Looking forward.

This winter I returned to snowboarding. When I originally agreed to chaperone ski bus I thought it had been about 19 years. My kid was going to be on the bus. They needed another chaperone. In a moment (of insanity) I thought, “sure, I can snowboard. It’s been a while. It will be great!” So, I said, “yes.”

As I sat on the lift for the first time, climbing slowly up the mountain, I realized it was probably closer to 25 years since I had been snowboarding. Either way, it had been a long time.

Back to me, on the ski lift. Going up.

Here’s the thing about the ski lift. Once you’re on it. You have to get off it. Locked into your snowboard with one boot. While the lift keeps moving and other people behind you are trying to get off too. And you don’t get off on a flat section. There’s a hill you have to ride down. They don’t stop the lift and let you walk off, then put your board on. Nope. It doesn’t seem to work that way.

So, needless to say, I got to the end of the lift. Stood up. Front foot locked into the board. Back foot on the stomp pad. I looked down at my feet. They were in the right places. We had come to the end of the lift. I stood up. Pushed off the chair and promptly fell over within 3 feet on the little hill.

This happened over. And over. And over. Most of the time I could scoot to the side quickly and they didn’t have to completely stop the lift. Once I got conked in the back of the head by the next chair (yay, helmet!). A few times I wobbled more than 3 feet, maybe 5-6 feet! No matter what I seemed to try, it was the same thing every time.

Ride lift. Approach dismount area. Turn board. Look at feet to make sure they’re in the right position. Stand up. Push off. Fall over.

After 5 weeks of this (yes, 5 weeks) I decided to try something new while getting off the lift. On a side note, everyone told me snowboarding would come right back. “Like riding a bike,” they said. You’ll pick it right back up. No problem. It’ll take a day of two at the most. Humph. This was not my experience. But, with continued perseverance and a general willingness to throw my body down an icy hill while strapped to a stick, I finally got there, sort of. It’s not pretty but nearly 2.5 decades later I can ride a snowboard again. And it’s fun. And I’m pretty sure that’s the most important piece. It’s fun.

So, back to the lift. As I rode the lift up for the 10,758th time I thought about what I could do differently. So I wouldn’t immediately fall. For whatever reason I decided to NOT look at my feet. I would look at the spot I wanted to ride to. I would look ahead, down the little slope.

So, I did. And the crazy thing is, it worked! Not every time, but about half the time, I don’t immediately fall. I stand up. Push off. And ride my board down the little hill to the landing spot. Amazing.

So, if I were my own best friend, and I was stuck doing the same miserable, painful thing over and over again (like falling on my face in the snow) I would tell myself to NOT look down at where I am (where my feet are now), but instead, look forward at where I want to get too (down the hill). Trust that where I am is okay. My feet are where they should be. What I want to do is get my feet (and the rest of me) to somewhere else.

To be clear, I am not suggesting we live in the future and don’t enjoy the present. I think this could be taken that way, so I want to call it out. Enjoy the present, be in the present moment. But, if you’re trying to get somewhere else, and you only focus on the present, it will be very hard to get to the next spot.

Also, I don’t think this applies to only snowboarding. I think there are other places in life this makes sense. If I want to get somewhere I have to look forward, to that destination. If I’m always looking down at my own feet it makes sense that I keep falling on them. What do you think? Have you ever realized you’re so busy looking at your own feet that you’re getting in your own way of going down the hill?