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 *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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