Mountain Mayhem

A group of eight of us had managed to escape to Aspen for a weekend of skiing and relaxing. Seven of us had skied before, one had not. It will become apparent which one of had not. It turns out that the one of us responsible for training our novice neglected to mention the “pizza” technique of slowing down. When in doubt, point your toes inward and make a pizza slice with your skis. According to our friend responsible for training him, he looked good during his practice run. It turns out that the mini-hill flattened out towards the bottom so he didn’t need to know how to stop to look solid. Wanting to see what he was made out of, our friend took him to a hill that was well beyond his skillset. The rest of the group was off on another part of the mountain. We figured he would spend the morning on the mini-hill and possibly join us on some of the easier runs later in the day. We were wrong.

I looked down the mountain and saw a hefty man barreling toward the bottom. Though he remained upward on his skis, it was clear that he was out of control. It was his flailing arms that gave him away. His hands were extended outward, shaking in all directions in an effort to stabilize himself. Every time he moved his arm, his ski pole swung around his wrist like a fan. After a second of watching, I realize that this rotund skier was my friend, and gravity was favoring him as he picked up speed by the second. Hopelessly out of control and quickly approaching a crowded bridge, he did the only thing he could do. He threw himself to the ground in an explosion of snow and ski equipment. His skis shot in opposite directions upon impact and his poles spun wildly. He rolled what looked like 20 feet, and sat up with his goggles around his mouth. A look of bewilderment turned to pure laughter. As we approached we could hear the gasping sound of him cackling.

Much like the bike crash that I blogged about earlier, this scenario presents the relief theory and the superiority theory. Ironically, this story goes against the concept of a cognitive shift. What were we expecting when we took a novice skier to a moderate run without telling him how to slow down? We were only able to laugh only after discovering that he was not injured. After all, his crash was so nasty looking that it looked like her snapped every bone in his body. His laughing was an indication that our feelings of fear could appropriately be manifested as laughter. Additionally, I was happy that it wasn’t me that wiped out, sending my equipment in all direction. I have no problem laughing at myself, but it was much funnier that it wasn’t me, maybe because I got to see the scenario play out from afar.