I learned to skate ski back in the 1990s, when I was on the front side of my first 40 years. At the time, I was still relatively new to cycling, too green to consider myself an athlete. I still recall how, despite plenty of strength, I couldn’t make my arms swing through the stroke necessary to propel me forward.
Without going into the specifics of Nordic ski technique, I can report that I looked more like I was praying than flying. It’s not hard to conclude that the latter will do more to generate motion than the former. I spent each of the following seven winters trying to learn how to move with the sort of grace that eluded me when I lacked gear to mediate my relationship to the Earth. Bicycles, skateboards, skis—I’ve always been better on anything other than my feet.
I practiced how I transferred my weight from one foot to the other, the way I turned my ankle, where I planted my pole relative to my foot, how far apart I positioned my hands, how I pushed through my poling and even how I tried to make sure that I could draw an imaginary line down from my nose, through my knee and to my big toe to give me the sort of balance that would allow me to glide the length of a backyard pool.
When I moved from New England to Los Angeles, I concluded that for reasons of career and climate, my skiing days were behind me. I found a way to accept my reality, but the loss was so painful I never properly mourned it.
Decades passed and I met someone who lives in Seattle. And in the winter she and her friends switch from mountain bikes to skate skis. When she first suggested that I rent gear and join them, I balked.
This would be where I admit that I do stupid things with alarming regularity.
Pride makes us do things that are not, uh, helpful. Having developed such good form back when I was a young buck, I didn’t want my own self-appraisal to rob my return to a beloved sport with that voice. I didn’t want to find out in objective terms just how much strength I’d lost, to find out what I can no longer do.
Then I realized that choosing not to do something is worse than doing something poorly. There is also the fact that Jennifer’s friends have been nothing but welcoming to me. From mountain biking to camping to birthday parties, they’ve accepted me as one of their own. Were I to visit Seattle but insist on riding on a weekend the rest of her friends were skiing—well, what kind of a man keeps his partner from her friends?
And while they are often notorious—if not famous—last words, I asked the age-old question: “What’s the worst that can happen?”
A few well-earned bruises is the answer. Just a few bruises, from me falling on my keister. Sure, in that first kilometer I displayed all the awkward balance of a newborn fawn, but within a couple more kilometers I was moving at least as well as some of the other people on the trails.
I continued to fall, at least once a day, for the first five days back. On my sixth day, I didn’t fall once, but not falling didn’t so much save me from embarrassment as it robbed me of laughter. While I can be incredibly hard on myself, I also carry a great capacity to laugh at situations that are funny, and people falling on skis is very often funny, especially when it’s me.
Here’s the real surprise though: Those old movements came back. How to plant my poles, how to turn my ankle, how to push off from one ski onto another, how to stand tall on a ski and even that most feared aspect of technique, how to push with my arms, it came back with such shocking depth of memory I was embarrassed not by my Bambi balance, but by the fact that I almost let fear rob me of one of my favorite forms of movement.
I spent several seasons as an instructor, and I loved showing my students how skate skiing was a kind of dance with the terrain. I taught them to match different techniques to changes in the trails and the ability to switch fluidly between those different techniques was like combining dance steps. In my best moments I felt a grace that cycling can’t always reach, and imparting that to another person, teaching them how to read that landscape always left me feeling like I’d done good in the world.
Now I’m the student again. This time, the lesson is that I’d lost less than I thought, and that relearning those techniques, that balance, will serve as a star to steer by, a reason to trust myself. Not just to trust myself, but to believe in myself. Even after all these years, I’m still surprised that I contain so much ability within me. Being humbled by such a lesson is my reminder that I’ve got room yet to grow.
Image: Jennifer Schofield