nourishing obscurity

The interfering bstds have made it so that this can only be watched at youtube.  Click on the pic or here is the url to paste into your browser:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8yMeUdeHuE.

We feel more closely that which we are closer to. We always do. Those with compassion can feel the Haitian tragedy closely, not unlike the way the Australian aborigines feel anything happening to their land, not unlike you feel something which happens to someone in a field you know.

I’ve seen downhill deaths on TV, deaths from parachute jumps and from other causes and though I could sympathize, it was difficult to empathize – I’ve never gone like that on skis.

The only two breaks I ever had to my body were on a boat and on [or rather off] a luge track. Essentially, you steer with your body and it’s hardly necessary to shift weight more than a little – in corners, it’s a case of holding the line firmly and that’s where the power of your body is used.

There’s a certain amount that you can do yourself and then it becomes utter trust in the track. If you’re like me, you don’t trust easily and it takes a few runs, doing things you know slow you down, to get a feel for it. Only after some training runs are you prepared to let yourself go.

In my case, light rain began falling while I was already halfway down and the boys on the lift below said they could hear me way too fast as I came down the last curve, out onto the outflow and straight into the air and down the mountain, landing on my hand. The droplets had affected one side of the sled and had pockmarked the track in parts. I thought it would just slow me down but it unbalanced the whole thing and over the edge I went.

This was in 1989 in northern Finland.

The difference between something like that and completing a run in good time is the slightest movement of your bottom, the right foot slightly turned in or out the wrong way, just a fraction.

What is appalling for these athletes now is that they can’t trust the track.

This vid is of an amateur and it brings it home better what is involved.

It’s not a matter of testing it now and building a higher wall. It’s not a matter of starting it from the women’s start – that’s not the point and anyone who’s tried this sport knows it. It’s utter trust in the track and being able to “relax”, in the sense that you can concentrate 100% on the line you take, completely unworried about what happens if you make a mistake – that the track is completely OK.

They can’t do that now and this is what Patrick Singleton was talking about. He said that some mentally tough people can shut it out and you might say – well, they’ll win and so they should. No, this is not about mental toughness – this is about knowing that there is a chance, it only needs to be 1%, that this track is too dangerous, while you’re actually going down it. The slightest lack of concentration and that’s it.

Every time one of them goes down that track now, past that point, that thought is going to try to flicker in the mind like a candle and that’s all it needs to make an error. Every time I see one of them going down [thank goodness I have no tele so it will only be in replay], I’ll be thinking that thought.

Below is the vid which methinks captures what it’s like best. Take a ride down the track with him:

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