In Search of Excellence

by Bob McGraw

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My brother and I started to ski in 1970 and over the next ten years it remained the passion of our lives. We were skiers and would talk about the sport year round to anyone who would care to listen. We knew every piece of equipment that was on the market and had opinions on each one. When the slopes opened in the fall we were there for the first day and would close the hill down in the spring.

On the slope we continuously tried to make each run the best or the fastest and shared a running competition between ourselves. Early on our performance criteria included simple measures such as speed or the number of falls, but in later years we would focus on subtle flaws in each others technique such as arm position or timing of weight transfer. Over the years we would watch the top skiers on the hill and imitate their style, ultimately developing our own unique one. We would take whatever seemed to w ork for others, and if it worked for us, incorporated it into our own technique. Every so often we would sign up for a professional lesson and we would get an hour of intense instruction before heading back to try out thenew stuff we had learned.

Following high school I worked at a ski hill for three seasons. In two of those seasons I skied over one hundred days. When conditions were right I found myself hiking up the hill with my brother and friends after a full day of skiing and after the lifts had closed, to run the race course and hone our technique. After running the course each person would receive insightful pointers from the rest of the group. These pointers would be in choppy lingo, "You're late setting up... you're dropping your hand.. . find the line...", but would cut to the root of a bad run. We were so in tune to each others' techniques that I doubt there was anyone better able to teach us than ourselves. At night we talked and thought about skiing constantly. I can remember picturing an entire run in my mind and feel the muscle groups in my legs respond as if I were out on the hill. We used to joke that we spent more time on our skis than we did on our feet. In the end, prior to moving on to other things, we owned the hill and our group was the one to watch and imitate. Looking back I see a process of clearly defined goals with continuous and intense self evaluation and an open mind to anything that would make us better. At the time we were a bunch of kids trying to take something we loved to the limit.

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