Ah yeah, the pizza. Those should only be relied on to stop you on bunny hills and in lift lines. Your intuition is right that there’s a limit to how effective those can be.
Ironically though, the “way to make it easier” is the same technique that snowboarders have little choice but to learn from the start: turn until you’re going across the hill instead of down, because like snowboards, skis only tend to slide down when they point down. Then you make "S"s down the hill to maintain the speed you want, shallow “S” for speed, wide, traversing “S” to stay slow. You can commit to hold a turn until you’re completely sideways and come to complete stop, whether you’re pizzaing or not. No competent instructor would let let their students off the bunny hill until they can turn well enough to control their speed, so I’m really sorry that you found yourself in a situation where you had no control.
with the trauma I have, I’m not sure I’ll want to give it another try.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to try again, and I don’t mean to push you to because there’s millions of ways to entertain yourself on this big blue rock. For what it’s worth though, I’ve taught dozens of “first time” lessons where it wasn’t actually their first time, they confessed to me before we started that they tried skiing once years prior, had a bad experience, and only after years and years were convinced by someone they trusted to give it another shot. I’m proud to say that every single one of these students had changed their mind by the end of the lesson. So if you find a good, psia certified instructor and go one-on-one or in a small group, I bet that you’d have better luck. I promise, once it clicks for you that turning=control, the mountain just opens up.
Ah yeah, the pizza. Those should only be relied on to stop you on bunny hills and in lift lines. Your intuition is right that there’s a limit to how effective those can be.
Ironically though, the “way to make it easier” is the same technique that snowboarders have little choice but to learn from the start: turn until you’re going across the hill instead of down, because like snowboards, skis only tend to slide down when they point down. Then you make "S"s down the hill to maintain the speed you want, shallow “S” for speed, wide, traversing “S” to stay slow. You can commit to hold a turn until you’re completely sideways and come to complete stop, whether you’re pizzaing or not. No competent instructor would let let their students off the bunny hill until they can turn well enough to control their speed, so I’m really sorry that you found yourself in a situation where you had no control.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to try again, and I don’t mean to push you to because there’s millions of ways to entertain yourself on this big blue rock. For what it’s worth though, I’ve taught dozens of “first time” lessons where it wasn’t actually their first time, they confessed to me before we started that they tried skiing once years prior, had a bad experience, and only after years and years were convinced by someone they trusted to give it another shot. I’m proud to say that every single one of these students had changed their mind by the end of the lesson. So if you find a good, psia certified instructor and go one-on-one or in a small group, I bet that you’d have better luck. I promise, once it clicks for you that turning=control, the mountain just opens up.
Thanks. I appreciate the encouragement. Maybe one day!
Though even snowboarding I haven’t had the opportunity to go in years. It is pretty boring alone, after all.