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Dougie On Skis

9:57 pm Uncategorized

Longtime readers of this blog will recall Dougie’s athletic exploits on grass (soccer) and water (swimming). However, both of these surfaces are in short supply during the typical Calgary winter. Therefore — what else could we do but throw Dougie on a pair of skis and see what happens?

We signed him up for ski lessons at Canada Olympic Park — the facility that hosted both the Jamaican bobsled team and British ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards during the 1988 Olympics. Seemed like the perfect place for a skier of Dougie’s calibre. COP is now a fantastic ski center for beginner skiers — tons and tons of little kids (and their parents) learning firsthand about gravity. It also happens to be 10 minutes from our house in Calgary — much closer than the big ski hills near Banff.

The report? According to Dougie, skiing is something of an acquired taste. His balance is pretty good, but he gets quite frustrated at his lack of control — particularly at the bottom of the ski hill where the ground is flat and he has trouble moving around. Luckily he hasn’t fallen too much, but he certainly relies on Dad to pull / push him along.

(Dad, incidentally, got roped in as this is a “parent participation” class — and Dad had not set foot on the slopes in 12 years… perhaps the bunny slopes were a good reintroduction!)

At any rate — he’s making progress. Couple of photos from the last couple of weeks…

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In the ski lodge before starting. Check out the skis — 85 cm. Never seen them that small!

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In his ski boots, just before starting the lesson. Note the beautiful blue sky — we’ve had some gorgeous weather here.

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“Dad… how did these things get on my feet?”

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Going up the “magic carpet” ski lift. Kim pointed out to me that the angle of this photo makes it look like we’re going down a double-black-diamond — trust me, that’s an optical illusion (or a bad photographer)

Unfortunately, because Kim and Connie weren’t able to come out, we don’t have any “action shots” of Dougie in motion (as you can imagine, I had my hands full catching Dougie). But he’s doing OK — one more lesson next week!

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