Hey friends,
After I had slipped on the thick pants and jacket over my clothes, I knew I was in for an experience. Wearing the somewhat heavy boots, my friend and I made our way over to the counter, where the man behind the counter took one of our boot and adjusted the skis for us. My friend and I made our way over to Snow School, where there were three young guys with us. They were originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, who now lived in London. My friend and I got talking with them, when Mr. Mounir, a Moroccan man, came and introduced himself to us as the instructor. He made sure we all had our ski boots on properly and got our skis.
We made our way through the gate and went up the escalator to the first level, where the door was opened out to the skiing area. The first thing that hits you is the intense cold. I didn’t think it would be this cold, but it was cold with a capital C! My friend is used to the cold, since he is from Holland, so he was perfectly all right, but I was beginning to shake already. Two more people joined us, an inter-racial couple from the UK. So with now 7 people in the group, Mr. Mounir started us off by giving us warming up exercise. We all waved our arms, and jumped several times, and it was only now that I was beginning to feel better and shake less from the cold.
The first thing we learned to do was to slip our feet onto the ski itself. The mechanism is such that the boots are made to be locked onto the skis. Once we all stepped into the skis and locked our boots, we had skis for feet now. The next thing we did was to learn to make a pizza pie, which is where you join the front of the skis and extend the back of the skis, so you get a pizza pie shape. This move is used when you want to stop on the slope. The trick was to use both our feet to move both the skis, as some in the group were doing it one by one.
“When do we get on the slope?” was the burning question everyone was asking. Before we realized it, we were on the beginner’s slope. We had to climb up a third of the way, and then come skiing down the slope, using the pizza pie movement to slow down and stop. Soon, we used the travellator taking us half way up the slope. We were getting the hang of skiing down the slope half way through. Soon, my friend and I made it all the way to the top of the beginner’s hill. From there, the speed was so fast that several times, I was not able to stop myself on time and come crashing into the snow wall at the end of the slope.
The adrenaline rush you get from skiing is immense. It’s the rush of a roller-coaster, except the only thing is you get to fall everywhere on the snow. The speed at which you come downhill is so fast you instinctly start waving arms around- which is a bad idea!
Anyone seeking adventure and adrenaline rush, make sure Ski Dubai is the place!
Mansur
