Skiing is to the Swiss as GAA is to the Irish. Both are synonymous with the intrinsic fabric of each other’s rich cultures and when you think of one you almost automatically think of the other. I love sport and watching skiing as a kid in Waterford typically evolved some snippets on Grandstand early Saturday morning before Saint and Greevies. It typically consisted of strange looking men in space like children clothing with fancy helmets and goggles anxiously waiting on the top of a mountain in a cable car looking contraption. Then suddenly you could hear a clock beeping down and with three or four frantic pushes of their skis and duck like waggling of their feet, from a shoulder hugging TV angle, the athlete shot down like a rocket along a mountain, which looked like a devilishly tilted white dotted needle cushion. The foreign crowd always cheered and roared. I remained bamboozled in appreciation of an art and technique I knew little of. The nearest I had ever got to skiing was hanging off the back bumper of a truck driving on ice down Paddy Brown’s road. The next angle was always a side on shot with the skier who a few seconds early was waiting anxiously to start now bulleting along his white icy undulating pin cushion at 120km or more desperately and skillfully holding his trajectory with incredible balance and dexterity. Respect.
On the way to Zurich to see “Maddog”, a good friend working hard as a stockbroker in UBS and with the beautiful Camila and friends from home “Horse” and Caroline also taking part in the adventure the images of Grandstand, fondue and Lindt chocolate were weaving and bobbing in my brain like a down slop lunatic. The sense of anticipation was fabulous. Not for a long time, a very long time, probably since I was in Dublin airport the 22nd of March 2004, saying goodbye to my family, on my 30th birthday, as I was just about to embark on my trip of a lifetime around the world did anticipation and excitement mix and swirl so potently in my veins. A nice uplifting sensation of adrenaline flowed as I looked out of the window and stared beguilingly as usual at the snow hugging the mountaintop over a beautiful French Alps backdrop.
Lots of people talk about how brilliant a holiday skiing is and now that I have tried it for myself I can safely say they all undersold it. It’s like a lot of things in life in that until you actually try it for yourself and sense the weight on your feet that ensues with getting into the strange ski boots and sense the awkwardness of being restricted to heavy long duck like hip trusting quads and calf pushing lunges to walk you can’t understand fully what people are talking about. Then you have the weird and wacky opening steps when you have to get used to your new “body” with all its additional limbs and muscular movements. You must relearn how to walk and run to ski. No longer the traditional foot after foot followed by arm after arm. The old repetition of decades of movement flies out the window and now you are forced to reevaluate all basic movement functions to exist in this new world. Gripping sticks tightly and pole pushing now become the norm. As does pushing your leg ever so slightly out and forward on both sides in a waggling movement to move forward. Also the hints and pelvis reinvent themselves and take centre stage and act as your guidance system for left and right weaving turns down the slopes This is your new method of walking.
Learning to ski for me was like a pregnant woman carrying twins trying to approach a gentle slope in Phoenix Park with two planks of semi-sold laminate flooring strapped to her already heavy feet. You don’t have a single iota when you are going to figure the damn thing out and you feel like a complete eejit stumbling around albeit with a big pink rosy smile with carbon dioxide flying around everywhere.
But slowly and surely with a little patience and perseverance and the help of a few basic techniques from an instructor, a fleeting rainbow in the background, and a few go’s on the beginners slopes you’re skiing. And the feeling is magical. Fun, fun 5 star fun.
We skied in Flumserborg 30 minutes outside of Zurich by car. Beautiful location and perfect for beginners. Now I’m hooked and now I have a new reason to look forward to January and February.
