Looking good!
Here’s how Eve’s five week learn-to-ski program has gone so far.
Week 1: She walked around on skiis as everyone else fell over, but the first time she fell over she fell apart. Tears, pain, the world coming to an end. Eventually she angrily made her way to the lodge where she was cranky and mean to the parents and teachers there who tried to help her. (embarrassed)
Week 1.5: Alan and I took her and Lex on a Sunday and we all skied together. She loved it!
Week 2: She made it up and down the bunny slope a few times, but then fell at the the top and gave up. Several coaches and even the school principal tried to teacher her how to stand up, and I tried to teach her how to just take her skis off, but she insisted she could not and eventually (with help) got them off and just hung out at the bottom of the slopes for the remainder of the time. (tired and embarrassed)
Week 3: Today! She was up and down that bunny slope a bunch of times and loving it! She had different skis this time and insisted they worked better and came off easier. She worked on her snowplow and was having fun. Half way through I escorted a group of kids from the bunny slope to the next level up, called the “tow lift,” because, you know, you actually get to use a lift! :) The coach sent four kids with me, including Eve. I didn’t feel confident that Eve was ready for the bigger hill yet and I should have trusted my instinct, but I know she wanted to go be with her friends and with me and the coach thought she was ready, so off we went. Eve figured out the tow lift pretty quickly and made it up. A friend gave her some advice on going down, and she made it down, but definitely out of control.
She went back again, got more advice from a coach, and made it down again, equally out of control. She went back up again, but decided no was was she going down again! :/ I tried to help, coaches tried, friends tried, but no, she would not ski down again. She sat at the top with a very friendly coach for the remainder of the time and then took her skis off and walked down the hill at the end, in angry tears. It doesn’t help that she is getting bruises from these falls so all week she has bruises to remind her how awful skiing is. :/ (scared)
Next week is the 4th week and I’m going to insist she stay on the bunny slope until she gets that snowplow down with confidence. She won’t be happy, but hey, she hasn’t been happy for an entire lesson yet. There’s a chance I also bribed her with Dunkin Donuts (located right next to the ski place) if she made it through an entire lesson. We’ll see how that goes next week. Stay tuned!