It looked both easy, elegant and Natural but at the same time I realised it might be hard to learn.
I do get a Natural High from all forms of snow sport, be it a Sledge With the kids, Snowboarding in days gone by, or now classic "kicking" XC skiing.
However skate skiing kind of coincides With other difficult Things to get past and learn in life, It reflects my personal sttruggles With relationships and career.
I started a little on my usual skis, on days when it was Cold blue waxing which tends not to grab on the snow,
Eventually after a job interview, the thought of some spare cash lured me into buying a super special offer on Madshus ultrasonics or whatever they were. The skis were light and medium 'spenn' ie spring or Arch pre tension. I managed to break the back of one of the pair on icey conditions a couple of seaons in. Also I didnt get the longer poles, which although not absolutely necessary , do help promote correct technique.
Two years in and With a bad repair job not holding, it was time for a New pair of skate skis and proper length poles,
I wathced endless Youtube videos on technique, but am hardly very good at See Do, However, as With my last potential New love of my Life, a lass called Heidi, I percievered, I went back again and again to a simple floodlight ski centre and round and round I went, Taking time to practice the Three main elements . Single Dance, Double Dance and Paddeling,
My Left Foot
There were two main problems With my propulsion . Firstly lifing my heels too much and secondly my weak left side.
Lifting my heels could in part have been to do With the first pair of skis I had not having their bindings quite in the right Place, I think they are the fancy New type too, which can be slid back and forth for Balance or conditions.
However my New skis showed that I had the issue on the left side, and once i got good on my right, the Whole kind of 'stroke neglect' type thing which stroke patients get around partially affected areas plinged a bell.
Riding a Fixie
Skate skiing is the slidey Snowy equivalent of riding a fixed cog track, erstwhile Courier or hipster cycle. You have to keep going like a metronome in order to make progress otherwise you grind to halt, You have to actually learn then how to take in more oxygen With a lighter recovery effort, and when to gas off to avoid oxygen debt and lactic acid, especially in the shoulder or arm muscles.This year I really had to deconstruct and go back to basics. Like classic, or downhill, it is absolute best to learn in fact without those overly long dangly poles, and every time you take out to the tracks, do a few minutes and some trials here and there Without them.
You can see some would be skaters or rather even some who have been at it for years, doing the sort of MC Hammer, flat doll on string legs out to the side, The motion is very similar to ice skating and rollerblading though, so you only go out the side a lot, when going uphill. Like tacking a boat, when the resistance is straight Ahead you zig zag, In Skate skiiing as in the other related sports mentioned, yiou do zig zag a little until in pure coasting or Down hill mode, THis is in order tha tyou can propell off one ski or skate, onto the other, The lighter the terrain and faster the conditioons, the less angle is needed, and the herring bone pattern becomes more acute downt the ski track,
Weight transfer and timing are the two key Things in being able to hold the Wheel rolling. You can have other elements right, such as the poling, but if you dont get Your weight over the centre line, then you will never ski efficiently. It becomes most obvious in paddeling, where if you neglect to slide Your pelvis and weight over, you end up With Your legs scrambling under a middle set weight placement, which is far less efficient and usually leads to haste and stumbling,
I realised my left foot was exiting badly without a good propell phase because in fact it wasnt being Place well Down at the start of the Whole left side phase, and because I wasnt committing enough weight over to the left side in the phase, The Cure for this is the heel to heel tap and also trying to ride as far out to the left on a neutral knee and almost straight leg as possible until you feel you will fall on the outside edge (which you can do!)
Heavenly But Hell to Pay After
I had starte practicing this in said Field, but for the last two days when I happened to have time after work, I chose the more challenging local forrestry road, Yesterday I had some issues With paddeling, especially on the left side, and kind of strining the Whole thing together while remembering to breath and avoid oxygen debt
Today I took it a little easier, armed With all my experience and knowledge of weakenesses to date, I did a lot more Without poles and turned Down the work rate in order to achieve what I wanted, a non stop run to the end of the road and back. Apart from one or two small stop ups and a usual pole inside ski fall, whcih all the best pros have done in the final 100m of the world championships in their day I saw on NRK recently anyway.
In dancing I concentrated on landing the ski, weight balancing and transfer, straight leg glide, compression for kick, and cycling the ski over the snow again to glide on the opposite and recover for the NeXT landing, I went from a weakish left to a left side which is eighty or ninety percent as strong and effective as the right!
Conditions were what you could called easter holiday morning, Corn snow, packed and hardish With little free water in it and most of the air squeezed out, Pole sticking through to ground in some Places, more like concrete in others, It was fast. Really fast.
With this speed and accomplishment in mind, I completed my two laps, and elected on the way in to do some couple of extra CLICKs (km) to warm Down, What the heck, do the Whole 6 km again.
I took it a little easy and tried some slow but sure paddelind With focus on weight over on one side, It went well, and completed the Learning maybe for the season, With a high
I reached the turning point and was literally elated, This is why I moved to Norway! To get out on skis and learn New Things.
Rewards and a Low
I live alone for the first time now in five years, and althoguh percieveance has paid off big time in skiing and skate skiing, Those moments up at the far end of the ski trail were true happiness, and self realisation,
Then I drove home, eat a TV dinner and felt lonely and isolated, and thought how Nice it would to be able to see Heidi, But my perceiveirance didnt pay off there, in fact it had the opposite effect, She got fed up With me beign too Coward to defy her Lets-just-be-friends play, or maybe I was too on or what ever, Six months of getting to know here Down the drain after she decided on someting I am not quite sure why or how, but to push me away, and now back into say hello, wave goodbye maybe talk about the weather Territory,
I came back to my Hybel and eat, drove over to the Ex and the kids for a short visti and Exchange ofwashing and supplies, and came back home to hitting-an-all--time-low. Few beers and this blogg to reflect on skiing and I feel a lot better, but there is a bigger hole than I expected left by being out skiing alone and coming home to an empty Apartment than I ever thought possible before.
