What's the objective of skiing?

Fun

I see the objective of skiing as one of the most  enjoyable sports there is. Period...

I've seen this myself and pretty sure anyone else did too:

Regardless of several factors such as:

-age

-ability

-how fit you are

-straight or shaped skis

-rocker or not

-skid or carve and so on.........

Going down the slopes on your own, thanks to terrain and gravity is like sex.. May be even better, or at least more often......For most of us, who are obsessed with it.

Add powder to the mix and it is like dream...

Has anyone seen people's  faces on powder day??????? Nothing, but smiles.

See what I said in this thread:

http://www.epicski.com/t/111959/back-to-basics

Quote:

Originally Posted by nolo 

 

Is going as fast as you can down the hill the objective of skiing?

 

 

Sometimes.   Other times it's just about standing up on top of a peak with a friend or two, maybe even alone, and looking out at what's around. One day a couple of weeks ago it was all about short turns. I'm surprised the WC skier couldn't slow it down. Most have worked on slow drills a lot over the course of their career.

What's the objective of skiing? I

It's different for every skier.

As fast down the mountain possible is definitely one of those objectives.

Because you can

Horst wrote about the beginnings of the sport as a form of winter travel. Eventually that utilitarian objective gave way to a more recreational one. Even then to slide down a hill meant first climbing that hill. At least until ski lifts came along. I suppose some would question why I've mentioned this since today's resorts feature high speed lifts and grooming techniques that were next to impossible back in the day. But in all of that innovation I feel we've lost that strong focus on moving towards a destination. While it's just my opinion here, this shift away from moving towards a destination manifests itself as defensive (braking) maneuvers. Ironically, even today most skiers in a beginner lesson don't start out with this defensive focus since they still learn to move around on very, very shallow terrain long before moving onto lift served slopes.

From a staff training perspective I see this in our coaches when they hastily move their classes as quickly as possible onto steeper terrain where the students quickly shift their focus to braking and away from the idea of moving towards a destination. PSIA did a study a while back and the results suggested those skiers who stayed on the flats longer ingrained that "move to where you want to go" mentality and this led to significantly higher performance levels once they left the beginner corral. I also see it in staffers who view working in the beginner corral as a negative thing. They long for the days when they only teach high end lessons on the steepest terrain at their resort. To be fair, it's sometimes a lot of work to walk up and down in the beginner corral but the skills we ingrain there (both in our students and ourselves) are the foundations of expert skiing. Convincing those coaches to see that experience as a skill building opportunity for their clients and themselves isn't easy but the people I see performing best in that beginner corral are also the very best skiers in PSIA. Especially in Aspen's school where so many past and present Alpine Team coaches work. It's there (under their tutelage) that I learned just how important it is to learn to move to a destination and to incorporate that in every activity we do on skis.

So, while secondary objectives like carving, playing in the park, or just making nice round turns, are offered as main objectives, the bottom line is we are still traveling from one place to another and continuing to move towards that destination is still the primary objective. (At least IMO)

Ski well my friends,

JASP

This thread seems to be asserting a judgement rather than asking a question.

There are certainly those who ski fast without the skills to make pretty slow motion turns. There are also those who are of the highest skill levels and ski fast because it is a natural consequence of the terrain being skied efficiently, and speed control is an inefficient way of getting down the hill, also because  it is often more fun going fast than going slow. There are those who are experts who rarely let their skis run anymore, and there are hard chargers who fly down mountainsides but couldn't carve a turn on a bunny slope, or don't really even know what carving is.

While there are many marginally skilled skiers that think that going fast means they're good at skiing, going fast does not mean that a skier is marginally skilled, to assert so is a logical fallacy.

Bingo.  Lots of discussions of this nature that tend to augur in because we're trying to put something in a bottle that's different for everyone. It probably doesn't make sense to talk about "the" objective of skiing, but it makes all the sense in the world to talk about your objectives or my objectives.  Rather than hijack this thread (my usual mode of operation...), lemme start a similar one on goals...

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by at_nyc 

What's the objective of skiing? I

 

It's different for every skier.

 

As fast down the mountain possible is definitely one of those objectives.

 

 

 

Lately, it seems to be about trying to log the most vertical feet possible on your iDevice so as to brag about it whilst "gnaring the shed" or the hotel bar later.

Maybe the objective is that there is no objective.

There is no objective.

I don't see why the World Cup Racer needed to learn super slow carves if she was so successful at the thing she loved and made a living at.

From a patrol perspective.

Skiing is the way to get to where I'm needed from where I am.  Time is often important.

Nice Turns are highly over rated ;)  But, it is important to be able to "turn 'em both ways".

Less specific,  IF we could safely embrace the maximum speed gravity has to offer,  We would all ski faster.  It's fun!  Ask any sky diver, BASE jumper, motor race driver.  etc...etc...etc..  No comparisons with Golf or Baseball, those are NOT SPORTS!,  They are past times,  ;)

I agree with the above poster who said it's to have fun.  What ever makes you happy is the objective or recreational skiing.

While precise objectives can differe between people and times, the ultimate objective is to increase happiness.

For the most part, people who ski recreationally do so for pure enjoyment. 

For some people at some times, they enjoy the thrill of speed, the satisfaction of succeeding at a chosen task, or the feeling of increased self esteem in believing themselves capable of doing something well.

BTW it is exceedingly difficult to believe that anyone who can be a successful racer will have trouble with a simple carving task, like carving cleanly but slowly, unless of course she was on DH race skis and everybody else was on short radius skis like  Head Supershapes.  That's a game that my daughter and I have enjoyed when skiing with others who were skiing with brakes on, the goal being stay behind them no matter how slow they go, but carve clean turns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nolo 

 

Is going as fast as you can down the hill the objective of skiing?

 

I love the story Mermer Blakeslee tells about the ex-WC racer who found herself at one of the women's camps that Mermer coaches. The woman could carve like an artist and no one could catch her in a race, but she found her breaking point when the assignment was to see how slowly she could ski while still making clean carves. She was a great skier and a great student of skiing, but this task was a test for her and it took all week to get it right. 

 

Maybe the saying, "If you can't sing pretty, sing loud," also applies to skiing. Speed can mask issues that are obvious in the slow zone. 

That can be one way of looking at skiing. While I have enjoyed going fast I also know what some of the repercussions are when I screw up. I've hit trees and have at least been lucky to have hobbled away.Speed is not it for me any longer. My objective is all around enjoyment, maybe that's a groomer cruiser day, maybe some nice bumps, trees and powder are even better but what I am really enjoying in this sport/hobby/recreational pastime is skiing and guiding with others who haven't experienced some of that stuff. Well I'll leave the hitting of trees out of the guiding part. Showing others some new glade I've worked on over the summer, or a different line down the same old trail, or just a different pace/ rhythm to making turns down the mountain is more fun than skiing by myself. Working with people via guiding and coaching and then seeing the results in their faces and their confidence is the way I am having fun while skiing. That is my objective.

I like to think of skiing as an entire domain. In broadest terms, the objective when skiing is to make it to the bottom of the hill in one piece, injury-free. If you don't make it to the bottom, you can't drive yourself home! (unless you're skiing into a valley, in which case you may need to make it to the top of the hill again.) 

When you start looking at the sport disciplines within skiing, more goals present themselves. Goals are still open and unique to each individual, but often include: 

slalom/gs/dh/superG: race the gates in the fastest time. 

freestyle: create the most unique combination of manouvers among all competitors. 

ballet: avoid breaking your legs. 

off-piste: manage all terrain conditions at all pitches with consistent speed. 

carving: create perfect railroad tracks on increasing terrain complexity.

touring: achieve a great cardio workout, ski an untracked run.

long-term skiers: achieve a lower-impact skiing style conducive to many decades of successful skiing

Last but not least, as I believe BB once said, skiing is a sensation-seeking sport. A big part of the objective of skiing for most skiers above the intermediate plateau is to recreate (or find!) those amazing sensations of alternating weightlessness and compression, rotation and counter-rotation, fast feet, and constant motion downhill. The goal of instructors is to enable our learners to achieve whatever objectives they've set out for themselves--or give our learners a taste for those different sensations.

So, the objective is to be happy. 

Why does skiing do that?  Sensations, absolutely. The weightless sensations, whether on a steep or in powder. (I imagine if I were younger, I would probably get a kick out of air. But my joints are too old for that.)  I like the mountains, too, looking at them and being in them, and I like snow, and I don't like being hot. I like skiing in sun, but I really like skiing in storms. 

I never raced, so I can't speak to competitive objectives. I've been in gates a few times, and it's fine, but I never really have any great desire to do it. Too much thinking, not enough freedom. If it was my best option, though, I think I could get into it. If it ended up that I was good at it, that would probably make it fun and reinforce the desire. As it is now, it doesn't necessarily make me happy. 

Nice sticker seg !   Nothing more to say than that. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by GarryZ 

Nice sticker seg !   Nothing more to say than that. 

yeah, but I did. :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by segbrown 

 

 

yeah, but I did. :-)

 I liked the comment about storms. I love storms, it's winter at it's finest fury. 

Fun, to have.  Yes, hmmm.

Doesn't look like guy hair,if ya know what I mean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nolo 
 

 

Taking that one step farther, would it be fair to say that a skier who excels at one specialty aspect of the sport, such as racing, freestyle, park/pipe, etc. is equally skilled as another who excels at a different specialty?

No, it would be comparing apples to oranges. There is no effective way of measuring skill level between different disciplines, any attempt at comparison would be nothing more than self entertaining musing.

Personally, my objective in skiing is not to increase my skill set, though I certainly enjoy increased capacity, it is a means rather than an end. Neither is my objective to just have fun, though it certainly accompanies me toward my objective. My objective is, as Stefano De Benedetti put so eloquently in Steep, to find "the perfect moment", that eternal now where one attains a feeling of liberating actualization, communion with the living ether, and the light that infuses it.