My first attempt at skiing was when I was around 6 on
holiday with my family. I wasn’t particularly good at it (something I was
oblivious to at the time) but I think I enjoyed it.
On this holiday I was taught to ski by a French instructor,
all I can remember about this is that I could not understand a word she was
saying! (In the video below it is clear that I had misinterpreted at least some
of what I was taught.)
I was then taken on a few other ski holidays over a number of years which involved largely the same things as the first, and I can’t really distinguish what I remember from one to another, although I do know that my skiing improved quite a lot over this time.
The next lot of skiing that I can clearly remember was when
my legs were just beginning to fail me, I walked high on my toes and I was
starting to lose strength in my legs, but my balance was still pretty decent,
so I managed to keep up. This was in December 2012, and at this point the
rigidity of ski boots was enough to allow me to ski without issue, in fact, it
was only when I took my boots off that it could be seen that my legs functioned
differently to other people’s in any way.
Around the Easter of 2013, I went on a school ski trip,
during this week it became apparent that although I could still ski well (at
this point I didn’t consider the problem with my legs a disability - I was
still hopeful that it would be something curable), I did fall down a lot more
than everyone else. The instructor for my group did repeatedly try to tell me
to move more from my knees, as I was using my hips instead, which
retrospectively suggests that my knees were weakening, and that I was already
compensating for my lack of strength without me realising it. By the end of the
week, my falls were increasing in number and I was very tired, and when I got
home, my legs felt dead. Despite this I did actually really enjoy this trip,
and I am still teased about one of the crashes I had that involved me
single-handedly knocking down an entire ski class (my own - not some strange
children).
Following that trip I did take part in a ski club on
weekends, but it was not long before my legs deteriorated quite quickly, and it
became impossible to ski standing up.
I had given up on the idea of skiing, until a Google search
led me to Disability Snowsports UK, and I discovered that legs are not needed
to ski. I had my first lesson in the monoski around the end of January 2014; I
spent most of this time face first in the snow, it was hard work. It was a pure
coincidence that just over a week later the 2014 Winter Paralympics began,
watching this made me want to work harder at my skiing, and since then, I have
not stopped.
