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| Yes | 11% | 32 votes | Total: 282 votes | |
| No | 89% | 250 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesOkay, you can't learn to ski like Bode Miller just by sliding around on the internet. But you can acquire a lot of information, at any skill level, by checking out the resources on the World Wide Web. I remember my first ski lesson like it was yesterday, and I was completely lost from start to finish. Having a little bit of information beforehand would have helped out a lot.
The first thing you're hit with on your first ski lesson is a whole lingo you won't understand to explain tasks that make no sense. If someone had told me what a safety strap was for before I got to the slopes (which proves my first lesson wasn't actually yesterday), I would have had about another half hour to ski. And as I went further in skiing, I actually did start to read some things (I started skiing before the Internet) about technique, which helped me to be a better skier.
Skiing involves doing, and most of doing can only be learned by, well, doing. And doing and doing and doing. Or trying and falling, getting a little better and falling. Falling is a constant. But there is another constant in every lesson. Before I, the student, do, the teacher does. He or she demonstrates whatever technique I'm supposed to learn. I see it first, and then try to copy what I see.
My friendly neighborhood ski instructor is going to start the demonstration right next to me and give me an explanation of what is going on. But then the instructor moves away. If I sneeze and miss the demonstration, the instructor is not going to climb back up the hill to do it again.
But on the Internet, I can find a lesson on YouTube, watch it, watch it again, and watch it again (http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=4ZaJQZwN_ 50 is a good place to start). If I miss part of it the first time, I can rewind as often as I want. The most patient ski instructor in the world cannot give me the same kind of demonstration. It isn't even that instructors don't have the patience; they don't have the time, especially if they're teaching someone who may be a little slow on the uptake or just completely lost.
And then there are the details and close-ups that just can't be duplicated in a live ski-teaching environment. Why does a ski turn? I didn't figure that out by skiing, I learned it from watching ski racing on TV (once again, I learned to ski long before the Internet) and by reading about skiing.
So there are opportunities to learn in the virtual world how to do things in the real world. Check it out, and you'll find you've learned something and you're having more fun skiing. Or as one skier posted on a YouTube site, "i have skied 10 years and im still watching learn to ski videos lol." http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=ssNHAXGVl Ks.
Learn more about this author, George B Nichols.
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No
You step out of the house after spending quite a few hours doing some online research. You are walking down your sidewalk, when you realize you forgot your key and head back in to grab them. You walk up to your car and open your door, step one. You sit in the seat and buckle your seat belt, step two. Insert the key in the ignition and go! WRECK! Would you learn to drive by taking a "comprehensive" course online? Of course not. For the exact same fact there is no way you can learn to ski from online lessons. Skiing is a learned skill, just like driving and just by sitting in front of a screen and watching videos of other people do it doesn't mean you can hit the slopes of a black diamond and tear it up. People getting off their butts and hitting the BUNNY slope would have problems, let alone trying to tackle an actual trail on the mountain.
The key to skiing, driving or any skill for that matter is real world and real life experience. Actually going out and preforming the physical action that is takes to perform the task you are trying to complete, in this example skiing. You need to feel the ski's, make sure your boots fir properly, get your poles the right length. You have to learn to carve, to adjust your speed, to have your skis move in concert with each other. You have to learn how to stop, a difficult thing by itself without ever once trying it for yourself. The muscle memories that are committed to your bodies memory are immensely more important than mimicking Bode Miller's moves as he bombs down the mountain in the Olympic Super G. Your real world experience allows you to gauge your skill and most importantly, get an actual feeling for the successful movements involved with skiing. What slowing down feels like, what carving is like, how it should feel and how it shouldn't. These movements and feelings are the basis of learning a physical skill.
Sitting in front of your computer screen and looking up your favorite YouTube video of skiing tutorials will result in nothing but broken bones and broken wallets after the mounting hospital bills. The high speed and reaction time key to skiing, must be developed through first person interaction with your equipment and the hill, not with your mouse and the computer screen. Would you drive the same way that you do when your playing Grand Theft Auto IV? I didn't think so. So save yourself from a collision or two with some fir trees and two or three visits to the hospital and make sure your actually start AT the mountain and not at the mountain of links for Free Online Skiing Tutorials.
Learn more about this author, Zach Wild.
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