"I am a very good skier" - Discuss

Caron - a.

I think Bandit is talking a lot of sense. It has to be at a pace you are comfortable with when you start skiing agin.

Good luck!!

I was thinking that would be a good idea, especially as there's a good british ski school out in Tignes. I'm also considering an hour's private lesson at the snowdome on their beginner slope just to find my legs and build up a little confidence before getting on the plane :?

Thanks people :D

Caron

If I am measuring on how much I love skiing they should make videos of me and I should have sponsorships coming out of my ears.

If it was on my skill level, I should get really good insurance.

The question is like asking "how good a driver are you?"

It is hard to perceive how good you are. Better for others to comment. I am honest enough to admit that I still need a good few lessons and hope that there is still things to learn when I am double my age.

Good point Hirsty, about the driving connection, because no matter how good we might be or think we are, there is always some other idiot who can go and put you in hospital.

I’m glad that this post was well received and I think some very interesting points have been raised, especially about the methods of personal perception of performance.

What I didn’t mention in my original post was the difficulty I sometimes face in deciding how to respond to a particular request for information. It certainly seems very clear from the posts that there is no easy way to ascribe a certain level of ability to oneself.

So what makes this an issue? Well aside from the obvious difficulty this causes ski shops and ski hire outlets, it also makes providing sensible and more importantly relevant, responses in this forum nearly impossible.

Imagine person “A” says –“So what does anyone think of piece of equipment B?” or person “C” asks how good resort “D” is? Without a fundamental understanding of the basis and ability on which that question is being asked the possible answers could be polar opposites …

So to some extent my interest was more directed towards how we operate within this online community than how we perform on the hills of the world.

What has become clear is that a number of people have used “skiing” days as a guide to others about their likely ability – A guide, which on a purely personal basis, I find very helpful. So are there other useful guides to ability? Some people mentioned their perceived comfort with different piste grades, again very helpful indicators.

So what other “guides” do people find helpful in deciding how to provide answers? Or would be possible to provide when asking a question?

Jan

Jan,
You do make people think!

You do make people work!

Several months ago,, I was working on some "benchmarks" for coaches teaching/coaching ski racers! These are on the net!

I suspect such "benchmarks" are also on the net for recreational skiers via the ski instructors organizations in each country!

I will try to find them and perhaps Dave ( the site Guru/skier/judge/GOD/ mediator/ etc...) may post them on a section, "What kind of skier am I"

This would be a first since no ski site has this!


Then in 2009, we could have pictures ( which skiers post themselves) with some evaluation by participants very much like the "contests" for the 10 worst (or best) dressed women/men!

In 2011 perhaps some videos and evaluations!

This would serve two purposes;
Skier would get feedback
General skier public would be "educated" on what is an effective skier!



Try this next season.

Ask fellow lift partners to point out a "good" skier on slope! Then ask why he/she focussed on that skier!

You will get amazing answers!

I make assumptions based on what the poster writes-which may be a good or bad thing to do. For example, if someone tells the forum that they are a really good skier, and then asks a basic question about boot/binding setup, it's possible that they only think they are good, as that type of knowledge gets learned along with skiing improvements.
Also, I have my own benchmarks, which I try not to apply to others :lol:

This may have already been mentioned but I do think we all raise our expectations as we progress in, well, anything really. This can make it difficult to assess how good we are in something.

I sailed on Friday night. It was awful. Too windy, too choppy and I thought I sailed rubbish. BUT, Kim was out on the trapeze, we didn't capsize and we made it back safely. A couple of months ago my heart was racing just trying to keep the boat up right in some very light winds.

The same in skiing. Last February we had a bit of a struggle skiing the deep stuff between the trees in Italy. At the time I thought I was pants at it. But again, it's only a matter of a few 'skiing' weeks prior that we were planning routes around resorts avoiding anything that wasn't blue.

I think only by evaluating your progression can you really evaluate your own ability. Those of us that think we're in the lower ranks of ability are probably a lot better than we think.