Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Zen and the art of ski racing



Recently I've been helping a friend of mine with organizing her yoga retreats, and in doing so, did some focused research (I google'd it..) on yoga travel and the marketing mix of retreats in general. My friend is looking to go international, and having run a few summer race camps overseas and out of country over the years, I thought there would be some knowledge to share. Sure enough, my Macbook Pro yielded its usual window to the world of internet knowledge, and first up was an interesting article published fairly recently in the New York Times about the proliferation of yoga studios beyond spas and retreat centers to mainstream hotels and more traditional resort venues.

This article was helpful in several ways to both my friend and I. As for my yoga friend, it was something of an affirmation to see an article from THE Newspaper of Record pointing out the expansion of an industry niche that precisely fits the business plan upon which she is about to embark. The fact that increasing numbers of mainstream destination hotels are now calibrating their resources to sync up with traveling yoga practitioners can only mean that my friend will have lots more venues at which to plan the perfect yoga experience 'neath skies untouched by city lights, or looking out over the azure waters of Bora Bora... and so on. I'll be the first to sign up, and in fact we are in the beginning stages of creating another something of a first: Skiing and Yoga retreats. Stay tuned.

One thing in the article that caught the attention of yours truly was the mention of a former contemporary of mine: Kristen Ulmer. Ulmer was what I can safely say was an early adopting big mountain skier who in her day could pretty much outski all but a handful of skiers on the planet, men included. To me, the stuff she did still seems incredible, nay, impossible. But, there she is, alive and well, to tell us all about it. Anyway, it seems Kristin has been pursuing a little niche of her own with her company "Ski to Live," which bills itself as "Powerful mindset training for sports and business..." This is the PERFECT transition for someone who made a big name for themselves in the sport, and believe me, she did. What caught my attention was her website's claim that her clinics utilize "world famous Zen Master Genpo Roshi's Big Mind process.. "

As a former world cupper myself who, believe me, read every book under the sun about far eastern philosophy and Zen in particular, this intrigued me greatly. In looking back, my whole competitive ski career organized itself around bringing far eastern ways of knowing into my own practice of the sport that I hold so dear, and, now that I'm fortunate enough to work with young people who are taking on the sport for themselves, I'm able to attempt bringing what I learned into their lives.

So I take such claims with great skepticism. Zen is a buzzword like "fine Corinthian leather..." Show me the money, the beef, the proof in the pudding, etc. I couldn't find anything that Kristin actually wrote or recorded that would betray her deep understanding of satori, other than her beautiful skiing itself, which to be fair is as Zen as it gets, so I guess I will have to sign up for one of her clinics at Alta or Snowbird. She also offers one hour phone counseling.

Neither am I prepared (yet) to fork out $$ for Genpo Roshi's DVD's...

I must tell you that I, a teacher of skiing, do not teach skiing. To clarify.. it does not come from me, not directly anyway. It just doesn't work that way. Rather, I prefer to imagine my role more as facilitator, one who has traveled the path extensively who is able to show the way to those just starting out upon it. I am not the power out there on the mountain. To be sure, the ideas I share about the process may have tremendous power, but those come through me (not from me), and that's another story. No, the real power out there is the mountain, the environment, the large forces that those who are out there in the environment are not only experiencing, but creating, in real time. Further, skiing is all about becoming always aligned with those forces. Hence, skiing has always been one of the great vehicles to understand life: develop an awareness of that which is your world, your reality, then learn your place.. the space you occupy within it, and finally, come into power with it and learn to be wholly creative in, about, and for your own universe. Phew! Or something like that.

When I'm training ski coaches and athletes alike, I find the teacher student relationship remains cleanly defined by this, one of my oft quoted mantras: "The teacher's job is to shine a clarifying light on the path, but the student's job is to actually walk it.." In this regard, everyone has a light to shine.. because everyone has their own unique path to share...

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