the end of the world though, as when I’m actually going down the slope I don’t need to use them without the skis, and once I’m at the bottom someone can take me round and up the lift again.
Now it was time to try and balance in the mountain man on my own.
Again, easier said than done. It takes quite a bit of strength to hold yourself up in a mountain man and as I found out on Sunday I don’t have that strength...yet! I also had to try moving myself forwards and backwards with the skis on the outriggers flipped up so that I could dig them into the ground and push (it’s a dry ski slope). This again required a lot of effort but I’m pleased to say I did manage to do it...just about. I now need to work hard to strengthen my arms though, because I’m determined to do this!
Next time I’ll be in a Bi-unique, which is similar to a mountain man but they are lower to the ground and don’t have the sides on the footplate. More importantly for me, they have a Glove Seating System, which means they fit closer to the body and all of my movements are transferred to the ski, giving me much greater control over it. The difficulty with the mountain man was that there was a bit too much room either side of my body, and as you have to control the sit-ski by leaning with your body I had to move more to get it to do what I wanted.
Once I’d tried the (seemingly) small exercises I had one go on the slope. I didn’t go up very far,
and had someone holding onto me in front and behind so that I could get a sense of what it feels like with the outriggers. The prospect of doing it myself was, at the time, a little daunting onsidering my lack of strength but at least it gave me a feel for what it would be like. The small exercises I’d done made me realise how much of a challenge skiing independently is going to be. It really is harder than it looks. But I’m not saying that to be negative...I’m saying it because I accept the challenge!
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