Private ski lessons (coaching, training, hints, guiding etc): the Jones family have enjoyed these over the years. To say they have all benefitted would be an understatement. And yet they continue to stay motivated and thrive in the process of never ending improvement. The son in the family, Robbie, continues this theme. In his early teenage years he enjoyed ski race training. But a few accidents, and an injured knee, put an end to that. After that he started to develop his all mountain skiing. However just over a week ago he decided to go back to another form of skiing.
About four winters ago I introduced Robbie to telemark skiing. Soon after that he sadly injured his knee which meant telemarking was not a great idea. You see the thing is, telemarking is the equivalent to doing lunges at the gym, all day long. It's knackering, and not for those with weak knees. An injured knee means no telemarking. So that was that then. Until he piped up last week that he had rented some telemark ski kit from a local shop and wanted to go back to it.
Since his knee injury he has grown tremendously, and has become much stronger due to huge amounts of swimming and rigorous gym work. So off we wobbled. Starting on a green piste, then progressing soon onto a blue. About l40 minutes later, we were telemarking down a red. I couldn't believe how well it was going, other than the lactic acid that was quickly building in my legs. We were both really enjoying 'freeing the heel, man'. Then Robbie had this bright idea about skiing down a black piste, Suisse in Courchevel. "Look it's been groomed and it's sunny and clear over there" he said enthusiastically. So at the top of the next chair lift we headed straight over said black, made a few turns, and then stopped. Why? The thick fog had rolled back in again. RUBBISH. So it took a while to pick our way down. Soon after that we had to head back to Méribel for lunch and catch up with the other members of the Jones clan.
We chose a steady blue piste from the top of Saulire, and paced ourselves down, lunge by lunge, by lunge by lunge....You get the picture. Neither of us wanted to own up to each other how knackered our legs were. We didn't say anything, but we both knew. Anyway it was great telemarking again with Robbie and sharing our experiences with the others over a hearty lunch.
My ski teaching just fizzled out yesterday for the winter. I've got less than two weeks before heading back to the UK for the summer. I'll be resting and recovering for a while, then hopefully free skiing a few times before driving back. As ever, please feel free to leave any comments, it's always lovely to hear from you. Live with passion everyone.
Martin
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