it's been a while since we had the fun of getting somebody skate-skiin' for the first time. when we started, you had to chop down your own skiis to size, re-epoxy them together, and then go find a snowmobile trail or frozen lake to try and figure out to do it from some still photo's you might have seen someplace. things have moved on.

check out liz here, on her 2nd day. lots of good stuff goin on. more importantly, a whole lot of bad stuff NOT goin on !! note the lack of duck-walking, stinkbug-style, floundering, and generalized unpleasantness. she was wise to heed our counsel of forgeting about the poles, and forgetting about how fast she was going, and forgetting about the 'workout'.

dig the nice flat ski she is running on. that means she is balancing on it and it alone - not easy to do. dig also the rotation of the upper body in anticipation of the new ski goin' down, but the hips still running the old ski, kinda winding up for a powerful new drive, but not wasting any energy with excessive floundering or counter-rotationv - just a tight driven weight transfer about to happen. check out that upraised boot, close and tight to the body perfectly positioned to pivot outward and accept her center of gravity smoothly and with no energy loss as she glides out onto it - REALLY not easy to do !! nice forward position, too. most of all, dig how she looks like she doesn't really need those poles at all - the sure sign yer getting it right.

gotta be honest - i cain't take too much credit. when gretchen skiis no-poles she looks like ginger rogers. all liz had to do was watch that, and keep tryin.

sometimes i dig the modern way-o-doin things.