When I come back from a skiing trip, I typically have mixed feelings. On the one hand, skiing is fun, but on the other hand, I know that I cannot do it often enough to improve my technique substantially. And for me, part of the joy of doing something is learning to do it better. So if I know that progress is not possible, I wonder wha’s the point of doing the thing at all.
After our recent trip to Whistler I feel differently. I am fired up to get on the slope again as soon as possible. I believe that this is entirely thanks to my daughter (well, maybe also partially because I bought new skis, which are great fun). She is seven years old, and it was the first time that we were actually able to ski together. Her progress was so sudden: last time she attempted skiing, she was barely able to keep balance on the flattest surface we could find, but this year, she took two days of instruction at the kids’ skiing school and after that could confidently stop and turn on a legitimate green-level run.
My wife and I also took a lesson, to re-calibrate ourselves after the long break in skiing. The advice our instructors gave me, as we were chatting over hot chocolate during the lunch break, was that the focus of practicing for me should be improving efficiency of my skiing. The reason is that pretty soon our daughter would want to ski more and more, so to keep up with her (and to enjoy it), I need to get better too. I like the idea. It resonates with what Anders Ericsson said in “Peak
