Learning

As with learning anything new, there is definitely a period of time in which the tasks seems nearly impossible to ever accomplish. Immediately my youngest cousin Addie taking her first steps trying to learn how to walk jumps into my mind. The uneasy feeling, wavering back and forth, not really having true balance yet, but overcoming the fear of falling and taking the dangerous first step, is exactly like learning how to snowboard. I begin to recall my journey through the mental and physical obstacles that I had to overcome in learning how to snowboard. My senses of balance and stability were immediately lost and replaced with insecurity and apprehension. After falling countless times, first on my knees over and over again, and then on my butt over and over again, I began to not only get frustrated but also physically fatigued and hurt. Nothing else in my life has ever compared to the feeling of having absolutely no control over where my body was going. Eventually, I began to understand that to snowboard I needed to apply technique, not just will power. I slowly gained balance and skills that allowed me to make my way down the mountain. The more I practiced the better I got, and the better I got the more I wanted to practice. By the end of the first day of ever snowboarding, I was able to make my way all the way down a trail without falling. Not that I had mastered snowboarding by any means, but I at least was starting to understand what snowboarding was about and how to use pressure to guide and control my snowboard down the mountain.


View Larger Map