Birth of a Telemarker
Video and Story
by Mitch Weber
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How hard is it for a young,
athletic and skilled snowboarder to learn to telemark?
February, 2010-- There is no question that learning to telemark
has never been easier. Advances in gear and technique, as well
as the way in which tele is taught, have steepened the learning
curve considerably. It wasn't that long ago (or so it seems to
some of us anyway) that simply being able to link a few inelegant
turns together on a blue run pretty much defined one as an intermediate-level
tele skier. Typically, even reaching that seemingly modest goal
involved no small amount of struggle, even for experienced alpine
skiers.
A couple of decades later, beginners
now routinely get to the point where they can string together
a bunch of tele turns, at least in some form, within a day or
two. |
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So how hard is it for beginners
these days? We have watched with amusement as this topic has
been debated repeatedly on our TelemarkTalk Forum (and elsewhere)
over the years. A new generation came into the sport, benefiting
from all of the advances in modern telemark while simultaneously
proclaiming that "tele is no longer a license to suck."
Putting aside that it never was, there remained a valid point
buried in the snarkiness and outright disrespect to the sport's
pioneers: The bar had indeed been raised. Still, others have
continued to assert that telemark skiing remains challenging
at every stage of the learning curve. As Flyin' Ryan Boyer put
it succinctly in the TGP video Open Windows a few years
ago, "It's hard as hell, but I love it." And so it
was that J.T., my 15 year-old snowboarding, surfing, skating,
southern California-beach culture-to-the-core stepson, got my
full attention recently when he announced that he wanted to learn
to ski tele. Once I got over my initial shock, I realized that
J.T. had just handed me an opportunity to document his progress
in a series of videos, perhaps have a little fun along the way,
and to some extent at least, maybe even answer the 'how hard
is it' question once and for all.
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In part one, as a sort of baseline
reference point, I have included a few short clips of J.T. boarding.
His on-snow background also includes
some years of alpine style skiing, from the age of three through
six. Along with his mom, J.T. took a couple of seasons off after
his little sister was born. When he returned to the snow, it
was on his board.
J.T. had barely learned to ski with
poles before switching rides at the age of eight, and he commented
to me on his first day back on skis, "I don't remember any
of this, I feel like I'm starting from zero." No doubt it
was a humbling experience for a park rat and all-mountain powder
hound with fifty-plus days already under his belt this season,
and yet clearly J.T. was psyched. Let's face it, you have to
be to stick with it, |
The hero of our story,
circa 1998, age 4. Ph: Mitch Weber
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from the initial struggle to
simply get into traditional tele bindings with safety straps
and cables (see video), through those first tentative turns,
and beyond. Oh, and while riding up the chair on that first day,
I asked J.T. if he was looking forward to the challenge of learning
to telemark, he replied, "I don't look at it as a challenge,
I just see it as another talent to acquire."
Umm, okay. This should be interesting...
Birth
of a Telemarker,
Part One
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TeleVision
rating: "G".......Length: 5:16 |
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See also: Birth
of a Telemarker, Part Two
xxx |