Frustration

I suppose at every point in an effort to achieve a goal there is going to be consternations and frustrations. Today was no exception. Started great. It was snowing and a good layer of fluff about five to ten centimeters cushioned the slopes. Although it reached minus nineteen degrees I wasnt that cold and was out for a total of six hours. My guide Scott took me down some nice steep pitched runs under the Tamarack chair. I love these runs, great views (although I dont have much time to look) and great for balance as well as going fast with short turns. Trouble started when I could not make the top of my body face downhill during (long) turning. I spent all last week perfecting this, for both long and short turns, in variable conditions including anomolous bumps, but could not for the life of me get it together today. And of course the more it happened the more I got frustrated and the less able I was to extricate myself from this position. It really is a mindgame and today I lost out to the freak that is no confidence, rigidity, and no fluidity. It may have been the cold. It may have been the beef jerky snacks I am religiously eating, hell it may have been my skis, but today I really fell back a step. Part of the mindgame is obviously getting over these inconsistencies. Tommorrow I am trying a new approach. Every time this happens I am going to stop, get out of my skis, look around and try and appreciate my time and place. I know I will get over it and I know I will progress in due course, but today was evil. I call it the reverse hump day (It is wednesday here). Anyway after lunch the giant slalom course was set up. I had a go and for the first few runs I was going pretty good. I mean the bad habits were still there, but I was going dam fast. A couple of times I had to call out to my guide to hurry up (I follow him). One time I yelled out "move on chump' but he didnt hear me and he stopped. Narrowly missing him I slammed into the padding of a chairlift pole. It didnt hurt and I was laughing hysterically. Scott blamed it on my misuse of commands and I blamed it on his bad hearing (all in jest). I told him to start swimming in the slow lane. The very last run of the day was another shocker. So tonight I am going to unwind, listen to music and read a bit, try and redirect my focus towards improvement and not so much on emotions. Anyway fingers crossed my pyschological approach to being in the right state of mind and lets hope this flows onto actual improvement!