You race in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

Okay, we are skipping ahead to say holy freaking wow! So I've been wondering what it would feel like to play in the Snowmass downhill. I knew that there was a Liklihood that id come in a good twenty minutes behind everyone else, but I didn't mind. I just wanted to not race unless I knew I had the skills to get down the trail in one piece.

Standing at the start with the other women on their big burly bikes and watching the men get ready (by riding wheelies uphill in the dirt), and checking out the juniors going over the course in their mind with their coach, i started flipping through all I've learned in the last few weeks; action stance, balance, and cornering, I was able to hear Kurt's voice in my head, and Barnie, and Kyle from our rental shop who taught me how to do a sick manual, and Thomas, who taught me how to do it as a wheel drop.

But im already ahead of myself. Today, I drove up to Snowmass with all my gear, thinking that had I got there earlier, I would have raced. I wandered up to the finish in my flip flops, ready to help with timing or whatever else they needed.

Turns out last ride up the Gondi is 515, and Ranger Brett Beavers started harassing me to suck it up and go get on a bike. and if I hustle, I can get a preview of the trail and still get up there for the start.

I ran back to my car and threw my stuff on, every single piece of body armor I could find, covering all exposed skin. If I was going to go down, I wanted to take all my skin with me!




Four Mountain Sports, the awesome shop at the bottom of the Gondi got me on an amazing Norco DH race bike (the last in my size!) and I paid my fee and screwed my bib to the handlebars. As I was doing it, the butterflies (the giant, huge, angry, nauseous making) butterfly in my throat hit me hard. What the hell was I thinking!????

Yes, I can ride this trail. I'm not sure I can stay on my bike going this fast though... And the consequences of hitting one of these jumps wrong... I had to stop thinking about it. Kurt and Tucker rolled in and in tied me to go with them on their preview run.

Kurt was coaching the indomitable 10 year old Tucker Thomas, and aspen local who shreds at every sport he touches. I was pretty sure he was going to run me over or pass me in the air, but hey.

We hopped on our bikes at the top and I followed Thomas Parks, another aspen Instructor down the fire road to the start of the gravity logic trail faster than I've ever gone. Nice warm up. Oh god.

We bombed down the trail, I'm trying to ride hard and take note of where rocks have rolled down and a where dirt is loose. I'm trying to memorize the new line off the hard jump, the one that is high and lippy and tends to send you into a dead sailor rotation.

I lived, full of adrenaline, sweating that Stinky sweat of fear And breathing as hard as if I'd ridden up hill all the way.

And that was the preview! We loped back around and went back up to wait for the official start. I watched my internal experience closely, I was curious if it had changed at all.

Typically, I have huge heart thumping insanity, and I have to breathe slow and even, trying hard to bring my heart rate down. But by the time I get to the start, I'm yawning. I cant use this time to think about what I'm going to do, what my focus or task is, or I can't get myself calm enough to perform.




"you race in 5,4,3,2,1" said the start Marshall.

I do? I what? Here I am sitting on a big, squishy bike at the start of a huge new black diamond trail with no less than 16 jumps and huge burmed turns getting ready to race.

Whatever, time to pedal. I took off slowly down the govt trail, the rocks are huge and jagged and the first section is, for me, a exercise in trusting that the bike is going to roll over all of it, and not send me over the handlebars and onto my face,

I turned the first corner at a near stop, only to see Ranger Brett marshaling the first corner. "you better catch her, girl! Pedal pedal pedal!" I grinned at him, I can do this, I can ride this trail! I took off, Brett believed in me, I could get it done.

I tried to remember what Barnie had told me about racing, with speed, don't pop, suck the bike up under you And stay close to the ground, keeping your speed.

I love the table top jumps, the step ups are great, but the series of four step downs, I still need a lot of work on. Especially at speed.

Kyle from the rental shop had taken the time to go over manuals and wheelie drops with me the week before, and I was talking out loud in his voice through the whole section.




The second to last jump is the scariest, there's a huge compression, and it's really lippy. It steps up high, so it looks like you can just launch it, but if you release the compression and the wrong time, your front tire hits hard and you get bucked forward hard.

I thought about all Kurt had been working with me on, let the front tore off first, keep the compression on in the back tire, once the front is off, release the back tire and pull up on the front. Hard. Add a little forward thrust in the air to anticipate the abrupt front tire impact, and hope youvedone it right, or you are going over the other side in the loose dirt down the next turn on your face.

I stuck it. I gave a little weeeooooo! And pedaled hard through the rest of the course, two jumps to go, a nice table top, and then the last step up which sucks you toward the big aspen tree. But I knew the line, thanks to Young Tucker and his coach, and I pedaled onto the vista trail. Two more turns and we are home free.

I came out of the aspens and onto the dirt, and there were the other girls. I hadn't caught them, but I was gaining on them. I knew that Jessica was an accomplished cross country rider and that if she was going to crush me, it was going to happen, it was going to happen on the loosedirtroadto the bottom.

I put Barnie in my head. Clack em, Kate! Grow a pair and clack em! (yeah, I'll explain later...) tip it!

I got aggressive at myself and started coaching hard. "tip that bike over, girl and pedal pedal pedal!"

And I did.

And when it was all said and done.... I found myself handing out the free beer to the riders as I do every week (base camp in Snowmass is a wonderful sponsor for us and takes great care of the riders) when I hear my name announced.

In first place by 6 seconds. I'd won! Not only stayed on my bike and nnot finished dead last, but id won.

A hundred bucks and a big smile, the girls and I all hugged each other and promised to ride together this week so we can all work on the pieces that worried us or that we need to work on.

Thomas PArks won the men's division this week, and young Tucker... He came in second, only 19 seconds behind the first place winner, who is 14, four years older than him and a moto cross racer.

What an Amazing day! Thanks so much to aspen/Snowmass for putting this together for us, to the rangers for prepping it and making it safe for us, to the lifties for staying late, and to base camp for hosting the after party!

The last race of the season is next week... Come on out and play with us!!!

Photos by Kurt f. And Abbie Wade photography! Thanks guys! Abbie loves to shoot all kinds of action sports. To get great shots of you and your family having fun, visit her website by clicking her photo in the side bar. She's awesome, talented, affordable, and fun to play with!


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Pass holder appreciation day at Snowmass tomorrow!

Come ride the more than 50 miles of mountain biking trails, including the new Gravity Logic free ride trail!

Free bike haul pass, bring a friend for free and free tours and tips from the bike pros!

(guess whose gonna wear a yellow jersey for the first time tomorrow? Yeah! Put me in, coach!)


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Win $140 worth of POC bike gear!! (Find Your Bliss returns...)

Its the return of the Find Your Bliss contest!!

Do you ride your road bike until your thighs burn so much they cry while you suffer silently in the saddle? Do you bomb downhill on a full suspension mtn bike in full armor? Do you ride cross country for hours and hours by yourself in the Aspen trees? Do you ride your bike everywhere because you don't have a car?

Do you ride you bike on the weekend with your kid? Do you like to ride the Rio Grande trail by the river? Do you tour the country with saddle bags and a coffee pot?

We want to hear YOUR STORY!!

Tell us the story of how and when you fell in love with riding your bike in 650 words or less and you can win a pair of POC DH Mountain Biking Shorts! ($140 value!) (or other similarly valued item from the Wheels collection) (sizes and colors depend on availability).

Please include a brief description of you and your bike now, as well!

Email entries to katehowe@mac.com by August 20 to win!

Fundraising!? Who the hell do you think you are, asking for money!

Today I was talking with a very good friend about perception. We were talking about team tryouts, and what the perception of each of us is, currently, how accurate we think it is or isn't, and what we can work on to help be clearer in our intention, so that perception of each of us lines up more accurately with who we feel we really are.

She mentioned to me that when I put my fundraising goal for the season up on Facebook (it's going to cost about 18,500 to meet my training goals this year) that there was this stunned silence, a surprise that I would "ask for money". I asked my friend what the perception was that was created from that, and she said, "well, there's this perception that you are asking for money."

"Well, that's an accurate perception, then, because that's exactly what I'm doing." she laughed, we are more in line than I had thought.

"but it's a negative perception, so why is that? Can you help me understand why raising money for a goal is negative?" I asked.

"Because that's not how it's done. No one has ever done that in a public way before." she answered.

That makes sense. I mean, I had no idea that it "wasn't done" to raise money to meet your training goals.

I shared with my friend what my perspective was, and we agreed that I might write it up so that folks who were upset or confused about it might hear, from the horses mouth, what the heck I think I'm doing.

In the world of competative athletics, art or dance, If you have a goal, say of making the olympic team, you work your butt off until you get some backing so that you can quit the real world and dedicate all your time and effort to training towards that goal.

There is no such thing as a part time olympic hopeful athlete. Plenty of them work jobs as well as training full time. Just like in politics, those who are more well funded have a better shot at making it, because they have better resources and more time to dedicate to training.

This is not an indiction that this person thinks they are more worthy than any other person. This means that the athlete in question, like all of his peers, are willing to work as hard as they can to do the best that they can. Their journey, in fundraising, training, or attempting to qualify is not a reflection on those around them and their worthiness or journey, but simply a dedication to their own goal.

Over the last five years, I have been fortunate enough to have a huge group of very supportive people cheering me on as I go down this path. Openly talking about my desire to be on the team was also audacious, it wasn't something that was done. But I grew up in a world where you stated your goal and then worked hard toward it. Being an Olympic hopeful was something you said out loud and easily, it helped your coaches understand what your goals were and how they should train you.

I myself was a coach for years of world cup and recreational rock climbers. I tailored my coaching to each client according to their goals, I understood how hard to push them according to how far they wanted to go.

Because I stated that I, like so much of our well deserving membership in PSIA, would love to have the job of being on the team and helping inspire instructors all over the country to be passionate teachers who connect well with their clients and other instructors, out loud and in public (via my blog), I was fortunate to find a community of people who were doing the same, training hard to meet their goal, whether that was making the level 2, going for your full cert at 56, or just becoming a ski teacher again after leaving it for so many years. Slowly, the community branded out to include other sports as well.

This amazing community came together and began talking to each other, and it includes cyclists, slack liners, climbers, surfers, buddhist monks, writers, and parents. It includes x games competitors and long distance runners. It includes athletes that excel at a level I could never hope to attain. And all of them talk about the idea of going for a dream with out apology, but with humility, integrity, pulling as many people up along the way as they can.

Along the way, I've been fortunate enough to make relationships with some companies who find value in the community of positive growth that has grown here. It's not about me and my journey, but I'm grateful to represent a huge group of people, more than I ever could have imagined, as we all chase our individual dreams, and believe that we can make a difference.

Those companies support me towards a goal that has traditionally been hard won in silence and suffering. I can not, and could never, have come as far as I've come along my path without the generous donation of gear and funds that people have seen value in contributing.

As a single mom starting a new career in a new town, it has been along financial struggle for me. As it has for so many people who choose to become professional ski instructors. We don't do this because we Hope to become rich. In fact, many of us have left much more lucrative caresses in order to share the passion and joy of playing in the mountains.

Because of that, most of us find creative solutions, we live frugally, we have second, third and even fourth jobs. We are waiters and writers and physicists and window washers, while at the same time spending all of our free time reading, studying and practicing the thing that we are passionate about: skiing, or mountain biking, or cycling or tennis.

We operate as mentors and friends, trusted resources to the people who come to us for advice in our sport, and because we have an obligation to those who trust us to teach them to improve, we have an obligation to ourselves to become excellent, to have a depth of knowledge that is accurate, deep, and ever improving. We have an obligation to be fit, strong, to be able to demonstrate effectively that which we know intuitively or through study. We practice the art of sharing ideas, of infecting our students, be they other instructors or the general public though classes in public speaking, acting, presentation and play.

Because I am grateful to my community, I feel, in this last year of training before the tryout, that it is my obligation to find creative ways to dedicate as much of my time, effort and energy to training as possible. You have been with me, and I with you guys, through thick and thin, and this is it. There are about 230 days to the tryout.

It can be another year of hoping I have enough money to participate in the RMT, and wait until the day before to know if I've saved the funds to do it, or I can do what is done in so many other endeavors: make a business palm, calculate the realistic cost of what an adequate training program would be, and raise funds ahead of time, ensuring to my friends, family, sponsors and readers that I really will give it my all. That when I show up in April, I will have brought all that I have to give.

Whether what I bring is enough for the team or not is another story. I'll either have what it takes, what they need, or I won't, just like in every other selection. You can only bring what you have. But you do have control over how complete and well Rounded that which you bring is.

In other elite endeavors, there are programs in place that help athletes dedicate all of their time, effort and energy into being as successful as possible. There are scholarships to be won and training centers to live at. When you live at a training center, they put out the goal, and a path to that goal. As you work toward that goal, you can earn more support as the governing body sees value in you and helps clear the path along the way.

In ski teaching, this structure just does not exist. It's a solitary endeavor. No wonder it takes so many very very talented people 20 years of hard hard work, dedication and training to make it to a tryout. If you live on a shoe string, raising a family while you dedicate yourself to a job that breaks even if you aren't in training, and depletes the family savings if you are, not to mention taking time and energy away from your relationships, you only have so many resources in time and money that you can dedicate to your goal.

If you, like the dancers in many local ballet companies, come to a place in your training where you are willing to dedicate all your time and energy hopping to achieve a level of excellence that allows you to giveback to the greater whole, through teaching, or artistic expression, you find a benefactor or six who believe in the value of what you might bring if you achieve your dream.

to that end, it's not that I think I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I deserve to raise money while other people struggle. I think that we should all be supported in our endeavors! I hope that this project has raised awareness in the community that will help others who come after me to have a clearer path to training.

I do think that I owe it to my family, my community, the companies who believe in me and to myself to work as hard as I can, so that I come with everything I have to give. And I cant do it alone. And neither canny of the other very worthy, more qualified candidates than myself.

I hope over the years to help build a program in PSIA which functions this way for all instructors who are striving to share their passion with skiers everywhere. I would love to see a program that encourages, nationally, and values instructors, supports them, gives them a training center to go to, encouragement, emotional and financial support to chase their dreams.

It would be amazing to ferret out talent all over the country, and let those incredible teachers get the training their feet need, and get the incredible skiers the training their teaching needs.

How wonderful would it be to open up the field to the teams coach and manager, so that the plethora of seriously viable candidates was deep because people who are willing to work hard are not encumbered by the difficulty of committing all their time and money to struggling though the process on their own?

The sheer will and determination of those who show up at his process every year is inspiring. And while the process had changed this year, limiting the number of candidates that will be invited, the drive to be a viable invitee will still exist.

So to my friends and family who have stuck with me though this insane journey, thank you. And to those of you who have welcomed me into the skiing community, schooling me along the way, thank you! And to those of you who have told me the truth, felt brave enough or angry enough to have an honest, fierce conversation with me when I do something in a non traditional way, thank you so much. I am humbled by those teachings, and the ones that are hardest to swallow are usually the ones that are most valuable.

I'm so grateful for the teachers in my life, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to grow and become. I plan to work harder this year than ever before, And I'm grateful for the opportunity to belong to such an inspiring group of people. The national team has been inspiration for so many people for so many years, and I'm grateful to the teams, past and present that lit the fire in me.

Regardless of the results, I'm so grateful for the journey, and i want to give it all that I have. This is why I raise money for my training. This is why I'm happy to help you raise money for your training. And if it was surprising to see me put it out there, because while it's done in other sports, in business, in creative endeavors, it's not done (yet) in PSIA, I'm sorry to have taken you by surprise.

Thank you so much for your time, dedication and energy, for the lessons, positive and negative. I'm grateful.





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Total airgasm. Part one.

Alright! So here's what happened! We went to Winter Park, we watched Crankworx, I was scared of my bike still a little (having ridden one day on my own at Snowmass the week before).

Monday comes, and Kurt is bouncing out of his skin. I'm gonna join the mountain biking 101 clinic at 10 am while he goes and rips around with the big kids.

We get there, and first of all, it's as busy as a ski area in the winter, but really really well organized. The rental and retail is really well done. Everything flows, there are people pointing you in the right direction, you don't feel like a gaper for being a renter... It really feels like they love this sport and they are psyched to share it with everyone and help the sport grow.

I was surprised that there wasn't an elitist attitude, there was no exclusive feeling, even though it's been around for years, and lift served mountain biking has been in Tahoe for... What, 18 years? How long has dh MTN biking been in Whistler? We've all seen the videos, I just fought it was for 18 year old kids who didn't think the skate park was thrilling enough for them.

(perhaps I'll include a link to the post where I broke four ribs in the skate park two summers ago here so we can reminisce together on the fact that skateboarding is plenty dangerous, Thanks very much.)






(Folks waiting in line to get their bikes after going though the body armor fitting.)






(just some of the awesome bikes they have for rent. Yes, that's an $8000 bike. Yes, you can leave your crappy hard tail at home and come play on this one!)






(A truly great rental gang, they set up and test shocks, brakes, seats, sag, all of it.)





(armor for everyone!)







(as busy as it was, I was in the door and out in 20 minutes. Awesome.)





(one of four mountain biking 101 clinics that went out that morning!)

Anyhow, I was stoked to join a group of college kids out from LSU who were excited to try it out, and it turns out that Barnie (Bob Barnes, who is the ski school director at Winter Park and and awesome fearless moto guy) was going to be teaching the clinic.

I am a Huge fan of Bob Barnes, we had skied together at the national academy two years before, and he had taught me my first retraction turn in shin deep mank. Our group had so much fun, I couldn't wait to play with him again.

Now, my neck, as many of you know, is rather severely injured. I have clearance from my doctor to play hard, because I already need surgery, but I still feel it pretty strong all the time. Jogging hurts, yoga doesn't. Road biking hurts, skinning does too, skiing doesn't. So I was a bit trepidatious about the body position and how it would feel, and I was a bit nervous abut what I might do to my neck if I had a bad wreck. So I was mindful of keeping it cool, trying to learn, but stay well within my skill zone.

The group split along the gender lines, 10 girls went with young, hot Ian, who apparently rips, and all the boys (and me) went with hard charging wise cracking Barnie. I worried that I may have put myself in the wrong group for a minute because I remembered that Barnie had ridden his motorcycle on the Bridger Ridge before it was closed to that kind of traffic. I'm scared to be up there in my tennis shoes let alone on a dirt bike. This guy has a pair. And he was about to see if I did, too.







(Barnie schools us in the ABCs, action stance, braking and cornering)

We rode up and got to visit on the chairlift, and I confessed that if I could get decent at riding a bike, it would certainly be a dream summer job. Barnie liked the idea and coached me toward that goal, filing in my vocabulary and clearly showing his passion for developing strong pros who ride and teach well. I had heard that his crew was top top notch, and I was really grateful for the coaching tips.

As a group up top, We went through the ABCs of riding, and it's funny, you know, everyone "knows" how to ride a bike. But the skills you use in balancing on a bike in the dirt are really specific. Fifteen minutes on top helped immediately with feeling safe and in control. Being coved head to to toe in full body armor didn't hurt, either. I knew that if I went down, it would be like the difference between falling on the ice in full hockey pads and falling on the ice in a skating dress.

I'll take the pads, thanks. Thats been one of the main issues so far with me and bikes. The consequences are so much higher on a mountain bike. You have further to fall, the ground is less forgiving, and the rocks, stumps and twigs want to eat you alive. With armor on, you bounce, you may bruise, but you will probably keep all your skin and if you are smart, you aren't going to break a bone unless you are really riding on the edge. This was not part of my plan.

One of the hardest and scariest parts of riding is making a flatland turn where there is loose dirt or gravel, or descending on a work road where the turns arent burmed and speed can get away from you quickly. I've always hated this, hated that the easiest way down is on a fire road, and I've always felt more comfortable on a single track than on a road. Apparently, I'm not alone in this... The Mighty Flynn, a local aspen rider who shatters the course record at the snow mass downhill every week, has confessed to me that he is terrified on the roads, it's the most likely place to wreck. So I'm in distinguished company.





(the mighty flynn wins again at the aspen snow mass downhill)

We worked on pressing the outer knobbies of the tires into the earth by tipping the bike under you without tipping the rider. I'd done this before of course, everyone does when they are riding a bike. But with some specific instruction Germaine to the conditions, suddenly i felt less terrified that my bike was going to come out from under me while I was going down the road.

Flat pedals, elbows out, knees out, a good action stance, balance in the cockpit of the bike... It's a lot like skiing!

After taking the time to go through the basics, we took off and suddenly all was right with the world. The bike has this huge squishy suspension that lets you get away with everything. It rolls over everything, it forgives your lousy balance, it corners easily, and absorbs everything.

The answer to how was this going to feel on my neck was terrific! The bikes suspension is so good, add your humans suspension to it, and you are just floating down the hill.

We spent the morning going down "green world" a green run that's gotta be 10 miles long, practicing all the skills.

At the bottom, we picked up Kurt, who had already done five laps to our one, and he joined us for a blue run. Little did I know that a blue run at winter park means introduction to wood, bridges, trestles, drops and jumps!

But there is something to be said for trusting the process. If it was time to go to blue, and this was the intro, maybe it was appropriate to do! The whole crew went for another go, the boys from LSU gamely working hard at 9000 feet above sea level. I rolled on after Barney over a little jump and was shocked to find myself completely off the ground, both tires.

A little bit of air, a little bit like flying, a little bit like Tigger.

I landed, squishhhh, and rolled on. Suddenly I had the strangest feeling all through my body. It was like the first time I made a real turn in powder. Felt free. I felt like I had a teeny tiny inkling of what this bike could allow me to do. I got giddy.

We went over tiny jump after tiny jump, every time, both tires off, float, land and bounce, right in balance, right where I wanted to be. The boys from LSU were doing it too.

About halfway thorough the run, Kurts inner honey badger came out and we all stopped to eat wild strawberries that were growing on the side of the trail. Wow! What a sweet treat after being full of fear and adrenaline and seratonin and endorphins and sweaty and dirty and scared and happy! Those strawberries tasted sooo good.





(the boys from LSU forage for well earned wild strawberries.)

Lunch time came and I was cooked, more from the fear than from the workout, although, just like skiing, I'm pretty sure I was working way way harder than I needed to trying to make sure I didn't do anything stupid, while trying to stay loose enough to let the bike work.

It had been a morning of discovery and exhilaration,of constant and rapid fear management. At one point, we rode over a long long boardwalk type bridge, which was about 3 feet wide, but went on for quite a while through the woods. Now you weren't going to fall off of this thing, but let's just say that you did. It's about 12 feet to the ground on one side, and about 20 on the other.

I was gripped just from the constant thought trying to invade my mind "if you fell off you'd be fucked!" but of course it was a great opportunity to practice the positive go message, what do I need to do to stay rolling smoothly across this, to stay in the center, to let it feel good?

It was a great exercise, especially because it went on about three times longer than I wanted it to, so I had to stay in it, to keep working mentally on acceptance of the fact that I was on the bridge, I wasn't getting off, there was no stopping or slowing down. Just roll on. Find the bliss, find the trust, enjoy it. It was a battle in my mind, and when we got off the bridge, I was sweating that gross smelly fear sweat.

I had done a good enough job internally to have enjoyed it, and to have learned that I was indeed balanced enough on the bike to not only survive that bridge, but to be just info on it. Later in the day the wood we would go over would be ten times scarier, so I was glad to have had the opportunity to build that trust between myself and the bike in that first encounter.

I was thinking we were going to bak for lunch, sit down and de adrenalinize, breathe, reboot, but it turns out Barnie can go for another run with Kurt and I, and Kurt is dying to go down Rain Maker, an awesome black diamond run with big jumps on it. Barnie says I'm ready, so off we go, the three of us.

To be continued.... In the air...

Gilligan learns to ride a bike!

The Monday after the madness that was Crankworx, Kurt and I got on bikes and headed out for some mayhem of our own.

Now in the past, I haven't been that awesome on a bike. (see previous post). It wasn't for a lack of wanting or wishing, but as we've discussed so many times in the past, wanting, wishing and desiring is the easy part. Once I owned a car, I lost my waaaa for biking, I didn't spend every day on a bike, learning intuitively the balance and techniques.

Of course I'll race you to the bottom!

I've always been attracted to mountain biking, but I've never been part of the culture. Not being one of those people who is that great at getting after something all by myself (this was a learned behavior brought on by the necessity of getting strong for skiing... I'm willing and happy to go hike on my own, to go ski on my own, but learning to ride a bike is more fun, safer, a d less scary when you do it with friends.)

Consiquently, I only got out on my bike when I had people to do it with. I had a hardtail stump jumper that I'd bought years ago with the ridiculous and audacious idea of seeing all of Australia by bike, only to discover six months later that I was pregnant. So much for that grand idea! I sold the touring bags, bought a stroller, and watched my bike grow cobwebs at an alarming rate.

I remember one day a f years before that, must have been 95 or 6, renting a bike and going for my first lift served ride with my step dad at Northstar ski area in lake Tahoe. In true hopelessly clueless form, I followed my uuber competitive father figure down a black diamond trail on our second run, only to discover that I could ride through the sand and the gravel and the water, that I felt comfortable moving my weight around, that I was faster and more comfortable on a bike than he was. Which may or may not be why we never went again.

I definitely learned the value of winning at any cost, even that of personal injury, at my stepfathers side. This is a man who loved to race, loved to win, and who could come off the couch and run a marathon. Never mind at he looked like he was going to die at the end, he made it through by sheer force of will, determination, and the suretiy that he could accomplish anything that he put his mind to, no matter what other people thought. (hmm... Apple... Tree.... )

I loved that day of lift served riding, and several years later, with no practice in between, my husband at the time and I pulled our bikes out and accompanied some accomplished riders on the Downieville Downhill, a famous 26 mile single track downhill which required all day to ride, a stout constitution, and a complicated shuttle.

The road to Downieville, fun, evil, surprising, exhausting.

Of course, these guys decided it would be fun to ride up to the ridgeline and then add about 10 miles of climbing, in which we ended up getting (just a little) lost and portaging our bikes... None the less, I learned once again how fun it was to hang out with people who are so ridiculously fit that it seems not just possible, but actually Fun to add hours of climbing to an already epic day.

I remember following my friend John down a scree field full of polished boulders and having him look behind when we got down. I had just been following his wheel, looking carefully at what he was doing and trying my best to copy it, so I hadn't really noticed that he had veered of the trail and ridden the wash because it looked like fun to him.

"Holy shit, Kate," he said as I pulled up behind him. "You weren't supposed to follow me down that!"

Whoops. I looked around, and back up, to see the rest of the field winding down the switch backs that would lead them to where we had stopped. It hadn't occurred to me that there was another, safer way to go.

"It was fun! I liked it!!" I said, thinking how cool it was to be in the moment, just constantly practicing believing the bike would roll over those huge rocks, feeling the bike move around under me, staying imbalance, knowing I couldn't stop on that terrain, that I needed to just let it flow and believe I'd make it.

"Looks like we've got a trials rider!" said my friend, Sue. I glowed with pride. I had done something right. I had done something hard and done it right. Totally accidentally, sure. Having no skill or idea what I was doing (which is probably the only reason I could do it. See bumble bees and flying...)

I was on fire. I wanted to find out what a trials rider was and then become one. Right after pizza and beer.

Four long wrist pounding hours and two flat tires later, we pulled into the Downieville pizza company, Tom having pushed his bike, exhausted, for the last two miles. John and Sue were amazing, circling back around to check on us, riding along side, no judgments, no frustration, just encouraging all the way.

We moved away from lake Tahoe shortly after that, to Pasadena, and "real" life took over, we had babies, opened a business, and forgot how fun it was to ride.

Years later, two kids in tow, our mountain bikes had survived a huge fire, and my friend Mason at Bangtail bikes in Bozeman had cleaned and redone them so we could ride them again. We'd schlepped them all over the country, but nary a mile had been ridden. Never mind, now, I had a chariot. I would pull it behind the bike in spite of my screaming children who refused to sleep like every other happy kid in a bike trailer that I knew. We did it twice. I didn't have the heart to go a third time. 

Bozeman was a biking, hiking, skiing town, and all I could think was that to be good at riding, you have to ride a lot, and it's no fun for someone who is really into riding to go out with with someone who isn't. So while our new home in Bozman, Montana was full of riders, I was too fat and out of shape to brave asking anyone to go ride with me.  What if I went three blocks and pooped out before we hit the trail? What if it was too hard or too scary now?

Eventually, Tom and I split, (no it had nothing to do with mountain biking.) And after some time, I met and fell for a very cute boy who loved to ride his bike. He loved to ride it so much, he didn't even own a car!

Thanks to Kurt, I found a new excitement for riding. I lived in Montana, he lived in Aspen, and I was trying to find more new ways to get fit outside. I was also, years later, still trying to lose my baby fat.

I talked my excellent, super fit, really beautiful friend Angela into teaching me how to ride my bike again. We worked on switchbacks, cornering, breaking, and climbing. For a summer, we rode a lot trying to get me in shape to ride to Crested Butte with Kurt.

Of course, Kurt's level of fitness was leagues beyond my own, and so while I was training hard to go on a dirt path that suddenly scared the crap out of me (older, heavier, now I have kids...) he thought, maybe, I was training like an Aspen person. (older, thinner, Pilates instructor, hikes to the top of Aspen Mountain before breakfast, you know...)

What ensued might be called hilarity...

or not... your choice...

So this summer when Kurt got a job teaching downhill mountain biking I thought, oh, crap. Here's my opportunity to fight through two more years of pain and spills and maybe finally learn to like being scared and not be afraid of falling off my bike.

Turns out, its not like that AT ALL!! Yay!!

Yup, the Winter Park story is coming...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Delusions of flying

Kate, all grown up and appropriately padded, gets after it once again with better results.

(photo: Abbie Wade Photography)

When I was in third grade, I had this awesome blue bike that my mom and step dad had built for me. They found the frame at the dump, and rebuilt it in the garage all by themselves. My mom, who was a fabulous free spirit, a neo-hippie painter, took her high powered airbrush that she used to make fabulous sculptural paintings and gave my bike a beautiful metallic blue sheen. My step dad, a tinkerer, inventor, and creative in his own right, retooled the mechanics.

I had no idea that they were even working on this project, and on my birthday, when they rolled it out, I was blown away. I rode that bike everywhere. I rode it so much that I even got good enough to ride it with three of my friends perched in various locations as we went downtown. It was our car, a Kate powered car, covered with giggling, surly, rebellious Tweens. We rode that bike until we were smoking cigarettes and lurking in the alley of the varsity, when I finally got a ten speed.

The bike for me was freedom. I remember, before I became discontent and angst filled, I was riding my bike, dangerously and against the rules, all the way across town to my dad's house. I hadn't left a note, told my folks where I was going, I just hopped on my bike and went. Trouble be damned. I didn't care.

As I passed the park down by my dads house, I saw a big six foot jump that the high school kids had built. I had seen them launching themselves off this jump and twisting their handlebars in the air. They looked like superheros. They looked like they were flying.

I looked around. The park was empty. The sun was going down. There would be no one there to make fun of me for wanting to go off this jump there would be no one there to tell me it was audacious or wrong for a little girl to want to jump a bike.

I pedaled hard. Right at it. I knew I wanted speed, I knew I wanted to fly. I hit the ramp and went hard off the top. I did it, I was free, I was flying, I was in the air. I twisted my handlebars like id seen the high school boys do.

I landed in that same position, forks turned toward the street, bike still facing the oak tree ahead of me. The forks snapped in two, my chest hit the handlebars, my face hit the dirt, hard.

I laid in the dirt, stunned.

My face was numb, I didn't even really comprehend that I was hurt. I could taste and feel the grit and dirt in my mouth. I wondered about my knees,
Chest, ribs, the palms of my hands, which I eventually pulled out of the dirt and looked at. They were shredded, little pebbles embedded under the angry flesh.

I looked around. There was no point in crying, there was no one there to help me. I was miles from my house, still a mile from my dads. I looked across the street. Years ago, during happier times, my sister had a very best friend in the whole world named Margo. She lived directly across the street.

If she was home and remembered me, I might have a ride home. I saws embarrassed to drag the twisted and broken carcass of my bike across the street, my hands hurt too much to wipe the dirt off my chords, and in shame, (I knew I shouldn't only visit when I needed something, why hadn't I come by and said hello before? I loved this family, I thought of them often, I missed them. But I never visited without my sister, they we're her friends, not mine.) I walked to her door and rang the bell.

The door opened. Margos mom opened the door and the look on her face said everything. I was a mess. She was horrified. But not at the danger, the bad choice id made or the fact that I'd broken my precious bike. At my muddy face and bloody hands.

She hugged me, pulled me close and tried to bring me inside to wash up. I was pulled so hard by her love, I wanted so badly to go in and cry and have her clean my cuts and care for me. I was craving it. But something in me had become hard, and I knew i needed to get away from there, to get home, to face the music, to crawl into the bathroom and clean off my knees, make my wounds seem less bad, I was already going to be in trouble for riding across town when I wasn't supposed to, now there were a list of reasons why.

It was many years before I tried to jump a bike again, in fact, while I rode a mountain bike in lots of fun and exciting places, I never dared, until last weekend at winter park, to find myself airborne.

Yup, the winter park story is coming! Stay tuned...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Winter Park gets it done during summer!

So we went to winter park to ride the dedicated downhill trails and see how the bike park was DONE. While we were there, I was stoked to find out that not only do they have the most awesome purpose built downhill trails around, they also have the summer scene dialed!

First of all, it was crowded, but in a good way. They rolled out a bunch of beverage carts and snack wagons so that no one had to wait very long for anything.

There we're families walking around, all ages, and tons of them were decked out in full downhill gear.



(The Stalter family getting it DONE!)




(little yacovitch chases his big kid friend down the trails at winter park)





(Molly from Teva has been bitten by the dh bug!)




Our first day out was amazing, then, on Monday, I jumped into one of the clinics! More about Winter Park Adventures coming up!






Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Crankworx Madness at Winter Park!

Kurt and I spent the weekend at Winter Park Resort watching the downhill mountain biking championships. One word. Awesome.

We drove over on Saturday night, got to spend a lovely evening with some friends, (bliss!) slept in (double bliss!), had breakfast on the deck and then, after a little Thai Massage all around, headed over to Winter Park.

I've never been there, and I was excited to go for a few reasons. First, my very first skiing mentor, Mike Hickey and his wife, Bonnie, are from Winter Park, so I was excited to get a first hand look at their old stomping ground. Also, Bob Barnes (the other one) is the director there, and he's just about as fun as they make em, so I was hoping to get to say hi.

Barney wasn't around on Sunday, so Kurt and I headed up the hill to watch the madness. Winter Park is amazing, they did a great job making it homey and fun. I couldn't BELIEVE how crowded it was, they definitely have their summer fun dialed.

There was mini golf and mini zip lines for the little kids, an awesome alpine slide, lots of tables, chairs and umbrellas and food stands all around so you could get a beverage easily and still watch your kids play.

People were pedaling around in their full armor on their gnarly full suspension bikes, and it was EVERYONE, not just the competitors. I saw kids as young as 7 all decked out with huge grins on their faces, I saw moms, I saw whole families. I had NO idea the sport of Down Hill Mountain Biking was so accessible!

My experience on a mountain bike thus far had been sketchy, scary and painful. (but fun). I had kind of come to the conclusion a year or so ago that I'd better buy a road bike and learn to love to suffer, because I was getting too old to fall off my bike. And when I did fall off my bike, it was scary and ridiculously painful. The consequences just seemed too high. I wished I had the talent to ride, but it just seemed like I should have learned when I was 18, not 35.

Enter purpose-built trails, bikes with huge squishy full suspension, full body armor, and a little bit of technique and instruction. Almost ANYONE can do it. Kurt had a family the other day in his lesson that had like 10 people in it. The youngest was 9. The oldest was 74!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. (because I want to tell you about what it feeeellls like to ride like this... but that's the next day. hold on to your britches. here we go.)

SO we hike up the trail and wander off under this huge bridge to watch the best guys in the nation get after it.

 While we were there, we ran into Chris Conrad (the guy with the chainsaw) and the Tater Patch crew. These guys had hiked up and brought shovels and huge nails to bang on them, cow bells, the chain saw, and they were creating a huge and AWESOME ruckus as the riders came ripping through the wood and launched off this huge rock before making a hard turn to the right.

The speeds these guys ride at and the amount of air they got were truly inspiring, and Kurt and I left feeling really REALLY psyched to ride the next day!

Stay tuned for more DH Mountain biking insanity... (and thanks for your patience, its high season here in Aspen, so we are all working our tails off. I finally folded my laundry and I can find my bed again... ahhh!!)

Metta (Loing Kindness) Meditation at 02!

At 02 Aspen:

We are having a donation based meditation on Wednesday July 27th with the Garden Shartse Tibetan Monks!

Every summer the monks come to Aspen on a tour of the United States to fulfill their mission of helping to spread peace, harmony, compassion, and tolerance through cultural exchange, interfaith dialog, and Buddhist teachings.

The mediation starts at 2pm and is an hour and a half long. It is a "Metta Meditation" which means loving kindness. a $20 donation is recommended.

Hope to see you there!

The day the flag got burried.

Bodhi and Ethan and their friends have a little campsite by Maroon Creek, which got destroyed the other day. I held Bodhi in my arms while he grieved, and he told me the story, with his sunburnt shoulders leaning hot against me. I've been doing a bunch of fiction writing for the last two months, and his experience inspired a little short story.

The tribe daring each other to jump in the cold snowmelt pond.

We walked over the hill a little, the bedraggled line of the three of us, my older brother, a little bit duck footed, skinny like a bean pole, knees bigger than his thighs, JT, our neighbor, and me.

I was in my flip-flops.  My hair had gotten long enough that I could feel it on my shoulders.  My shoulders were sunburned, no shirt, a pair of plaid shorts with a permanent dirt stain on the butt.  JT was trotting along, trying to keep up on his short five year old legs.  He'd helped us dig it out to begin with. 

We had brought some more stuff that we'd found.  I had an eagle feather.  I knew it was an eagle feather.  I went and asked the Dean if it was and he said yeah, and that it was sacred and special and that I should keep it, and that's what had started us heading over here today. 

Along the way J.T. had found a rock that he said was a crystal, but it was really just a rock, but he wanted it to be as special as my eagle feather, so I let him have it.  Ethan, always practical, had brought along a shovel and the little porcelain dish that he has swiped from mom's kitchen that had some of her special rocks in it, but mom was pretty cool that way, you know?  She let us play with her stuff, and sometimes she'd wonder where it was and it would mysteriously reappear. 

Anyway, we climbed up over the big, loose, dirt mound and when we got to the top, there was our flag,
almost just like we'd left it.  It was a long tree branch that we'd pulled out of the river the summer before and tied to the top was a piece of white T-shirt.  It was the best flag we'd had so far. We'd had it out on the raft last year when we'd lived up at the pond.  Now we'd moved across the ranch to another cabin that also had a pond, but this pond had a big fire hose that sprayed into it all day, so didn't have a raft, so the flag has been laying by our front door for most of the summer until we found this magic spot. 

I called it my peaceful place.  The other kids wanted to name it something else like, you know, rad, awesome, gastro launch mech tech site, but it wasn't.  It was my peaceful place and that's what we called it and they just had to deal with it or they couldn't come play there. We had set up rules for it.  They were very clear.  Each one of us had a treasure table.  Mine was made out of a stump.  Ethan and J.T. had big flat rocks that they had polished and swept off really carefully and on each treasure table we had put our most valued possessions.  I had a bone from an elk that I found, a big huge femur, heavy and bleached white. I had some soft, sort of oily-feeling yellow crystals that I had found that I thought were maybe salt, and some feathers.  The flag was planted right by the edge of the mossy minnow pond, marking our territory.

Ethan had a bird's nest at his treasure table.  He was really good at spotting birds. He even knew why kind of bird it was that the nest belonged to.  J.T. had little mounds of dirt.  He didn't really get it.  He was still kind of a baby, but we let him play.  He would put anything on his treasure table and we were constantly trying to tell him, it's not a treasure. It has to be something special.  You can't just pick something up off the ground and dump it on the table.  It needs to be something, you know, it needs to be a treasure, so maybe he treasured his dirt. 

But here's what happened.  Today we walked up to the top of the hill that hid our peaceful place, and all of those things that we had carefully put there were under a huge pile of dirt with giant tractor marks pressed into it.  The top of our flag was showing out of it, but nothing else was there.  Someone had come and dumped truckload after truckload after truckload of dirt there.

Those huge, heavy machines had rolled over our most sacred spot, our campsite, our peaceful place, our treasure tables.  Every single thing was buried, my bone, my feathers, the stump, the rocks, they were turned and buried.  Even a little pond with minnows in it was filled in part way with ugly brown lose dirt.  The flag was sticking out barely, and Ethan looked at it, still, and then walked over, put down his little bowl, picked up the shovel that was still leaning against the tree just outside of the dirt, and began to dig.

"What are you doing?" I asked, anger flooding everything. It seemed pointless, hopeless.

"I'm digging up what we can recover. Its all under here."

"Its GONE, Ethan. Those assholes dumped dirt over everything everything that meant anything to me."

Ethan didn't even look. He had the flag halfway out. "You never know, Bodhi, we might find it all if we just start digging. It won't help us find the stuff to cry about it. If you want to have your stuff back, start digging."

"You sound like mom!" I yelled at him. It wasn't his fault, but I needed to be angry at someone. "I want our SPOT BACK! I want my HOME BACK!" I screamed. And then I sat down, suddenly tired. Tired from the job ahead, moving all that dirt to find a tiny feather, tired from the anger, which was draining out of my toes, being replaced with disbelief.

It had been the perfect place, and it was out of sight, but it was close enough to the house that we could hear mom ring the bell when it was time to come home.  It was across the road, so that we felt really like big kids, you know?  We had been allowed to cross the road to find our spot and those fuckers, man. 

I can't even believe it and I felt it coming up in me and it wasn't anger so much as just total disbelief.  I felt as though that huge machine had driven over my home; that I had come home one day and that my house was flat and that this embossed mark of this huge, metal monster had left its footprints all over what was most precious to me, my sanctuary, my space. 

I really didn't care whether I cried in front of the other kids or not, because I felt my heart breaking and being squeezed. It seemed impossible, it was shocking, surprising, unreal.  I felt sick.  I felt sad.  I felt  I felt robbed.  I felt like I couldn't trust anybody.  How could the Dean have let this happen?  He's the one that taught me to find a bow, to find a soft piece of willow and bend it and split it and tie a piece of grass between it and make a bow that really works.  He had taught me that I could eat the whole dandelion, including the flower.

How in the world had he let - I mean what had, had he been driving this monster?  Had he been driving this machine?  Tell me please that the Dean was not a part of this.  I couldn't believe it.  I decided not to believe it.  It must have been while he was gone.  His workers came and they didn't see our flag, which was clearly planted on top of this place that was very special to us.



They must not have seen (but how could they not) our careful place, the piece of the place that was mine, the log we sat in and pulled the moss off of, the place where you could cool your feet, how could they not have?

I sat down and cried.  The tears spilled out of my eyes, hot and wet and angry on my cheeks.  I grieved for the loss of this place that had meant so, so much to me, and was now wadded up like tissue paper.  It was the first time that I ever felt loss or death or grief, and I knew then, that it wouldn't be the last.

Free Meditation Classes all Summer!

All levels invited, first timers welcome!



DIRECTIONS:
Click Here!

SCHEDULE:
At the T Lazy 7 Ranch five minutes from Aspen
Sunday 8 - 9 am
Tuesday 8 - 9:30 am

At O2 Yoga Studio on Main St. in Aspen
Wed 5:30 - 6pm

Class schedule good through August 23, 2011

DETAILS:
Classes are donation based and open to everyone. There is no “fee”. Even so, please pre-register by clicking the button in the side bar so we have an idea of how many folks will be coming!

Classes will meet on the lawn by the massage studio (cabin 11) and will be in different locations all over the ranch every week, so please be timely and wear shoes appropriate for walking over uneven ground. Please dress in layers as it can range from quite chilly to very warm in the mountains in the morning.

In case of rain, we will meet inside Cabin #11 (my home and office) for meditation.

I look forward to sitting with you!

The Technique

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was rediscovered by Gotama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills, i.e., an Art Of Living.

This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose.

Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind. It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.
The scientific laws that operate one's thoughts, feelings, judgements and sensations become clear. Through direct experience, the nature of how one grows or regresses, how one produces suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood. Life becomes characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace.

Savasana in Bikram Yoga: Set Your Intention or Suffer

Its at least 105 degrees. You are sweating your brains out. You are tired, you are giving your all in this Bikram class. Whether its your first class or your 100th, when that first laying down savasana comes, we all tend to collapse in a heap on the floor, panting for breath.

What if, in your savasana, while you are "complete relax, complete relax, complete relax", your mind is also letting go of listening to how tired and hard working your body is.

What's going on in that mind of yours?

What if in those 20 seconds, you are laying there filling yourself with the positive energy you will need for the next posture?

I did an experiment in my last three classes. I noticed that at first I was collapsing on the floor and while I was completely relaxing, I was also completely experiencing how tired I was. I the complete relax was attached to how hard the work had been.

The next savasana, I asked myself if I could let go of my attachment to my "hard work" of the past and just be here now. Not here in the sense of indulging what my body was saying to me about the past, but could I return my breathing to normal in two breaths?

Could I then spend the savasana filling my body with energy, so that the next posture I'd be rejuvenated and ready?

The floor series has always been the hardest part for me. It feels relentless, and the savasana almost makes it worse.

After a week of testing my hypothesis,  realized that the floor series was becoming easier, was less dreaded. And therefore, I could re prioritize my means of approach.

In the past, I'd thought, okay, I hate the floor series. I'm not good at it, its hard, and its hard to drink water. I'm tired and floor bow is the most brutal posture ever. So therefore, floor bow is now my favorite posture and I dedicate all my energy of excellence to that posture.

The problem was that by the time I got there, I was so tired, I had a really hard time giving my positive energy to the posture. I've never been able to give my all and see what I can do in that posture because I just don't have that much to give.

After shifting my intention in savasana from observing how hard it had been to energizing myself for what would be, without worry or projection, like a battery attached to a solar panel, I was soaking up my breath as my charge went up.

The ultimate expression of floor bow.

Suddenly, when we got to bow, I was surprised to already be there, and able to give it a little more. Camel doesn't make me feel like I'm going to pass out, and I'm not fighting lip service in Floor Bow, I'm actively participating, able to care if my knees are apart or my alignment is good.

I think about how this works in the rest of life. We know that suffering is wishing something was other than it is. I don't think I was laying in savasana suffering, I think I was observing, but also dwelling. I wonder if there isn't another step of freedom from suffering which is first acceptance, then letting go of the information that's informing your understanding so that other possibilities of this present moment can be observed as well.

Yes, I'm sweating, yes, my heart rate is up. Yes, I feel strong, alive, able, growing, and strengthening. Yes, my breath feels like water feeding my body. Yes, I am ready for the next posture.

Vipassana Meditation Classes begin!

Do you experience anxiety? Do you wonder, and worry? Come experience the tranquility and peace that a meditation practice can offer you! Right here in Aspen at the T Lazy 7 Ranch!

Classes begin this Sunday, July 3 from 8 to 9 am. Bring a yoga mat and a blanket if you have either, or a meditation cushion if you have one.

Can't sit on the ground? No worries, I have lawn chairs! Dress in layers as we will be outside, weather permitting. It may be chilly in the morning!

First class: Two fifteen minute sittings with a short break in between and tea after.

Classes are on a donation basis, so you are free to pay with a hug!  Sign up to attend by clicking on the "Schedule Now" button on the top right hand sidebar of the Skiing in the Shower Website!


Thanks for coming!


Kate

Solving the Puzzle of Bikram

So here's another reason why I'm a huge fan of Bikram yoga. Don't get me wrong, I love all the practices, I like a flow class, a strict Iyengar session, I think they all have their merits and produce great results.

Right now, I'm on the Bikram ball. I love it because its the same 26 postures over and over again. Ironically, I thought this would be something that I would hate about it. I longed for the unexpected creativity of the flow class.

But here is the genius behind the same 26 postures: the fear is removed. That whole entire, gee I wonder how far we are through the class, I wonder how much harder this is going to get, I wonder if I can do it when it gets even harder is removed completely.

Because you know exactly whats coming, you can commit everything you have to every posture every time you do it. It is completely clear how much time there is left, how hard it is going to get, and if you can rally later when its so hard right now.

Another brilliant piece is that you have a benchmark in every class. But because you are dealing with a body that changes daily, you have to accept and let go of the benchmark. Its an awesome opportunity to be present with the results you have in the now, and then let go of them. No judgement, whether its positive or negative. It just doesn't help.

Because the series is the same every time, your human mind is tempted to compare one set to the next, one class to the next.

But that is futile. You can look at the overall arching picture, but if you get lost in "This is my best posture! I'm going to impress my teacher SO MUCH right now!" guess what? You've popped right out of your body and right into your monkey mind, your focus is gone, and you are probably going to fall out of the posture anyway. That's what you get for going there in your head, congratulations.

For me, I can't help but compare, but its becoming a fun game to compare and then let the comparative results go into the ether and be wherever I am in the day.

I really thought that my hamstrings would never change. That I was just built this way. Inflexible. But that's not so. My body is changing so fast, I can't believe it.

And then, I went to my first 7am class. I've worked out a bunch early in the morning, even Yoga. But because of the magic of the Bikram series, how it is built, that I know it by heart now, I went in with expectations.

In that 7am class, suddenly, I felt like I was back at square one. I was out in the hallway after and one of the super flexi yogi girls smiled at me and said, "Don't worry, I couldn't touch my toes either when I first started." My egoic mind wanted to chase after her and say, "no no no! I can lock my legs out in standing head to knee! I'm working on pulling my elbows down! That was a hard place to get to! I've been working hard! Give me some CREDIT I DESERVE IT!"

But of course, the lesson in this moment was humility, there was no reason to need to validate my practice or prove my worth. She's right, I am still a beginner in this series and I will be for years to come. I couldn't touch my toes today, and it doesn't matter at all that I could yesterday.

I came back for 4:30 class and rocked it. Had my best class ever, and felt like I didn't deserve to be moving that well and working that hard and sweating that much because I'd been caught in the trap of my ego earlier. I was shamed, and relearned again, and then tried to look at the afternoon class as just what IS, not what has become and therefore something that points to how it WILL BE.

Yesterday, when I went to class, I was injured and my whole body had gotten tight. Even though I was trying to work hard for the rest of my body, it had tightened up SO MUCH guarding the injury that even the arches of my feet were tight.

I tried to be present with the fact that this was my body protecting itself. I tried to make space for the fear that my body had snapped like an elastic band back into place, and that I would not be able to put my head on my knee ever again. I felt a bit like I'd eaten a whole family size pack of Oreos and knew I'd need to take two weeks to hike them off and get back to where I had been JUST THAT MORNING.

Today, I went into class feeling like I'd surrendered into that lesson. I didn't care how my practice would be, I knew that I needed to be in the room, that I'd work as hard as was intelligent for my shoulder, and that I wouldn't know how hard I could go until each posture came up.

And guess what? I had my deepest class yet. For the first time ever I locked out both my legs and flexed my toes back and pulled my elbows down. I've never been there. And it wasn't a struggle, I picked up my foot, the stretch felt good in my shoulder and my leg locked out all by itself. I was shocked.

I got excited to see where my body was going to take me, but I was along for the ride, a patient observer. I felt so grateful to go internal, work hard, and experience the play of my body, tight yesterday, protecting, loose today, opening and healing.

Pain in Practice

Today, I was in Bikram yoga. I love yoga, I've had a practice on and off for a long time, and I've always disliked the issues that seem to go on between the schools of thought in yoga. Of course, I used to play a part in that myself.

I found Bikram yoga to be ridiculous. Yoga is already hard, why do it in a hot room? What is this competitive nature? What? A POWER HOUR? Screw it. That's not Yoga, I'm not goin'.

Sounds a bit closed minded for a girl who likes to think of herself as open hearted. (Knock, knock, Kate... what is the lesson you are meant to learn here? Hmmm.) So then, I meet this guy who I love to spend time with, and guess what? He's a Bikram instructor. Sigh.

I dug my prejudices out and looked at them. If you need me, I'll be over here at the "real" studio, practicing Hatha Flow with an Iyengar base. Thanks.

I always thought Bikram was for all the wannabes who followed Gweneth Paltrow into practice after her "Yoga Bodies!" photo came out in US Weekly in the 90s.

Can you hear it? I couldn't. I couldn't even see the prejudices that I had built right into my practice. Anyhow, this is a few years ago now, and of course, I had to suck it up and go, right? He was cute, I was in love with him, any yoga is better than no yoga. And I am a firm believer in experiencing the things that the one you love loves. That's how you share your heart.

So I walk into the studio and the first thing that takes me by surprise is the full on near nakedness. All five of the girls in the front row are HOT. Yes, I mean sweaty, but I also mean ripped, toned, tan, all their hair is to their butts at least. None of them have it tied up sensibly. They are wearing "shorts" that are smaller than my underwear and some of them have a little bandeaux top on. The others are wearing micro sports bras.

And, of course, they are all incredibly, intimidatingly flexible. And annoyingly nice, welcoming and whatever. I'm not going to like this. I've decided that before I even walked in the door, so we are good to go. As long as I keep looking around for ideas that match my prejudices and reinforce them, I should be safe in the knowledge that I am right. I'm here to show this boy that I've had a good Iyengar practice for years and I can DO this. (Even though I don't believe that yoga is competitive, for anyone else, or that you should every be in the practice with the thought of any other person or body or thought being a part of it... clearly I'm not letting my emotional, egoic self run insanely around the room, keeping me safe... oh wait.)

But I want to leave space for this beautiful boy to be right, as well. I'm here to experience something that helped change his life. Now, I'm in conflict. I decide that the girls in the front are an anomaly of Aspen, that Bikram people can't possibly dress like that, because that would make this a practice of narcissistic self indulgent show offs. (Was that in my out loud voice?) If you need me, I'll be in the back row in a pair of actual shorts and a sensible long waisted yoga top. Real yoga clothes. Sweating my brains out. Because its HOT. There's a REASON they are nearly naked! Helloo!!

He warned me, by the way, to bring water. I don't drink water during yoga, I drink after, so I brought some, but not much. I looked around. They all had the special hot yoga towel. More crap to buy, I think. Making your yoga soooo special, you need a towel on your mat. Whatever.

Lets skip the nausea, intense feeling that I was going to pass out, the immense amount of sweat, the hard work and dedication I saw all around me, in every single body in every single posture. Lets skip the fact that I had to check closely and look at the boy to see if he had rivers of sweat literally pouring off of him. I was sweaty for sure. It was raining all around me. I hadn't produced anything like that!

At the end of class, I was hooked, but intimidated, and financially crippled. I couldn't do it. I wanted to do it. But I didn't have an extra $20 a month, let alone $100, or $200 if I wanted to belong to 2 studios for "regular" yoga and Bikram as well. I had two kids to feed and clothe, and no financial help with them. I couldn't afford to "drop in" at $20 a class. So while I knew the minute we started breathing that I needed to be in this room, I couldn't do it. I spent the next two years craving it.

Fast forward two years later. The season ends. The summer starts. I get a little help from my friends, I'm not busted flat broke for the first time in years. I'm tired of waiting for company and friends to go to the studio with me, I just want to practice and I don't care any more. I don't have the clothes or the mat or the flexibility, and I've gained 12 pounds after ski season this year. (That's another blog post...) So I just go. I go and I sign up. And then I go to Bikram every single day. And by two weeks, I'm going twice a day.

I spent the last two years listening to the boy tell me that he feels "so good" after he goes to Bikram after a huge ride, when his back is tight, after a huge ski. Its not his work out. Its his re balance. Its his sanity. Its restoration, detoxification, balance.

And he was right.

Apparently, Bikram says "One beautiful day, your head will be on your knee" and two days ago, HEY, it was. I'm making my body. Its becoming strong, flexible, nimble and my balance is improving all the time.

Yesterday, I gave a massage in the morning and then sprinted out the door to class. While I was there, I reached up to get ready for half moon, and I felt that "bad" thing from the car accident I was in two years ago happen in my neck.

Now, let me precede that by saying that two solid months of daily or twice daily Bikram yoga has begun healing my spine in a way that I could never have predicted. Two months ago my "backbend" was me looking up about 30 degrees with a straight spine and pain everywhere. Now, my backbend lets me see my eyes in the mirror behind me. My body is feeling better every day.

The fibromyalgia from the neck injury in the accident is always present, but with a strong, flexible body, its much MUCH more tollerable.

Occasionally, however, the Injury comes back. I backed way off. I stayed in the hot room, I laid down on a yoga block as I felt my shoulder and neck begin to contract in a way that is all to familiar and very scary.

I got home and got Bodhi to walk on my back. I got my self massage tool out and began to dig. I laid on more heat. By the evening, it hurt so badly and I was so restricted in my movement that I wanted to do nothing other than cry and puke and go to the ER and beg for some big guns pain killers. I resisted. I resisted Tylenol. I resisted wallowing in the pain.

I walked around in circles, feeling crazy. It hurt so much I felt like I was near my limit. Bodhi woke up and wanted to tuck in with me, so I gave him the massage tool and he went to town on my back. Slow, deep, sustained pressure of the whole body weight of a 7 year old for about a half an hour. And then more heat. He helped enough that I could sleep.

This morning I got up and it hurt, but I could move. All I wanted to do was go to yoga. Get in that hot room. Get some healing going on.

And so I went. And it was interesting to step into the room where I've been working HARD. Backing off as needed, caring for myself, building a strong practice, and know that this was not going to be a workout, this was going to be me in a hot room wishing I wasn't hurt.

I set my intention for the practice to listen carefully to the neck and shoulder, but do everything else that I could and do it well. Not let the pain in the shoulder be a valid excuse to keep me from going strong on the left leg, for instance.

I wondered if I could make a practice that was strong for the whole body and caring and careful for the injury. My shoulder and neck hurt. A lot. I modified, I skipped postures, I worked harder than I think I ever have in class, and I barely broke a sweat. Which made me sad. I missed my detox, I missed my yoga bliss. I missed sweating out a gallon of water. I hated the pain I was in. I felt robbed of my practice.

I caught sight of my shoulder in the mirror, all around the injury, the skin was breaking out in big cystic bumps. Something is happening.

I went in to talk to Kate, the instructor, after class. She complimented me on my practice, and when she asked how the injury felt, I told her, "It hurts." and then I started crying. I wanted to sit down on the floor and bawl. Not out of anger, or fear or wishing, but just to acknowledge and honor how much it hurt, how hard it was to change my practice to support the injury, how present I was with the pain. It hurt.

Kate said that Bikram often said that humans are like onions (I think Shrek said that, too). And Kate's hypothesis is that while I'm healing my body in class, I'm peeling back layers of protection and getting closer and closer to the root. And I agree, this is how I feel. I feel like my old body is falling off to show the real me inside, healthier, taller, happier, present, with myself.

Kate said, "And now, you've come to the injury. And that's what's next. Work through this. Keep coming. Lets let your body heal you."

And so I grabbed a tissue or six, my special yoga mat and towel, rolled them into my beautiful yoga tote bag, and pulled on my skirt over my special teeny tiny Bikram shorts and walked all shaken and sad and happy to have gotten to the injury and have the next task before me, back to my car.

Work is Prayer: cultivating gratitude in everything

How do you live this, teach this, and even begin to understand this?

I just finished this painting, (which is painted after and inspired by one of my favorite albums to do massage to). Its in the kitchen over the sink, because we don't have a dishwasher, and I'm not a fan of doing dishes. Three or four or five times a day.

Ethan and Bodhi both asked me, what does "Work is Prayer" mean? Explaining this esoteric concept to myself was dificult enough. Wording it for adults was still a challenge. Eplaining it to a 7 and a 9 year old in a way that they could grasp made it come very clear to me.

I think on the simple level about the problem of the dishes. There are dishes. I don't want to wash them. But there is the fact that I am healthy, my kids are healthy. We have a home and a kitchen and food to cook. We have the means to buy food that is healthy for our bodies.

The dishes exist because of the bounty we live in. There are blessings all around, from the big sloping lawn outside my windows to the stream that flows down it from the trout pond where the kids like to swim.

When I look at the dishes, if I can cultivate gratitude for the task ahead of me, for whatever portion of it I can latch onto, maybe first just that they exist because I've fed my kids and I'm glad to have done that, maybe next that I'm healthy and able to stand and work, and then finally, to find peace, grace, and gratitude in the act of washing.

I think it comes down again to acceptance and wishing. If I wish the dishes did not need doing or did not exist, I'm adding to my suffering. I'm working reluctantly. If I accept that the dishes exist, my wishing isn't going to change that, and so accept the present moment as it is, with neither positives nor negatives, blessings or curses, it is just this moment with everything existing in the world in this moment as it does, I am suddenly free.

Free to call up gratitude for life, for growth, for work, and watch my hands make the dishes clean, taking pride in the thorough job, observing how my heart transforms when I do a task that I'm not fond of with willingness and without judgement.

Work becomes meditation, or prayer. It is a privilege, an opening, a growth, a place of gratitude unfolding.

It is a moment to practice for moments that "really" count. For those moments when you have to wash the dishes of your life, your love, your relationships. When you have to accept the present moment as it is when that present moment may include heart break, loss, love, pain, or joy.

Its a moment of gratitude. Now, if I can just get Ethan to understand that when he has to take the trash out...

It has been a month since my last...

In that time, the snow has melted, we've moved across the ranch, and spring has come full force. I've attended a Thai Massage training, and spent two weeks practicing out on the lawn by the stream. The boys have ended school and discovered their first summer of completely sleep in unstructured fun.

Bodhi enjoys our first day in the hammock.

Ive had time to get back into my Yoga practice, going twice a day to sweat, heal, and strengthen my body. I'm thinking a lot about skiing, what it means to me, what my future is in it, how I feel about tryouts, about PSIA, about what the team means to the organization, and how I can best be of service.

I'm grateful for how the summer has turned out, with some very timely help from my friends, I bridged the gap of the shoulder season, pre paid my rent, and now I have June, July and August before me to write, paint, hike, and practice.

Ethan (and mom!) attend a Live Foods "cooking" class with Rachel of Beyond Massage Aspen.

I'll be teaching meditation classes at O2 in Aspen, as well as holding meditation and yoga retreats here at the T Lazy 7.

I'll be working on some projects that needed time and space, and spending lots of time with my kids, and my love, cultivating those relationships and doing some deep examination of my path.

I feel so grateful for the time and the space to do this, I've missed my blog, but I needed the rest. Thanks for your patience, and feel free to check back here at least every Tuesday (and perhaps more often), when there will be a new blog post for your reading pleasure!

Much love!
Kate