In my youth, I was a ski instructor.
I learned ways and methods to diagnose problems with skiers and their turns. One of the techniques I learned was to study the tracks of the students’ turns.
Imagine a ski hill; I am standing with you, my student. “Turn where I turn,” I instruct, then I take a series of turns on the freshly groomed snow, at the natural turning points, where the pitch of the hill helps the turn. Stopping, I call up “push off and turn where I turned, follow my tracks.” You are a good student and follow my track, turning where I turned.
I watch you. There is a problem. You manage to complete the turns, but with each turn, you are more out of balance than the last. Soon you are in recovery mode, out of balance and discombobulated. Arms flailing, you come to an ungraceful stop, panting with exertion.
I say nothing. Leaving you to catch your breath I climb back up the hill, studying the track that you left in the snow. The imprint of your skis in the snow shows more than you can imagine. The track shows, with undeniable proof, where your weight was placed on the skies all through the turn, I can see where you set your edges and started each turn, I can see where you started the slide portion of the turn; how your weight moved during the turn. In the track is the history of each turn.
And there it is, the error. Not on the last turn, or even the middle turns. It is on the very first turn. The edge set of the skis left in the soft snow shows that your weight was shifting to the back of your skis as you started the turn. You were on your heels for the first turn. I could not see it as you were skiing. But there it was, in the snow track.
That initial error was magnified with each turn, more off balance and sitting more back in the second, third turns. And by the fourth turn, you are on your heels and falling.
Though the problem showed up in the last turn, the process commenced in the first turn.
So it is in life, and working the steps.
We become angry. We say harsh words. We become impatient. We come to a stop, flailing. When we are wrong, we have to identify where the problem started and how exactly it started. Where did things start to go bad? Where did the self-centred attitudes begin? When did the sense of entitlement kick in? Where did pride and selfish thinking play a role? We go back to the first turn and see the origin.
When first we start this, we don’t see it very clearly or quickly, it takes practice. It helps to have an instructor to show you the error in your tracks. Instead of a track in the snow, we need a written chronology of the day; a review of the full day, not just that last moment and anger and irritation.
If it is an angry retort, the track will show where the original sense of entitlement and judgementalism arose. If it is a feeling of offence at a comment, the track will show where you started your pre-occupation with self. Whatever the problem, the track will reveal the origin.
Oddly, sponsorship can feel like ski instruction.
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