#3 Get Physically Active

As my silhouette increasingly resembles that of a lower case b, it would seem that I am not at all qualified to write about this tool in the Live Your Life Well  tool box.

I never liked gym class.  In the same way that the math-challenged question the applicability of algebra to the real world, I have always wondered when in life I will be called upon to perform a flexed arm hang.

Mastering physical challenges is supposed to provide children with all sorts of teachable moments and opportunities for improved self-esteem.  For me, physical challenges were the consequences  part of life's game show.

To be fair, gym was also the consolation prize for classmates who struggled in their other classes.  For a certain faction of the class, gym was their opportunity to express their creativity in ways that were not available to them anywhere else in the school day.  This is the only way I can explain the many innovative ways that the more physically capable found to torture me.  I have this very clear memory of walking to school wearing my gym uniform under my street clothes so that I would have to change in front of my classmates.  To drop trou was to invite the opportunity to get stuffed into your locker.

And just to keep my opponents guessing, I buttressed my "secret identity" defense with a second, even more clever strategem where I would actually change inside the locker.  No one was going to stuff me inside the locker when I could just as easily do it to myself.  This is the biggest reason that I don't have a gym membership today:  they don't make plus size lockers.

There are no baby pictures of me on a bear skin rug.  Like most parents of the Dr. Spock cusp, mine taught me a more than healthy dislike for my body.

Upon this foundation were laid the bricks and mortar of a lifetime of disappointment.  It never seemed to matter how much I applied myself, I was always going to look more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than Robin the Boy Wonder.  One year, while still in primary school, I was invited by my teacher to lie down on a sheet of kraft paper so that the class could trace my body for use as the outline for that year's Santa Claus.

Because of my size combined with a heady mix of the lack of interest and no apparent naturally ability, I was never anyone's first choice for games--unless we are talking about Monopoly.  Floor hockey, dodge ball, soccer:  it didn't matter what the sport was, the captains would pick the student whose leg was in a cast and arm in a sling before they would pick me.

To her credit, my mother kept trying to find a sport for me.  She enrolled me in Judo class which, quite frankly, felt too much like school.  Not that it was academically rigorous, but that I was forever being tossed and pinned by my fellow students.  Plus, it provided yet another locker room and yet another time to change my clothes.  So, while my fellow students were learning the quiet confidence that comes from mastering one of the martial arts, I was developing chronic childhood anxiety.

One of the things that we did as a family for many years that was physically active was downhill skiing.  Every Saturday morning during the cold weather months, we would pile into the family station wagon and head north of town  for ski lessons.

People are drawn to skiing for a number of reasons.  For some, it is the thrill of the downhill slalom; for others it is the opportunity to try the different levels of trails offered by the ski hill; still others are motivated by the society of apres ski.  I was inspired by the movies.

Skiing, like so many sports, always looks better on film.  Lone figures on a remote hillside high above the tree line cutting graceful arcs into the virgin snow pack and accompanied by a full orchestra:  what's not inspiring about that?  Warren Miller has made 59 feature length documentaries crammed full of just such images.

The reality of skiing is just a little bit different.  Ski hills, at least the ones that I have been to, are generally full of people and there's never an orchestra to be found.

Ski hill operators make every effort to provide a variety of experiences for their guests.  They cut trails to meet the needs of all skill levels, but the guests get to pick their own routes to the bottom so it is not uncommon to have highly experienced skiers on the bunny hill and totally inexperienced ones on the intermediate, or even the expert trails.  And then there are the fearless children--anywhere from about 8 to 14 years--who are not so much concerned about trail selection as they are about pointing their skis toward the bottom and trying to see how fast they can get there.

For those who are not familiar with the sport and may have only seen the movies that I have seen, skiing is surprisingly noisy.  There is the sound of skis as they slide across snow and ice accompanied by the muttering and inevitable cursing when simple turns go wrong.  That sound is then multiplied by all of the other lost souls hoping to live to see the hot chocolate stand at the bottom of the hill.  So you don't always notice the sound of a Thinsulate covered bullet whizzing down the hill until it's right on top of you.  If you're lucky, you'll turn just in time to see a goggle-wearing blur streak across some part of your skis before you find yourself in a tangled pile of skis, poles and flop sweat.

Ski school is designed to provide students with a basic skill set and the tools necessary to survive such situations.  It is for this reason that the first lesson is not about how to ski, but about how to fall.  They acclimate you to this, because for the novice skier, it is an all too common occurrence.

Later classes deal with learning how to control your weight.  It is by shifting weight from one leg to the other that students learn basic turns and how to control their rate of descent.  The instructors, who I now recognize must, as a job requirement, have the patience of saints, start you off learning how to make long traverses across the face of the hill, short turns and then long traverses back.  At this point on the learning curve, turning is very challenging because until you master the shift of weight to your downhill ski, you are going to fall.  As you progress, the length of the traverse gets shorter until, like the subjects of the Miller films, all you are doing is turning; more accurately, you are constantly shifting your weight from one ski to the other.  And once this technique is mastered, a student can graduate to downhill racing.

I was never interested in racing, but it seemed as though each season of ski lessons would end with a downhill course.  The only difference from one year to the next was the distance between the gates.

One year--I think I was 7--I showed up for the final class and the inevitable race.  This was a very long time ago and so I am no longer confident in the details although I seem to recall it was a bright sunny March day.  I think at the time I had a bright yellow ski jacket with green stripes.  I don't recall the run through the course, but I do recall the award ceremony later that day.

Many a Saturday, the highlight of all of this physical activity was a trip to the local bakery and the fresh-from-the-oven sticky buns that we would enjoy on the long drive home.  I was thinking about that and how long it was taking to award all of the trophies.  There would be a crowd at Page's and no sticky buns.

And then they called my name.

Nobody who has ever met me would imagine that I had ever earned a trophy in a sporting event, let alone skiing.  But I do.  More than 4 decades later, I still have my trophy and, like most athletes, I keep it in my sock drawer.

It's about the size of a double-wide doorstop.  A wedge of, let's say mahogany, with a brass disk featuring the screen printed image of a skier, and a second plate containing my title as "Most Improved Male" for my age class.

Never a household to indulge in prolonged basking, I think it may have been at some point during the drive home that it was pointed out that I was the only male in that particular age group.

The point of promoting physical activity is that it can change your brain chemistry, alleviate stress, impact physical health and alter your perspective.  I may not always practice what I preach, but I know this is true.  You don't have to be the best at whatever your activity of choice might be.  It doesn't matter what you take up, there's always going to be some 8 year-old who is better, or faster at it, but it matters that you do something.

After my big win, I elected to give up competitive skiing.  Nowadays I focus on getting out to walk my dog.  After spending most of the day in the house, these walks, whether they are around the block, or around campus, are the highlight of his day.  You can see it in his eyes.  He doesn't know or care what kind of a day I might have had, he just wants to go for a walk.  Once we are outside he is thrilled and overcome by all of the different smells.  Like my long-ago trophy, I win everyday with him just by showing up.

--Graham Campbell
Associate Director