My very first skiing holidays 

I heard already a lot about skiing: the fast speed, the fresh air in your face, the beautiful blue sky and the sun in the mountains, reflected by the snow, the after-ski drinks and an amazing team spirit when you go with friends. All the things I really love and enjoy…but there are some problems: I can’t ski and I am super afraid of heights and being too close to the steep hillside.

To gain new experiences and to overcome my fears, I went from the 25.02.-06.03.22 with a group of 12 friends to Mayrhofen in Austria. We travelled with an overnight train, which is an amazing way of transportation, which I highly recommend! It is super easy, starting in Amsterdam or Arnhem in the evening and when you wake up in your tiny bed, you are already in Austria. As soon as we arrived in Mayrhofen, we went to our cute appartements to store our luggage and continued directly to find our Ski rental “Bründel”, which is located directly at the Penkenbahn lift. Some handsome guys gave us our skis, ski boots, poles and helmets. So, first time for me in the ski boots. Trying them was already exciting! I learned, that getting into the boots is kind of the first workout for the day, because they are so tight and stiff (after 3 days it turned out, that they were not tight enough, because I sometimes lost control over my skis due to the fact that I had to much space in the front of the shoe). 

Day 1: In my friends group we have 6 professional skiers, which means they learned how to ski or to snowboard when they were kids and went almost every year on skiing holidays, 2 intermediates, who went a few times skiing and with me included 4 motivated beginners. For us as the “babies” the skiing trip started with 3 days ski course, followed by 3 days skiing on our own, which turned out to be a perfect combination when you want to learn it.

After getting into the ski boots, we had our next challenge in the ski school: Getting into the skis. This was super tricky and slippery when you do it for the very first time, but I felt amazing! Skiing holidays can start right now! But before we went down the baby trial hill we learned to go up, which was again super exhausting to go in clumsy baby steps, but we made it! Then we should slowly go down our baby hill in pizza style, which means that your skies are at the tips close together and, on their ends, further apart to slow you down. I felt really unstable and wobbly, not able to go into any specific direction, but it was fun. I enjoyed the warming sun in my face and the feeling of getting more and more control in my feet with every small hill down. What helped me to get even more stability was to “squeeze the oranges”, which means that you should have a bend in your knees and push with your shins against your boots to squeeze an imagined orange in between. Because we heard this command perhaps 3491 times over the ski course, we called our group “the orange juice group”, with our own battle call were our teacher shouts ORANGE! And we reply with JUICE! At the lunch break the 4 of us babies met our other friends and proudly reported about our experience and what we already learned. We continued in the afternoon with our ski class and Becky and I were confident enough to try our first little part of a blue slope…no good idea! So, we didn’t learn turnings well (after the first day it is just logical, that we can’t do it properly) and were way to fast! I had no control at all and hoped not to crash into someone or fall down…aaaaand we both made it at the end! Without an accident! All in all, it was a really, really nice first day which we finished with a few beers in an après ski bar, which made us forgetting the pain in our shins.

Day 2: The next morning, I woke up with sour muscles in my calves and huge pain and blisters on my shins, so I had no idea how I should survive 5 additional days of skiing…But once I started the fun and happiness was much higher than the pain and I could continue to practice. On the beginning of the second day of ski school, we optimized our technique with exercises like filling your glas of water in the turns, superwoman or walking the dog, so that we were able to go with our teacher to the easiest blue slope, the 28. With my first time on a “real” lift I felt free and happy and I was so excited to see how it is on a slope and to gain new experiences. The begin was a bit bumpy and tough for me, because I still had no precise control of my skis and was always afraid to gain too much speed, that I can’t handle it any more. But with our teacher it was nearly impossible to gain too much speed, because we did our slow turns as shown in an instruction manual. The slope was not steep at all, so that I was really confident at the end and happy and satisfied to learn even more the next day. 

On day 3, so our last Ski course day Becky and I woke up super excited to show our other friends what we learned. But a lot of things turned out to be a bit more different than I thought. In the Ski class we practiced our turns on a steeper blue slope, which was ok, but also a bit boring to do the same thing again and again. After lunch break, we were all exhausted and our teacher decided to go back to our baby hill to practice a bit parallel skiing…Wow. Back to the baby hill…I felt way to advanced to go back and my mood dropped immediately. Additionally, it was unexpectedly hot. After 20 min of for me annoying exercises on the baby hill in my own winter coat sauna I felt super dizzy and had a short break. The others were kind of in the same mood and so we went back on a short blue slope, which was super fun at the end =). But after 3 days I was really done with the Ski school. So, what I learned is: Keep on challenging yourself! Even though sometimes things seem to be to tough it is better than not being challenged at all. Our ski course was finished at 3 pm, so we decided to continue a bit with our other friends. They took us the first time to another mountain range and it is crazy how the view can change just behind one other hill! We did a few times the blue 67, which is almost like a ski highway, super wide and on the right side are always the slowest people (like me). From this highway we had 2 possibilities to come back to our valley: Taking the big gondola down or taking the red slope 66. Our friends convinced Becky and me to come with them to do our first red slope. The first 300 m were totally fine and then we saw this massive, super steep hill of snow where we had to get down. The only very steep one promised our friends. I was super super scared and had no idea how I should survive this thing and how I should start. After 3 deep breaths I thought that there is no other way, so I really had to do this. “Take your time! You can do it! You are super strong” is how my friends motivated us. Because I have the best girlfriend in the whole world, she was always a bit in front or behind my and delegated me the hill down. I still have her voice in my ear saying or better singing:” sllloooowww, pizza, pizza, pizza, turn, go straight again, stop, sloooowwww, pizza, pizza….” I don’t know if it was super hot at this slope or if I was sweating like crazy due to the fact that I was freaking scared! In retrospect it was super funny and I am proud that we survived. But in the presence moment, it was no fun at all. And it came what had to come: It was not the only super steep part, we had three of them. Only with one small fall down and almost 1 hour later we arrived at the end. A bit later I realized 3 things: 1. I did a red slope, which felt great especially because we managed it together in the group where the professionals motivated us and waited. 2. I learned that when I want to improve my technique it helps me, when things are sometimes to exaggerated. For example: in the ski class I found it always difficult to remember on which foot I have to put my weight, on the steep slope, I did it naturally, without thinking, because it was only possible in one way. 3. I had to change my ski boots to a smaller size. Even though they felt super tight at the beginning, I had now way too much space, so that I found it difficult to control the tips of my skis.

Day 4. Finally, it was the day that we could practice our own style and speed without our teacher! We started the day with all of us 12 together on our blue “home slope” number 28. I was really proud to show the others what I already learned. But this feeling of pride unfortunately didn’t last long. I saw all the kids who went down the hill like crazy little rockets, without any fear, all the old men with their “beerbelly” and the high society ladies who wore more make up on the slope than I wear when I go to a club. All of them had a better technique and were faster than I am. I saw my friends who look so smooth and chilled on their skis and I felt terrible and incapable. The fact that they learned skiing approximately 15-20 years before I started learning it didn’t change my bad mood. At the same time, I new that it is impossible to be as good as the others and that I can be really proud about my progress (so this was how I felt in the morning without comparing myself with others), but my emotions were stronger than my mind. Not only because of this, but also because our professionals wanted to do a few red slopes the “professional” and the “baby” group went on separated lifts. This worked so much better for me! I enjoyed it a lot to be surrounded again by people who are at the same level than I am. At the same time, I was angry about myself, that I have these negative emotions, comparing myself to others and that I always think I am not good enough or I should do better. It is not that these thoughts help me to improve they just make me feel bad. But back to the Skiing itself. This time we didn’t have a nice lunch break with a beautiful view, sun, beer and hot apfelstrudel, so the full Austrian experience like the other days. We just had our sandwiches in the gondola, because we wanted to travel to the other side of the Ski resort. We went all the way down with the Penkenbahn and took the Ahornbahn up to the new hill region. This region is really small, but perfect to practice your technique or to go to with small kids. After all our friends went in a hut to warm up a bit and have a drink and a snack, I went with my girlfriend for one last slope. What we both didn’t know: This one was super curvy, steep and narrow. So, not really a slope for me, me, without being able to turn well and especially not as the last slope around 4 pm. I think I felt like 3 times and was really disappointed at the end. We joined the others and after a Glühwein everything was fine for me again. So good and bad at the same time, my mood can change really quickly.

Science fact
The annoying features of the mind: Setting wrong reference points
Comparison is one of the annoying features of the mind. Sometimes comparisons help to assess a situation better, but for our personal happiness comparisons are most of the time rather destructive. Why? Because your reference points are most of the times subjective and subconsciously. We as human beings, in this fast and global era, tempt to look up and never down, to be better, faster, prettier. We see people on social media, who pretend to be perfect, successful people with more money, colleagues who are more precise and friends who can ski better, so we set our reference points high. There are for sure people who are doing less good than you and when you think about it you actually know it. What happens for a lot of people when they set their reference point low? Let’s take the example skiing. At the beginning of the ski school, we were all on the same level, all never skied before. It was easy to compare myself with others and to see, that we are all on the same boot. My reference point was not to far away from my own skills, so that I felt belonging, improving and proud. After day 4 I felt terribly unable even though my skiing technique was better than ever before, why? Now were we mixed the baby and professional group I set my friends skills as my high reference point and it seemed to me like their skills are unreachable for me (makes sense, because they are skiing since min. 10 years and I started 3 days ago) and I felt incapable and small. I kind of forgot that I already learned so much and that there are people who are on their day 1 of ski experience and I am not unable at all. Thinking about people who just start or struggling with learning something new many people have thoughts like: It is normal that you are not so good at the beginning, they just learning, for the beginning they are doing great…and it is completely ok. Often, we don’t allow these thoughts for ourselves or to set our reference points low. Instead, what we thought about the other beginners we can also think: Wow, when I see them, I realize how much I improved: It is normal that I am not so good at the beginning, I am just learning, for the beginning I am doing great!
So, what I want to tell you with this is: if you start something new it can be motivating to set high reference points, but also frustrating. Better to start with others, that your reference points are more or less close to your own level. As far as you improve, set your reference points higher to reach your aims and to improve, but don’t forget to look down and appreciate what you learned. And keep in your mind: It is not going easier, you are doing better =).

Day 5: Because 2 ski regions are not enough for this huge ski resort the Hintertuxer glacier is the 3rd region of to the Mayrhofen. We went there at 8 am by a 30 min bus drive, all of us super motivated to be in the 2000-3500 m high mountains. As we arrived 70% of as felt, lets call it unbalanced and a bit stomach sick not only due to the serpentine bus drive (and for sure we were the cool kids in the back of the bus), but also because of this last Glühwein or beer the evening before, which was not good anymore. Nevertheless, we were here and so we aimed to do the first blue slope all together. My muscles felt like I just went out of my bed…super stiff and without any coordination, but in a miraculous way my shins where fine. After 10 min of going down the blue slope we stopped at this huge steep part, which reminded Becky and me of the red slope we did 2 days ago. So, our “we start with a relaxed morning” ended exactly here. But luckily this time it was really the only steep part. However, one steep part to much for one of our beginner friends and his glacier experience ended with this slope and a nice view on the next mountain-restaurant. After this more or less everyone went separate ways, whereat Becky and I stayed together the whole day, brave and confident to find our own slopes. It felt a bit like the baby birds were finally able to fly and to leave the nest. We were again so lucky with the weather, it was super sunny and we could enjoy this amazing mountain panorama and the fresh air in our faces, especially because we were already able to ski a bit faster this day. After the shocking blue slope at the beginning, we felt dynamic and found our balance again. But than after we took this amazing slope number 9, Becky and I were lost. Completely. Surrounded by only red slopes there was no other way down to the valley. When this first blue slope in the morning was already dangerous for us, we were really not in the mood to try other red slopes especially after already 5 hours of skiing. A mixture of panic, hunger, complaints that we did not look properly and perplexity overcame us and we saw only one option: Calling the parent birds to guide us home again. Not even 3 min later I saw this unbelievable cool girl, smoothly skiing towards us in her fancy black pants, turquoise jacket and golden shining goggles. With her blond hair waving in the wind of her high speed she was like an angel and showed us the way...which was…unexpectedly unspectacular. We just had to cross, not lying, 20 m of a really, really flat red slope and we ended up on our well-known blue slope. Exhausted, but happy we were ready for our bus drive home.

Day 6: Sadly, our last day of skiing. Somehow my pain in my shins were completely gone and also the rest of my body felt fine. I even dreamed about skiing and thought that I finally understood, how to do it. Let’s see how it is on the slope. I went again with Becky and we wanted to explore some of the slopes we haven’t done before, so we made our way to the super long blue 11. As a short warm up we did our slope 28/29 which was so familiar now and not a problem at all. Compared to day 2 and 3 we were now able to stand straighter, to do some nice turns and to gain more speed, also closer to the edges without the fear that we are not able to stop anymore. I learned, that for me personally pizza is now not anymore the right technique to slow me down, but crazy turns to the right. With all this gained trust in my skis and my ability the beginning of the 11 was no problem. But than I was a bit to giddy and in a narrow part I did to many small turns, gained too much speed, which leaded me directly into a wall of snow and ice. But luckily nothing happened. After this slope I was the only surviving ski baby from our group and I went on a tour to another mountain range with our professionals. It was lovely to see them, how easy and peaceful they fly over the ice and snow. At this day I was able to find my own speed and it was ok to be not as good as they are. My girlfriend was with me the whole time, for 2 more red slopes followed by an icy blue. I was in a really nice flow, enjoying the beauty of the mountains, the air, my turns and the presence of my girlfriend. In this situation I was able to feel why a lot of people love skiing so much and I felt the same. Because I wanted to see how steep it is behind a baby hill, I did a nice turn to slow down and than…Crash! After 0.002 s I was laying on the snow, my skies next to me and my poles in a completely different direction. A snowboarder tackled me with highspeed and bumped into my skis, luckily just the skis. After he apologized 20 times we both stood up and luckily besides an increased adrenalin level nothing happened. After this accident it was a bit tricky for me to continue again, but I found my flow thanks to Mites and her motivating words. All in all, it was a great last day and I was sad to finish skiing for this year 2022. But as the well-known saying goes: you should stop when it's best and luckily, we all arrived without any injuries back home in beautiful Wageningen.

My recommandation for your first skiing holidays as a real beginner, who never skied before:

1.       Look for nice people who are motivated to learn skiing with you and nice people who             are already more professional and motivated to help other people growing and improving (best case they all like to have some beers or Glühwein after skiing)

2.       Find a bigger ski resort, that everyone can do what she or he wants

3.       Book a ski school in advance (3 days of ski course worked perfectly for us) 

           day 1: learning the basics of wearing skis, walking up the hill and slowly go down            
           without turns in pizza style to gain a first feeling

           day 2: Learning basics of turns, gain some confidence

           day 3: First blue slope and basics of parallel skiing, having more and more motivation               to ski in own speed and own turns, not always following the teacher.

4.       Enjoy 2-3 days of skiing with your friends in your own pace without a teacher

5.       Be proud of your progress =)

Expenses per person for 6 days (all rounded):

Train tickets from Arnhem to Mayrhofen: 200 €

Accommodation:                                           300 €

Rental Ski/Poles/Boots:                               100 €

Ski School (3 days):                                       200 €

Ski pass:                                                          300 €

Food and drinks:                                            200 €

Total:                                                               1300 €

 
I hope you enjoyed reading and you are motivated to go on your next or propably first skiing holidays, 
 
 
Yours Dominique <3