Grays On Trays

Call me crazy, but I think that the opportunities offered by snowboarding, skiing, and other wintertime activities are too enjoyable to worry about how other people enjoy them.

Even as we wind down snowboarding’s third decade, the alleged feud between skiers and snowboarders still gets press. (Sometimes the attitudes are in fact not friendly; witness some online discussions when Taos Ski area announced that it would open its terrain up to snowboarders.)

But here’s something I was not aware of: an anti-snowboarder sentiment within snowboarding. Perhaps naive, I was surprised how vulgar and anti-human at least one expression of this sentiment was.

Karine Ruby won the first Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, at the 1998 games. In the words of one recent article about her, she became “the most decorated female snowboarder in the world, with 2 Olympic medals, 6 world championship titles and 67 snowboard World Cup victories.”

Unfortunately, that article was her obituary in the New York Times. On a mountain climb, she fell 70 feet to her death.

The Times included one passage that some people might find incendiary. Here it is:

“‘In the snowboarding world, she was an unavoidable icon,’ Joel Franitch, the French Skiing Federation’s director of snowboarding, said in a telephone interview. ‘It’s a huge loss for the sport.”

Did you see the offending text? “French Skiing Federation.”

What gives?

Here’s the answer. The Olympic games are run by the International Olympic Committee, or IOC. For each sport, the IOC picks which governing body sets the rules for who can participate. When the IOC decided it wanted to have snowboarding in the games, it had to pick which organization to deal with. There was an existing organization for snowboarders, but the IOC instead picked FIS, the worldwide skiing organization. That move provoked some anger among snowboarders, and the world’s leading snowboarders refused to participate.

Over 20 years later, a few people are not willing to let that sleight go, as revealed by the following conversation I had on Twitter with a party I’ll call “AS.” My comments are preceded by “GOT.” I’ve done some editing, if you can’t tell.

AS: honestly was Karine Ruby a f—ing saint or something? Her skis were stuck together and called a snowboard

GOT: Karine Ruby a saint? No. But she was a pioneer, champion snowboard racer, etc. Too much anger there? Why?

AS: pioneer of what keeping snowboarding in the ski genre? Racing isn’t snowboarding, she’s dead people deal with it

GOT: Still mad about the role of FIS? You *are* an angry dude. I beg to differ: snowboarders *can* race.

GOT: BTW, remembering someone’s contributions and life is in fact a way of dealing with death. Is that a problem?

AS: hard booting carvers are nothing more than spandex wearing wannabe skiers that couldn’t hack it ski racing

AS: also how many people knew and remembered her before she died? These are the same people that suddenly cry about it, that’s sad

GOT: Spandex ain’t my thing either, but live and let slide, I say.

And I still do. I’m not a hardbooter, though I’m intrigued by it and may try it out sometime. I seldom watch snowboarding or skiing events (for one thing, they’re hard to find on TV), but I do think that the death of anyone who has accomplished something and has a lot of life ahead of them is a sad, and a loss to many people. No man is an island, and all that.

So whatever you enjoy doing on the snow, do it, enjoy it, and be grateful for the opportunity to do it. And don’t hate. Save your energy for something productive.

An article about a 43-year old science teacher in Iowa gives us a good portrait of a mature rider who enjoys the sport as a way to challenge herself.

Susan Maurice, who teaches at a middle school, says that her students can benefit from her example. Then again, so can the rest of us.

My message is this: If you don’t try something you are not proficient at, you will never begin to address the obstacles on the road to success. I did it – I was fearful and anxious, but still persisted in my lack of ability. I am hoping that when my students see my attempt, they will know that the success is in the trying what is not comfortable – and you can achieve if you believe.

She received a couple of medals in a statewide event. Granted, she was the only person in her age group in the halfpipe and slopestyle event, so a podium finish was guaranteed. And that which was once not comfortable is now something she enjoys and can take pride in. That’s an accomplishment.

Snowboarding is a physical activity, to be sure, but attitudes and thoughts can play a large role in your riding experience.

I’ve been blessed to visit some mountains with fantastic scenery, including A-Basin:

Aspen:

and Vail:

On the other hand, my local conditions aren’t nearly as spectacular. Our plunges around here are a mere 300 vertical feet, the largest of the several ski areas reports 250 acres (respectable in acreage alone, if placed in New England, but small by Rocky Mountain standards), and most of the trees that we lose their leaves in the fall. Now, a summer walk in a deciduous forest can be fun, but for winter enjoyment, evergreens are best.

But when I paid a visit to a local hill recently, I caught a hint of an evergreen forest. Not an actual forest, mind you, but enough green to set my mind thinking of grander vistas.

Here’s a photo from much earlier in the season:

The trees in the photo are not the ones that I’m talking about; they’re further down the hill and not as visually pleasing. For one thing, they’re lined up, single-file, serving as a lane marker in an otherwise wide-open space rather than elements of a true forest.

Yet somehow, their cousins further up the hill, guarding customers against a 100 foot drop-off to the parking lot below, put me in a peaceful state of mind. I would stare at one tree as I passed it by, or even just a few branches. And then I would close my eyes and imagine myself on a lift that was cut through a massive evergreen forest, not running up against a thin strand of trees.

And for a short time, it worked.

Here’s a photo, same ski area, that briefly reminded me of the west side of Aspen’s Butermilk Mountain:

Obviously, not the same experience, visually or otherwise. But for me the winter alternatives are ice fishing (too stationery), cross-country skiing (usually not enough natural snow cover) or staying inside (too fattening and unhealthy).

So if, like me, you’re faced with less than ideal conditions, exercise your imagination.

The challenges of learning how to snowboard or ski have long been fodder for comics. You’re dressed up in funny clothing, giving up something you’re competent in (walking) for motions that are unusual and unknown, and there’s always the opportunity, in slipping-on-the-banana-peel style, for aches and pains. Early in the days of snowboarding for example, Dave Barry reported on his adventures. He reported that the day after his time on the board, he went to a coffee-and-Advil diet.

While en route to a short trip away from the frozen tundra to the Sunbelt, I listened to a comedy channel on the airline entertainment system. The comedian repeated one old story about learning how to ski.

He explained that when he was 48, his wife decided that they should take up skiing. He started out with his exasperation of taking up a sport at that age. Here are a few of the lines that I remember from his routine:

• “I told my wife that she should just throw me out the third-story window. I would get the same experience and she would save money the lift ticket.”
• “I got hit in the head by the chairlift. It knocked me cold. I called the insurance company about it, and the guy on the other end asks ‘So you got hit by a chair?’ ‘Yes,’ I told him; I stood up, looked around, and got hit in the head by the chair.’ He told me ‘You got hit by a chair? You’re a moron. We’re not going to cover a pre-existing condition.”

So what does this say about our attitudes towards learning how to slide? A number of things: fear of the humiliation that can come from being incompetent at a new task; fear of injury and–here’s the one part of these routines that has a kernel of useful truth–not taking yourself too seriously. Especially when you start out, you have to leave your pride behind if you want to find bliss on the slopes.

When it comes to sports, you can be passive, or you can be active. Being passive–that is, cheering on someone else–can have its value. After all, I’ve spent many hours watching my favorite college football team.

But what happens when the season is over? The Green Bay Press-Gazette (“Bad case of Packer’s withdrawal?,” January 27, 2008) has the right idea: Get out of the house.

now that the Green Bay Packers season is over, an even harsher reality is slapping you in the face.

It’s cold. It’s depressing. It’s not even worth leaving the house without 18 layers of clothing and an army of ice scrapers.

But winter’s frigid chokehold on the state doesn’t have to feel so miserable.

Here’s what we suggest: Don’t just face it. Embrace it.

Now that’s the spirit, and author Thomas Rozwadowski goes on to suggest some winter activities, including snowboarding. You may find that you don’t even need to be a mere spectator.

If you think that snowboarding is good for your mind, you’re not just imagining it. Scientific research shows that exercise can actually make people smarter.

OK, so that’s the high-level, PR-pitch. I’m still collecting information, but what I have seen looks very interesting and encouraging. See for example some reports from 2003:

A press release from the University of Illinois:

“Interestingly, we found that fitness per se didn’t have any influence on brain density,” said Kramer, a professor of psychology and member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois. “It is fitness as it interacts with age that has the positive effects. Older adults show a real decline in brain density in white and gray areas, but fitness actually slows that decline.”

An abstract from a gerontology journal:

“These findings extend the scope of beneficial effects of aerobic exercise beyond cardiovascular health, and they suggest a strong solid biological basis for the benefits of exercise on the brain health of older adults.”

A popular-level survey from 2006 (LA Times, registration may be required):

“Aside from genetics, four factors stood out as good predictors of how well people keep their mental edge as they age, says Marilyn Albert, a cognitive neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who sat on the panel.

The fab four, Albert says, are physical activity, mental activity, social engagement and cardiovascular health.”

And another newspaper review, from the Wall Street Journal (good for the next week or so before it goes behind a subscription firewall):

“For the first time, scientists have found something that not only halts the brain shrinkage that starts in a person’s 40s, especially in regions responsible for memory and higher cognition, but actually reverses it: aerobic exercise.”

So get out there and ride … and ride fast!

Snowboarding isn’t just fun–it’s good for you.

In his column of July 18, 2006, “Farming? Running? It Doesn’t Sound Like a Vacation to Me,” the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Sandberg talks about what makes for a good vacation. He quotes, among other people, Geoff Godbey, a professor of leisure studies at Pennsylvania State University. It turns out that what we do with our non-work time is important to who we are:

To be most satisfying, Prof. Godbey explains, leisure should resemble the best aspects of work: challenges, skills and important relationships. Leisure has its hierarchy. At the lowest level, it’s a search for diversion, higher up it’s a search for pleasure and, at the top, it’s a search for meaning. “It’s not that diversion is bad,” says the professor, “but in terms of human growth, it’s inferior to activities that are more pleasurable — and they’re inferior to activities that are more meaningful.”

Scientific evidence, he notes, shows that people who engage in skill-oriented leisure — crossword puzzles, bridge, chess, woodworking — score higher on practical intelligence tests. “Leisure is a very important medium for making us stupider or more intelligent,” he says. “At the end of your life what you’ve done with your leisure may be more important than what you’ve done at work.”

So maybe that explains why some people find a spiritual aspect to snowboarding.

And if a professorship of leisure studies isn’t a sign of the wealth in our society, what is?

Carol Hymowitz takes up a similar theme in her August 14 column, “Executives Who Make
Their Leisure Time Inspiring and Useful.” She quotes a CEO who is learning Spanish in his off-work hours.

He says of his language learning: “There was something very inspiring about tackling a new skill — and being able to chart my progress … up the learning curve each day.”

Sounds like he’s tried snowboarding, too!

I went out to my local mini-hill today; it was the first day of the season. Sadly, it was a couple of weeks delayed, compared with last year. Warmer weather will do that.

It’s easy to hate winter. Cold. Ice. Shoveling snow from the driveway. Driving in the snow. But that’s one reason that I like snowboarding: it’s a way to put the cold and the snow to my advantage. While the snow is a nuisance if it’s on the road, it’s a source of pleasure if it’s on the mountain. If you’re in the northern part of the U.S., you’re going to have a cold winter and some snow; you might as well find a way to enjoy it.

Now if I could just do the same with the shoulder seasons: late-October through mid-to-late November, and mid-March through April. During these two six-week periods, it’s too warm for winter sports, and too cold for summer sports.