Telemark Transition

I have my new skis. They are the Solomon Pocket Rocket. And sometimes I will sit across the room and stare at them sitting in their wrapper all pretty and blue, waiting patiently for me. Except I’m already being unfair to them as I haven’t told them or even decided myself what they are waiting for. Options abound and decisions escape me. As I think about it, the line of thought goes many places. It goes back to volleyball vs. basketball. Alpine vs. telemark. Leave what I am the best at for something that challenges me more. The choice to telemark has been on my mind for over a year. And yet now, on the eve of it, I am afraid of letting go. Letting go lately in my head has meant making a decision, by myself, to tackle something by myself, and hope that the world doesn’t pull the potential net out from under my proverbial fall, but rather catches me blesses me and provides for me. Oh ye of little tele faith.

My first day out was a lesson with four other people – all about my age, all alone, all with experience in some other snow gliding plank sport. All but one other with rentals – ‘So you have committed,’ remarked one of my instructors as he helped me put them on. Yes, I am committed. The first day wasn’t as painful as those who had described their first tele day to be. I didn’t fall although I did lose my balance a few times, felt like a beginner all over again – although I can’t really say that because all over again means I remember what it felt like the first time. And I don’t.

The night before my lesson, I was at dinner with friends when one told me that his first tele day (he only alpines now) felt like he had run a marathon. His legs were so tired. And yadda on. And I was feeling a bit spicy about the whole thing, and so instead of shrugging it off or giving neutral, cliché and generic comments back like, “Well, I think it will be fun” or “I’m eager for a new challenge” I told the truth. The truth is:

I am doing this because it is hardcore. And I hope to have for the rest of my life one thing that I will always go balls out for. I will always look at those around me and think, ‘I’m going to kick your ass.’ It perhaps always has been sports, but it hasn’t been anything for a long time – a long time meaning six years. College basketball certainly was not. And skiing is it now. I love alpine, and I love moguls. But lots of people do that. And more and more people tele, but not everyone can. Not everyone has the knees for it. Not everyone has the athleticism for it. It’s a higher level in and of itself. And I will master it. I will be one of the best. Just like when I get in my alpines. But I am bored with those. Bored with all terrain but the biggest and steepest moguls. Telemark will open up a whole new world for me.

I am a speaker of truth, yet I regret that at times when discussion leans toward the mountain. ‘What do you ski?’ people ask me. The hardest, the biggest, the steepest. Because, after all, you can rest when you’re dead. (Or on the chairlift). And I am unapologetic saying it out loud, “I am awesome.” Although I wish I didn’t have to. I wish they could watch for the answer. So there were moments of doubt that telemark would be my humility. That I would suck at it. And I hate that doubt. Because it is stupid. Because it is false, and because other scars have bled over into my mind to make me think that.

It will not be satisfying to me unless it hurts. This is a consistent trait of my one hardcore thing. I will not be satisfied until it brings me to my knees in pain. Pain of practice, pain of conquering, pain of mastering myself as I master it. I didn’t know where to go next on my alpine skies. I couldn’t spend time working on technique because I do not know what that is. I learned so young, that I could no more work on my skiing technique than one could working on their walking down the street technique. It simply is natural, ingrained. So there will be the alpine tendencies to get over and there will be the pain of the lunges and there will be the humility of falling. Falling! And I will be able to ski greens for the sake a technique and I will be able to ski blacks for the sake of mastering them. I will tele for life.

Like a twenty minute workout, I will feel I am selling myself short if there is no burn. Burn that makes me stop and burn that makes me go farther. There is something elusive and challenging and beautiful about this sport. It will be my demon; it will be my pride; it will be my trophy. I tele. I have freed my heels. And I will also free my legs as they continue to go unshaven throughout the winter ski season. . . .at least until I get a boyfriend.

I’m very, very excited about this sport. Telemark. I love it. After one day I will never go back. But that is a lure that many people fall into. I will ski more terrain and be more challenged. No, I was not instantly great. That is why I left alpine – for the challenge. That is one of the requirements about my one hardcore thing – that it challenges me. In and of itself. I fight with it. I make it hurt. I fight myself with it. And it feeds an elusive part of myself that nothing else can.