Its a small, simple word that gets thrown around a lot in skiing.
Its all about progressing the sport, progressing ourselves as skiers, driving the progression of better ski gear.
Its about being better at skiing tomorrow than you were yesterday.
But at the personal level, its a lot harder to quantify.
When I was learning how to ski it was simple, the goals were impossible to miss.
I was making my impossibles possible.
For park skiers, theres a similar roadmap: Do a 180.
Ok, add another 180 to that.
Once you get bored there, set those spins unnatural.
Theres this litany of tricks thats pretty straightforward to follow.
Lift up your front foot.
Tired of the same-old-same-old?
Go watch the Bunch.
I still think you should get progression points for taking off your shirt.
My first 360 was magical.
I still dont fully understand how spins over 180 work.
Something inside of me blacks out.
I know I made the rotation because Im skiing it out.
My first 540 was a surprise to me, thanks to too much speed and new, light skis.
But damn does that explosion of pleasure and relief and delight in successful progression feel good.
It triggers a blast of pleasure through the brain.
I did something today that I couldnt do yesterday!
Im going to do something else tomorrow that I cant today!
Its a gratification thats central to the human experience.
If that sort of growth didnt make us happy wed be a lot less motivated as a species.
The high that successful progression gives us must be some sort of fundamental evolved trait.
you’re able to see it watching a game of SLVSH.
But what happens when you start to plateau?
My first few years as a skier were so packed with progression, they set a high bar.
But overall, I could taste my progression nearly every time I skied.
Every day I was a better skier than I was the day before.
And then somewhere in the last few years, I stopped feeling like that.
Maybe its a product of age, or increased adult responsibilities or something silly like that.
If Im really growing at all.
Ive done a bunch of them, but Im not sure that Im really much better.
Hes not an incredible skier, obviously not an ex-racer jot down.
Ive ridden the lift with him a few times.
Once I asked him why he didnt branch out?
My silent subtext was why dont you care about progression, about doing something new?
Hes here to ski, this lets him ski the most.
Theres no traversing, no sidestepping.
He just unloads and slips seamlessly back into the fall line.
Three years of progressing the size of rocks I was dumb enough to ski off of.
But the dopamine release that progression triggers is another drug entirely.
I want to do new tricks, hit new jumps, ski new lines.
I want to grow, and more than that, I want to feel myself growing.
Is this as good as Ill ever be?
Am I never going to get that shot of pure stoke ever again?
I can chase the new every day.
I can go further faster more smoothly.
I get that progression high most weekends earning my turns.
But I cant give it up inbounds.
My roots are in the terrain park.
A huge part of me just cant quit that dream.
I want to get cleaner grabs, hit bigger jumps, look better doing all of it.
Today was a powder day, but the park crew had just built out the big jump line.
I never even hit it last year, let alone spun any of them.
I was too busy chasing pow.
But today I traversed to the park instead of skiing one more pitch of fresh snow.
I sized up the hits, tucked deep as chopped up pow tried to steal my speed.
The first lip floated me over the knuckle.
Whatever it is, I havent fully lost it yet.
Tomorrow Ill set a spin on that jump.
Maybe the next day Ill add a 180 to it.
It might be slow, but Ill make progress.
