When I was seven my family went out to Sandpoint, Idaho where I learned to ski at Schweitzer. I don't remember a lot about the trip - like what it was like to get on skis for the very first time or the classes I'm sure I took on how to turn and stop. What I do remember is getting set loose on the mountain by myself for the second half of the day in a rare and beautiful moment of childhood freedom. At the end of the day my dad met me and I begged him to go on one last run with me. He agreed and I immediately pointed both skis straight down the hill and let it fly. What followed was a wild ride of reckless abandon that ended only when a giant sign told me to 'slow' and instead I biffed it in a giant yard sale. It was probably the most fearless moment of my youth.
Fast forward six years. I was thirteen and halfway down the south face of Big Mountain, choking back bitter angry tears of terrified resentment. I had developed the opinion that my mom (who is an excellent skier) had made me take the Glacier Chaser ski lift all the way to the top of the mountain and then forced me to ski down the long straight steep intermediate slopes which I was obviously unprepared to do. How dare she! It's far more likely, however, that I had expressed a desire to do exactly this - and once you start down that hill there's only one way out. So my incredibly patient mother stayed by my side and talked me down the mountain through every slow, terrified and painful turn while I cursed her under my breath.
And thus the seeds of fearlessness were sown.
It's sometimes tempting to watch skaters who can blaze past precarious situations with obvious ease and believe that fear simply isn't a word in their vocabulary or that they just never lost the abandon of their childhood. It's equally tempting to try to will yourself to just 'get over it' as if fear is a bad case of the flu that will simply dissipate with time and no effort. I don't believe either of these things to be true. I'm pretty sure that fearless skaters became that way because of years of reckless behavior. I'm equally sure that the road to fearlessness begins in abject terror.
So how does one make the jump between being afraid but doing it anyway and never feeling the fear at all? I think the critical moment is just between when you're not sure whether you'll go through with it and when you've decided and there's no turning back. In that instant I imagine that there's a light switch buried deep in my brain and I mentally reach my hand around my head and turn it off. Once the switch is turned off the decision is made and there's no going back. I'm free.
Last night we were jumping. At first we were jumping over a bucket. I was nervous and it took several rounds before I could clear it by jumping with both feet together and my knees up instead of this weird kicking-my-skates-to-either-side-midair-because-I-wasn't-committing nonsense. After it became clear that the bucket no longer presented a challenge I felt compelled to try the overturned chairs. Just as my anxiety about it began to rise something in my head clicked. I remembered the fear switch, turned it off and cleared them. By then I was feeling pretty confident so I rolled over to the highest challenge - a skate trainer. I took several deep strides, got up my speed, jumped with all my might and proceeded to eat shit and nearly break the skate trainer.
But it didn't matter! The fear switch was off for the night. I ate shit several more times and it was fun. This is the kind of skating I want to be doing. From here on out I pledge to hit the floor, turn it off, and have a blast.
<posted on 8.3.12>
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