Reflections on what's inside a skier

One often wonders what the motivation is for 7 years of working hard to provide an event where the top teaching and technical skiers in the New England region can gather together for a competition particularly well suited to what they do.

Sponsors are gathered; frequent emails and phone calls are exchanged. Venue details are sorted through, with endless corrections, the collection of equipment, building of fences.

Resorts are approached to send teams, clinics are run for the various ski schools in the region...many trainers and instructors are spoken to...and many say they will be there.

Yet, come event day....year after year, the turnout is less than stellar.

Such a different atmosphere than one finds in the western states, where the skiers think nothing of driving 12 hours from Colorado to Montana just for two days of competition. To the western skiers, it is so much more. It is a chance to connect with peers, make friends, sharpen their skiing skills in the fire of competition. They waste no time worrying about how they will perform. Rather, they thrill to the chance of being able to perform, to compete, to better themselves somehow in their chosen way of life.

Eastern skiers are a wholly different breed. They worry about whether they are good enough, shy away from competition and are content to do as they always have for the most part. They miss the opportunity to learn, to better themselves. Frankly, most of them are just lackadaisical, content to just go through the motions of their skiing lives and, in doing so, miss the point of why they became skiers in the first place.

A skier is a skier is a skier. It's not about how well one skis, much less how one skis on any given single day. It is about the sensations one derives from moving down the hill....the pleasure of making a turn that makes you think, "yeah, that's it...that feels awesome!"

It is about a sense of belonging somewhere, of desire, of sensory pleasure. It is about the environment in which one surrounds oneself; the freedom of physical expression...to be wrapped in the arms of the mountains while pushing for forward towards some unknown.

Think back Eastern skiers; why do you do what you do? The answers, should you have what it takes to ask the question, may just surprise you.

For the skiers who make it to the New England Powder 8s (soon to be the New England Synchroski Carving Championships) you "get it." You do not waste these rare opportunities and you will grow from having been part of something different and unusual.

Turn n' burn!