Literacy Of Skiing

Although a widely used term, literacy is still not completely understood, and goes beyond reading and writing and into the physical world. Brandt argues that literacy is more than just knowing how to read and write. To verify these claims, more work is needed. In this paper I argue that you can be literate in skiing. Through extensive examples I hope to show you how skiing is a literacy. Skiing has always been a huge part of my life and I hope to share it with as many people as I can. There are five categories that skiers usually fall into. The first type of skier is a backcountry skier. This type of skiing is when you only ski in the “backcountry”, which means any unmarked and unpatrolled areas either inside or outside a ski resort's boundaries.
Backcountry skiers usually have long, extra wide skis made for floating on top of powder. The second type of skier is the groomer skiers. The typically only ski on groomers. Groomer skiers usually have skis that are short-ish and have a medium girth. The third type of skier is an all mountain skier. This is a type of skiing where you can ski powder and groomers. All mountain skiers usually have skis that are medium length and girth. They are considered the midway point between backcountry skiers and groomer skiers. The fourth type of skiers are freestyle skiers. This type of skier likes to hit jumps, boxes and rails. Freestylers’ skis can range from short and skinny to short and fat, it depends on what they prefer. The fifth type of skier are racers, which is what I am. The two commonly known types of racing is Giant Slalom, commonly referred to as GS, and Slalom. Ski racing, especially slalom racing, is all about rhythm.
The most basic type of gate combination is when the poles are set with the same vertical and horizontal distance and you can tell by looking up or down the hill and they will be lined up. This is called an even rhythm. The second most common one is uneven rhythm. This is when the gates don’t line up perfectly when you are looking up or down the hill. Another type of gate combination is a delay. This is when the poles are set up in a banana shape and cause the skier to make a very long turn. Even rhythm, uneven rhythm, and delays can be found in GS and Slalom. However, the next are only found in Slalom because you go too fast in GS. The first gate combo that you only find in Slalom is called a hairpin. A hairpin is when the poles are positioned where you have to make a very quick sharp turn. Flushes, which are the hardest gate combo, is when you have to turn like that several times. The turns are so quick and sharp that ideally your upper body doesn't move and your legs do all the work, because you don't have time to move your whole