In article .com,
taichiskiing wrote:

Hi Tai Chi Skier,

You are really teetering on netkook behavior here. What you have done,
from my perspective, is to have posted some videos of you on groomed
blues and one run through the super pipe, all without poles and but with
much hand waving. You claim you ride the skis flat and don't use the
edges for turning, and you refuse to use the accepted "language" of
skiing, choosing instead to invent your own terminology.

You claim to be an expert skier and practitioner of this "new school" of
skiing, but can neither describe it nor defend it when challenged. Part
of being an expert is being able to describe and defend you techniques
and theory in discussion. This is true of martial arts as well. With
this in mind, let's look at your most recent response

As you repeated your failed arrogant argument--a 4-old skis faster
than me--then it really reflects your low intelligent level. Most of
reasonable mature adults won't believe such a claim, but you don't
seem to know that. So, "if you believe that, you're dumber than
yourself realized." Maybe it's just a mistake, you were just bashing
without realizing how stupid the argument is, but the second time
around after it failed? So, "Even 4-year olds learn from their
mistakes," but apparently, you don't.

Here you are being both arrogant and defensive. Evojeesus didn't say
you weren't capable of skiing faster than a 4 year old, simply that in
the footage you posted, you didn't appear to be skiing faster than a 4
year old.

You are insulting regarding his ability to judge your speed, yet, you
don't provide any counter evidence that you were going as fast as you
say you were.

If you are going to make claims, at least make some effort to back them
up. It's entirely possible that you felt like you were going much
faster than you actually were. I've stood on a surfboard going 10 mph
and felt like I was flying and stood in a jet liner traveling 500 mph
and felt like I was standing still.

You can't simply post some grainy footage of you on a blue run waving
your arms around and then demand that people who see it "prove" your
actual speed.


My current favourite mountain does not have marked trails (except for
two blue groomed ones for beginners), skipatrol or restrictions on
where one may go. I much prefer untamed mountains to Disneyland.

Sounds a cool little hideout, however, if you only have a limited
access to the mountain and its facilities, it'll be hard pressed for
you to have a more feature-rich all-mountain skiing experience.

He tells you his mountain has very little groomed runs, no ski patrol
and no ropes. It sounds pretty danged hardcore to me. He is telling
you that he is doing real "all mountain" skiing and you respond by
lamenting that he doesn't have access to the whole mountain and doesn't
enjoy "a more feature-rich all-mountain skiing experience." This
response, literally, makes you look stupid. Especially in light of your
apparent fondness for blue runs.

And again, there is nothing wrong with messing around on blue runs, and
I frequently find places to eat lunch at the bottom of them, but posting
videos of you going down them and then talking about enjoying the "all
mountain experience" is just silly.

Not really, that's "only" your part of assumption. I seldom
straightlining on the blacks, (nevertheless, I've done that,) it just
too fast a speed for most of ski resort environments.

The very first time I put on a pair of snow skis, I "flat boarded" in a
straight line down "Panda Ridge" at Buttermilk and I did enough hand
waving for 2 tai chi skiers. I'm pretty sure I was going in excess of
200 mph too. Had it been video taped, it probably would have been hard
to judge the speed, but I am positive it was 200 mph. The instructor
much have been going even faster, because he caught up to me.



I'm not pretending to be a skiing-instructor-guru with new and
radical groundbreaking ideas.

Yeah, you just pretend you know more about skiing than a skiing-
instructor-guru.

If you are going to call yourself a "skiing-instructor-guru" then you
need to present yourself as one. Being petty, defensive, making wild
claims and not being able to back them up makes you look like a
charlatan or netkook.

It may be that you are in fact a skiing-instructor-guru with a
breakthrough new school of skiing. If that is the case, and you want to
be an effective advocate for it, you need to be able to both demonstrate
it and describe it. Riding blues without poles is something that a lot
of people here can do capably.


Pretending that you only see an intermediate level skiing only
reflects your intermediate level of observation, not going to help you
to prove your argument, but only reflects your pathetic denial.

See. That's what I'm talking about. When I look at your videos, I see
(and I don't claim any particular expertise) a guy skiing at an
intermediate level. Now, it may not be possible to ski at an advanced
or expert level on that sort of terrain. If you are doing something
special or noteworthy, you should describe it.


No, I haven't changed, and my words still stand after all these years,
and that's where the credibility stays. Meanwhile, your credibility
has been poked full of holes, "but you don't seem to realize or care."

Here you are obviously getting frustrated. Sadly, when you do that, you
start sounding a little like Scott. For example, you haven't
established your credibility, nor have you poked Evojeesus's "poked full
of holes." Trumpeting that you have just makes you look silly.


No, what's your "experience" in skiing is still in question, and the
question was a challenge to your skiing knowledge.

Describe it (the "feeling" of the flatboarding), please.

How about you define "flat boarding" first. Since I only ever flat
boarded once, during the aforementioned skiing lesson, I can assure you
the feeling was terrifying although I found the technique rather easy.


Is that why you spread your arms and don't tuck when you
straightline those beginner-slopes?

So you get stuck on the beginner-slopes?

I think he is alluding to the fact that you claim not using poles
lessens your wind resistance (to about the same degree as not having a
bobbin on your toque would) but then stand up straight and hold your
arms out to the side in a position that is positively operatic. (aside:
opera singers aren't usually known for their low wind resistance.)

Skiing without poles reduces aerodynamic drag, and skiing on flat
board/ski reduces frictions, and how to control the ski without re-
introducing all those elements back? "Moving without moving"--and
that's Taichi, the "advanced stuff." If you cannot see that, you
haven't got a clue what "advanced stuff" is.

When you get frustrated, you revert back to this whole "it's too
advanced to explain" nonsense. Honestly, I think that's one of the
failings of Tai Chi. Tai Chi has many, many wonderful benefits, but
because as a rule, you do it alone and don't "challenge" one another as
you might with karate, it leaves you untested and open to make many
claims that can't actually be supported except by how you experience it.
Thus, "moving without moving" might be a valid claim for "Tai Chi in the
park guy," but met with skepticism if you're "posting videos of groomed
blue runs guy."

I think we might be getting somewhere. Let's say you are "Tai Chi in
the park guy" and I am "playing frisbee in the park with labrador
retriever guy." We have both mastered the basics of park enjoyment.
But if you were to come up to me and try to tell me that you're using
the park at a far more advanced level than I, then you would appear to
be a nut.

The techniques that you
are wrangling about only a lower end of skiing; in the end, the high
end skiing is all mental.

When I was a kid, my dad had a riding lawn mower. When I first learned
how to drive it, it took a fair amount of concentration and effort.
After I mastered it's basic operation, I used to imagine that it was a
race car or a lunar exploration vehicle. That is, once I learned the
basics, my primary enjoyment of using it came from my imagination. Now,
imagine if I told you that to truly master lawn mowing, you must imagine
that you're driving in the Indy 500?

I have no doubt that you enjoy skiing and that you Tai Chi has added to
your ability to enjoy it. But if you are going to be such a vocal
advocate of it, you should be able to demonstrate what it adds to the
skiers skill set. You haven't done that yet.

Your videos put your experience and skill in question, that's
the whole point. VtSkier says you're fast and ski well so why
don't you video any of that stuff?

Those video clips were shot at the same location where VtSkier and I
skied, Bashful, Sierra-at-Tahoe, and I "generally" skied faster than
he. Your denial shows.

If I ever met VtSkier, I'd immediately buy him a pitcher of his beverage
of choice, but whether or not you happen to ski faster than him,
particularly on your "home mountain" doesn't really mean much.

45mph is 45 mph, it doesn't matter where you ski it. Your argument
reflects your denial. If you think that you can ski 45mph on a
beginner slope (as you claimed that I did), I'd like to see that you
do it.

Oh yes it does matter where you ski it. But that does raise an
interesting question. How fast can you go on a green? I'm betting if
it's long enough, you can go pretty fast.

The 14mph came from observing some of the clips you sent. I've
noticed later that you go faster in some other clips, maybe even 25+ mph.

So you have no way to really measure your observation, you are only BS
yourself.

That's what I would have guessed too. If you have some evidence to
suggest that you were going faster, then you should present it. If you
told me that you had a friend with a radar gun on you or had used one of
those timed race runs they have at the mountain, I'd give it more
credence, but "it felt like 45 mph" doesn't get you very far.

Hah!! 50mph = 80kmh!! You are not even close, but borderline
delusional. You think you're as fast or faster than World Cup
giant slalom participants? Please get real, next time surprise
yourself by straightlining with a GPS.

I do Chinese Downhill, and it's generally faster than a GS run.

That is a non-sequitur and does nothing to support your claim of going
50 mph in that clip. People who've looked at it and measured your
distance traveled in 1 second don't believe you were going that fast.

"So, it shows that Flatboarding, as a system of techniques, can do
alpine skiing, tele, snowboarding, and rollerblading, and equally
well. That IS "ONE" Way to ski them all. But you don't see that
technical ability; all you can see (not that you see them correctly)
is flat grounds, small bumps, and waving hands. No, I don't think that
you have what it takes to comprehend what you see."

Okay, more spiritual BS. All I see is "lat grounds, small bumps, and
waving hands" too. Again, I have no doubt that Tai Chi helps you with
all those activities. Really. But if you are going to tout your "'ONE'
Way" of skiing, roller blading etc, then you need to be able to describe
what you're doing. Chastising others for falling to see your obvious
awesomeness isn't going to accomplish much.

So, "what you don't understand doesn't invalid a proven theory."

Okay "proven theory." You're using words I like, but not in the order I
like to see them

What is the theory? How you answer this will go a long way to
establishing your credibilty. Or not.

and everyone thinks that your videos show absolutely nothing
even remotely challenging.

Not everyone, only 'net gapers' denial.

Okay, who has seen this and posted they have seen anything other than
you on bland terrain appearing to go slower than your claimed speed.

That's lame-skiing without skiing. Or perhaps flatlining
without corner-turning?

You may not know it, "a blind cat runs into a dead mouse"--lucky, you
stomp onto it.

I think he was making fun of your Humpty Dumptian shifting vocabulary
and stringing together of nonsensical words.

(Humpty Dumpty: "words mean what I want them to mean, nothing else,
nothing more.")

No, you're inventing your own terminology. That's not an achievement,
but a colossal ****-up. You can easily fix it, by reading a couple of
books on skiing techniques so why don't you?

No, since I can do what I described, the "colossal ****-up" is yours.

Have you ever looked at the websites of the guys who are "this close" to
getting their perpetual motion machines to work? They are the
undisputed kings of non-standard terminology. They talk about newtonian
physics not applying to their design, negative energy and things
"exploding inwards." They can't describe the physics behind their
non-working devices because they either don't know or reject the
vocabulary of science.

Well, "Taichi Skiing: the Dance of the Cosmos" was a "published"
article,
http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/maga...hp?article=318
that should give you an even bigger clue.

Actually "ezine with a horoscope" gave me an even bigger clue.


Not really, Taichi Skiing is an open system, and flatboarding is an
open technique, there's no "tower"/limitation to enclose them. What's
sorry about your "a degree or two..." is after you got the degrees you
are not getting any smarter, but get stuck on your partitioned
knowledge.

Again. Stop with the insults and educate us. Or don't educate us. But
if you you're not, then stop making claims without evidence and then get
defensive and insulting when people are skeptical.

Bruce Lee couldsay "be like water" and "no way is way" because he could
demonstrate that his "new" way worked. You haven't done that.

Dave