Tuesday, February 21, 2006

GETTIN’ SOME AIR — by Steve Nadis

I watched a few minutes of the “freestyle aerials” last night on the Olympics and was struck by how much this sport has evolved. I spent a year as a ski bum in Vail in the early-70s, while I was still a teenager, and that was the year that “hotdogging” (as we called it then) really got going–with both aerial and bump skiing competitions. There was practically no coaching or supervised training, and people took reckless chances. One guy I know tried a gainer (back flip) on the first day he skied and dislocated his shoulder. Other people in competition, sadly, broke their necks.

One of the skiers last night did a triple-twisting triple back flip and the commentators called the degree of difficulty low–to give you a sense of how much things have changed. Personally, I find all those twists and flips hard to watch. I like the good old days–apart from the terrible injuries–when people did simpler jumps like sidekicks, daffies (a kind of spacewalking), spread eagles, and helicopters with great style and flair. I did all these jumps as well, along with cliff jumping–another thing we did for fun–though not necessarily “with great style and flair.”

It was a simpler era. There was very little money in the sport. And people were mainly out to have a good time. Now it’s a big-time Olympic competition and the purses have grown commensurately. But I’ll still take a good sidekick over a triple-twisting triple back flip.

Posted by Snake at 19:53:37
Comments

5 Responses to “GETTIN’ SOME AIR — by Steve Nadis”

  1. Anonymous says:
    February 22, 2006 at 5:31 am

    zardoz says:

    O.K I’M GETTIN THE MESSAGE

    THIS ARTICLE EXPLAINS YOUR WRITERS STYLE,

    BACK-FLIPPIN,TRIPLE SOMERSAULT ,TWISTING TYPE OF GUY.

    THE BACK AND FORTHS OF SNAKE IN HIS WRITINGS.

    GOOD LORD

    I’VE JUST HAD A REVELATION = I’M SKI FAN..!!!!!

    VERY SLY OF YOU TO GET US HOOKED.

    =========== Z ============================

  2. Snake says:
    February 22, 2006 at 11:49 am

    Thanks for the note, Z. As usual, you see right through me.

  3. Turd Blossom says:
    February 25, 2006 at 7:20 pm

    The names for these moves are wonderful - daffies is particularly great. Maybe we can’t actually execute them, but perhaps we could come up with some good names and see if the freestylists could invent a move or two to go along with the name. Here are my entries:

    The Brazil

    Special Sauce

    The Wussy Boy (or Girl)

    K-Block

    Stayin’ in the Box

  4. Snake says:
    February 26, 2006 at 1:42 am

    Hey TB, great suggestions! How ’bout we divvy them up–I’ll take “Wussy Boy.”

  5. miu miu bags says:
    March 6, 2009 at 9:32 am

    i think it is better if you can write more.

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