[Paddlewise] tennis elbow

I should have explained how I got this injury.  It was not paddling but 
skiing.  Last week I spent five days up in BC's interior teaching my son 
how to ski.  I'm a former ski instructor so I know something about how to 
do this.  I must admit I took some advice from my sons former junior school 
headmaster and essentially coached from behind.  We spent 80 % of our time 
just skiing maybe even more.

Anyway on one of our last runs he says, "I'll take the blue run so you can 
ski the black mogul field, but let me get to the bottom first so I can 
watch."  Off he goes and I'm left standing there wondering if I've still 
got enough left in the legs to get through what's looking more and more 
like the mogul field from my worst nightmare.  I wait until he's reached 
the bottom carefully pick out the path through the moguls that closely 
follows the fall line.  Concentrating on the third mogul down I make two 
quick pole plants followed by two equally quick jump turns.  I hit a nice 
smooth rhythm skiing the top third of each mogul, triggering each turn with 
my pole plant, keeping my shoulders pointed down the hill, my hands well 
out in front, and aggressively leaning down the hill. I feel great.

Now my legs are burning, my lungs have collapsed and I'm not even a third 
of the way down when I planted my right pole directly onto a rock.  I felt 
the shock right through to the bones in my elbow.   I managed to gracefully 
finish the run mostly by slowing down although the last three or four turns 
where really traverses.

At the bottom Matthew smiled and simply said, "lets go."  I sucked half the 
oxygen off the north face and gasped out, "Yeah that was fun."   Who ever 
said you should never lie to your children never skied a mogul field.

Oh and never stand in the way of technology - you'll get run over.  I ski a 
pair of Elan skis  210 cm long that are 13 years old and almost new.  I 
sort of stopped skiing when I moved to the coast.  The guys in the sport 
shop kind of laughed at them and started in on his pitch about fat short 
stubby shaped skis. I thought yeah but I've still got my $1,000 in my 
pocket.  The next day we hooked up with friends all on these short skis.  I 
was humbled.

Gordin
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