A Proud Countryside

My recent trip to the Adirondacks brought with it a nice break from home and a small preview of the warmer season that is just around the corner. The trip also reminded me of a few of my favorite things about Upstate New York - big mountains that are literally on an Olympic scale, some of our nation's most scenic inland waterways, and a remarkable history visible around every corner. Pictured above is Whiteface Mountain, site of the alpine events from the 1936 and 1980 Winter Olympics. Pictured below is Fort Ticonderoga, a site of major strategic importance during the French and Indian War (the North American portion of the Seven Years War), the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Last is the view looking south from the town of Whitehall, New York, claimant to the title of birthplace of the U.S. Navy.

Seeking Inspiration

Frequently over the years as my own skiing and as skiing generally have evolved, I've been very fortunate to have close at hand a number of skiers and coaches who are inspiring – inspiring as skiers, inspiring as teachers and coaches, and inspiring as people. My good fortune in this regard has spoiled me. At those times when I am left to consider skiing without such ski luminaries present, like a lot of former racers and coaches I look to the athletes at the pinnacle of our sport. The problem with this is that normally it's very difficult to follow the athletes of the World Cup and the U.S. Ski Team with any kind of detail or currency, to say nothing of a technical skiing view. The internet has made this vastly easier, as I no longer have to comb the back pages of the sports section or read obscure industry journals (my issues of The American Ski Coach from the early 1990's occasionally provides nostalgic entertainment). Still, it's not the same as seeing the pacesetters of our sport first-hand.

I spend a great deal of time teaching young people who are at the beginning of their ski racing careers or are considering entering race programs. I try to tell them about the young Americans on the U.S. Ski Team and how they train, who they are, and where they're from to put things in perspective. 'We're all just mountain people,' I'll say, 'and we use the same skills and work on the same things that they do.' I worry that ski racing suffers from an image as a far away, obscure pastime for anonymous Americans and for foreigners with names difficult to pronounce. So, despite my impulses to resist telling students personal stories about my childhood heroes and some of the celebrity ski athletes I've met and known, I can't help myself sometimes. And then there are the Olympics.

As much as I am far removed from the Olympics in every way possible, I cannot express how wonderful it was this winter to be able to tell kids about the great ski racers, about the things they are able to do, about how hard they train, and about what great and cool people they are at a time when the same kids can turn on the television and watch our heroes on network TV. Several of my students were able to track the progress of the U.S. Ski Team athletes as the Olympics neared, getting to know their quirks, weaknesses and strengths in the same way they might know the starting lineup of the Yankees or the Red Sox. It's so cool to know 9-year-olds who not only can pronounce Aksel Lund Svindal's name correctly, but know why they think he was favored to win a medal and in which events. The telltale sign of a kid who has spent a lot of time skiing with me is a sense of disgust at the way the conventional press treats Bode Miller. Don't they know anything about ski racing? And then there is Lindsey.

Coaches and teachers in all fields and all sports suffer from a lack of role models who can inspire children in a real and substantive way with the strength of their character as much as with their skills and successes. Lindsey Vonn is just that rare an athlete, and in the context of a coach looking to generate a love of skiing and ski racing and an appreciation of the type of person we all want our children to become, she is rarer still. Unqualified best at her sport? Check. Strong in body and mind? Check. Smart and articulate? Check. Approachable to and appreciative of her fans? Check. Able to overcome adversity? Check. Driven? Double check. Strong work ethic? Are you kidding? Self-taught and fluent in German, owner of a herd of cattle in France, originally from a tiny ski hill in Minnesota, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Checkimus maximus. Every time a child in America spends 5 minutes thinking about being like Lindsey Vonn instead of the latest Lindsey Lohan gossip or Britney Spears video is a triumph for all of us, ski racer or not, and every child inspired to race on skis by Lindsey Vonn is a bonus for our sport. It's just a pity we have to wait another four years to watch her in prime time again, but at least she may have touched some young people enough for them to keep watching long after the flame is out in Vancouver.

On a personal note (as though the foregoing isn't personal), I've been lacking inspiration recently. It's been a while since I've really had any transcendent and inspirational experiences relevant to my own skiing. I usually describe this in terms of training, which for me has been sorely lacking in recent years as my responsibility for the training of other instructors has grown. I crave instruction for myself, a sense of the big picture and what is possible to achieve on skis, a fresh perspective, a look at the future, something, anything not the product of my own mind, my own analysis of what I see and my best guess at where our sport is going. So, this coming week, I am going to Whiteface, the Olympic mountain in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, to try to find some. The technical description of what I am doing is that I am trying out for the Eastern Team of PSIA. In the weird little world of ski instruction this is a big deal. The Eastern Division of the Professional Ski Instructors Association of America is selecting from among its members a group to train and send to try out for the PSIA National Demonstration Team in 2012. The demo team is really the national team of ski instructors, truly rarified air.

I am attending the Eastern Team tryout because the participants will be comprised of the best of the best in the East – great skiers and teachers skiing hard on one of the most difficult mountains in the East. It is unusual for me to attend a competition like this with no expectation of success - honestly, I'd consider finishing in the middle of the pack a big success. What I am hoping to accomplish is to gain some perspective and, more importantly, to find some inspiration to fuel the fire of my own skiing and teaching. As much as I am a fan of Lindsey Vonn (and Bode, and Ted, and Julia, Aksel, Maria, Carlo …), I need something more than a matinee idol of a ski racer, something a bit more tangible and closer to home, and more than just a tib-bit here and there, to really find my inspiration.

Besides, a few days out of Ludlow, Vermont with less than a month left in the ski season can only be a good thing. All transmitted good vibes will be welcome.