One week

IN one week my life has returned! Skiing truly is the best thing in the world! I have now completed 6 days on snow. It has been very incredible watching video over the past week as I remember how to ski! The first 4 days showed incredible improvement that is very visible on camera. Now I am working on smaller chamges and it is less easy to decipher the differences in my skiing. I am now working on a very early short pressure, moving forward over the ski, and not letting my inside hand drop. I don't think I can remember when I last had the chance to freeski for so many days in a row. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to improve!

Today we had a day off. My teamate Steph Irwin, our coach Walter Alber and Jeff Frisch all went down to the town of Visp for lunch. It was great to get out of the resort. Zermatt is a very popular tourist destination to say the least. You are constantly surrounded by people here so it was wonderful to go to a non touristy spot! We had lunch at an amazing pizzeria that served real Italian pizza's. Pizza with egg on it is simply the best! After a cappuccino we went and bought chocolate for our talented physio in residence Lili then headed back up the valley to the Matterhorn!

Tomorrow I am starting stubby gates (small rubber gates that are designed for drills). I am quite excited to put my skiing back into gates! Ciao!

Elli

Full Circle

Yesterday was the happiest day in my life-in recent memory anyway! August 13th, 2009 was my first day back on snow in 10 months and 2 days. I can know officially say that I am back on snow!!!!

Getting back on skis was a very interesting experience! It was a little surreal...it felt very normal and at the same time all the heartache, pain and hard work of getting back to skiing was running through my head. It felt incredible to feel so normal! My knee felt great skiing-it wasn't bugging me at all! It was great to not worry about my knee. I am actually skiing quite well too which is amazing! All the visualization I did this winter really paid off! I felt at home on my skis after the first run and today was able to put together some great feeling slalom turns! That being said yesterday we did snowplow drills all day. I never knew how hard it was to do a snowplow "correctly"!! Tough work! I really had to focus on keeping my ski tips together and using gradual pressure to slide the turn instead of having one really hard hit of pressure on the ski. It had to be flowing and over the outside ski...blah blah blah! I AM SO HAPPY!!!! I smiled all day even though I was only snowplowing! Just the feeling of turning and sliding was amazing! I love my sport and could not be happy in where I am at the moment!