{"id":71,"date":"2012-02-23T10:31:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T09:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2012-02-23T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T09:31:09","slug":"nordic-versus-alpine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Nordic versus Alpine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nordic skiing has a lot more to do with Alpine skiing than skateboarding does with snowboarding.<\/p>\n

I traveled to Willingen, a town in the Sauerland area of Germany, to further my skiing abilities, and for the first time, skied fully in parallel, executing pretty stem turns and schussing down a moderately steep piste. Four hours of lessons produced a recognizable and functional technique that could get me safely down the slope with good control. By the end of the weekend, I could ski comfortably, avoiding oncoming traffic and the hundreds of Dutch children covering the bunny hill. I even ventured up the Seilbahn (gondola lift) to take on the big hill. I fell once, sliding due to a bit of fear (my survival reaction is to lean backwards, a quick way to lose control), but no harm done. I seemed to have learned how to properly fall in the process, too.<\/p>\n

The instructors both made a good point: I was not a beginner skier. Unlike instructors in the US, who pooh-poohed my hundreds (if not at least a thousand) kilometers of Nordic experience, the Germans were quick to describe each Alpine technique in Nordic terms. This was a confidence boost and made it easier to adopt the new technique of pushing the tails wide (stemming).<\/p>\n

I expect I’ll be skiing through the summer, over at the Skihalle in nearby Neuss. Yes, it’s a bunny hill, but I see no reason not to own it, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Nordic skiing has a lot more to do with Alpine skiing than skateboarding does with snowboarding. I traveled to Willingen, a town in the Sauerland area of Germany, to further my skiing abilities, and for the first time, skied fully in parallel, executing pretty stem turns and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomicalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}