I am unofficially done with Freestyle 3. Since I am learning on my own, the process took much longer than the ten-week group lesson. In addition, I took a break when we went skiing. I learned the backward-outside and backward-inside pivots fast. The back arabesques weren’t much of a challenge. I had the most trouble with the salchow jump. I got it down, but I am still not great at it. I skipped the change foot spin because I do not want to learn any spin. I didn’t learn the dance step sequence because I could not find any tutorial on YouTube. What I enjoyed the most from Freestyle 3 was the toe loop jump.

I am now ready for Freestyle 4. I am going to start with the loop jump. I am not sure the different between the loop and the half-loop jump. Then I’ll work on the flip jump. I am not sure what two arabesques and back 3-turns are. I need to look those up. I am going to skip the sit spin as well as the dance step sequence.

Continuing to learn figure skating allows me to set a goal for myself. Learning on my own is harder, but I don’t feel the pressure to keep with up with my classmates. I used to practice a lot to not embarrass myself. Now I just incorporate it into my exercise routine. At times I felt so frustrated, particularly when I was learning the salchow jump, and wanted to sign up for private lessons just so I can nail the techniques I was working on, but I was a bit shy to work one-on-one with a coach. In addition, I don’t want to pay for private lessons. We’re already spending private piano lessons for two our our kids and other activities including ice hockey and swimming. I’ll see how far I can go learning on my own.

According to my Epic Pass at a glance, last season I skied 23 days on 20,839 vertical feet at 7 resorts: Attitash, Liberty, Okemo, Roundtop, Snow Mount, Whitetail, and Wildcat. I had the Northeast Value Pass, which cost $495. The lift ticket ranged from $80 to $100 a day. Let’s do the math: $80 x 23 days. That’s $1,840. I saved $1,345. My three older kids had Epic Local Passes for $311 each. They saved $4,587.

In addition to saving almost $6,000, Epic Passes allowed us to skip the purchasing line, which could be long on weekends. The equipment rental lines were even worse. I heard people stand in line for two hours. An equipment rental at the resorts costs $45 a set. For our boys, we rented a snowboard set and two ski sets for the season at Sun & Ski. The used equipment cost $150 to rent for each set. We decided to rent for them instead of buying because they grow too fast.

For me, I am not growing anymore; therefore, I bought a pair of used Head skis for $50 and a pair of used ski boots for $40 through Facebook Marketplace. I spent an additional $75 to get my skis tuned, waxed, and adjusted to fit the boots. When I filled out the form, I checked myself as a beginner; therefore; they made my bindings easy to pop off when I slipped or fell. When I skied steeped slopes, my skis would pop off if I couldn’t control myself. As a result, I had to learn to ski well in order for my skis to stay on, which was a good thing. I kept the binding setting as it was even though I advanced to double-black-diamond slopes. I am not sure how old my skis are, but I love them. Head seems like a good brand.

Through my experience, I learned that you don’t need expensive skis to hit all the terrains. You just need to get over your fear and embarrassment. I felt no shame when I fell. In skiing, falling is part of learning and growing. Before I started skiing, I didn’t understand why people paid so much money to just go down the slopes. After I joined in, the feeling of skiing down the mountains was just incredible. The adrenaline rush was indescribable. You just have to feel it to get it.

Skiing is, no doubt, an expensive sport, but you can make it affordable and enjoyable. We spent a bit up front, but we didn’t have to think about it for the entire season. Epic Passes were definitely worth the investments for us. It is a fantastic sport to do with your family. We also saved money by packing our lunches and drinks. Sandwiches and noodle cups were all we needed. We are now ready to look into getting Epic Passes for next year. I am glad that my wife is doing all of the purchases. If it weren’t for her, we probably wouldn’t end up skiing so much last season. My goal for next year is to get her on the green slopes.

I was frustrated with my regression in learning figure skates. In the past few weeks, I could not even begin to attempt the toe loop jump. Even yesterday, my right inside 3-turn was so bad that I could not gain enough speed to initiate the jump. I was about to give up the whole sport. Figure skating isn’t for me anymore. My kids already quit. It must be time for me to throw in the towel as well. I told my wife I was done. She didn’t have any reaction. She knew too damn well that I was just venting out of frustration.

After skiing season over, I was a bit depressed because I need to be constantly learning or progressing. Before taking up skating and skiing sports, web design was my professional as well as personal development. I used to sit in front of the computer as much time as I could have to myself. These days I haven’t kept up with the latest technologies. I just picked up whatever skills I needed to do my job and to continue my passion projects. I rather spent time with my family when I was not working.

My kids and I used to go ice skating rinks and skateparks together. These days they only like going to mountain resorts for skiing, but spring is here and the snow is gone. Now is the perfect time to get back to rollerblading and ice skating, but my kids have moved on. I knew the time would come when they started to have their own interests. I am still glad that we had spent a chunk of time together learning these sports. I will always treasure those moments, including all the ski trips we had taken this year.

Even though I no longer have my kids to motivate me, I am still holding on to ice skating and rollerblading to keep myself active. If I don’t do these sports, I would become a lazy-ass old fart. Today I hit the ice rink again to give the toe loop jump another shot. Instead of using the right inside 3-turn to initiate the jump, I switched to the backward crossovers to give me more speed. That was all I needed to complete my toe loop jump. I still needed more practice to refine my jump, but I am thrilled to be able to get myself inspired again.

Ski season is officially over. Liberty, Roundtop, and Whitetail had closed this weekend. I am feeling nostalgic already. Skiing has been so much fun, especially spending time with my boys, but it is time to put our gears away. What will keep me active in the spring and summer?

I want to get back to figure skating. My skills are getting rusty. I am still stuck on salchow and toe loop jumps. I need to nail these jumps to move forward. I don’t have too much confidence and passion like I used to; therefore, I don’t know how further I can go. Then again, I am not competing with anyone but myself.

I am still rollerblading at skateparks. I am not advancing much. I am still working on my pumps and riding the half pipe. I have gained confidence in my drops. I fell once yesterday from dropping down a high curved ramp. I felt fine until I went to sleep. My right shoulder was in pain. My body shows its age. I am starting to feel as if aggressive skating isn’t for old men like me. My kids no longer have any passion or interest in rollerblading; therefore, I feel lonely skating on my own. I still do it. I don’t want to give up yet.

Besides these sports, I should be focusing more on housework. Over the years, we have accumulated much more stuff than we need. The more I push off, the more overwhelming I get. I need to spend more time getting rid of things we don’t need. Tidying up the house has been a challenge with four kids. They leave toys everywhere.

As much as I despise home maintenance, I have to do as much as I can on my own. Not that I can’t afford to hire handymen, but I just can’t justify paying for everything around the house that needed fixing. Truth be told, maintaining our house is one of my sources of stress. Then again, what can I do? I am just going to face whatever hits us.

On Saturday, we had a surprise snowstorm with the temperature dropping to the teens. We were to cancel our trip, but I took Đạo and Xuân with me to Liberty in the afternoon. The conditions were a bit icy, but still decent for skiing. We skied mostly on mogul terrains. The blue moguls were fun and manageable. The double-black moguls were tough, but I loved the challenge. I hadn’t conquered them yet, but I was more comfortable with them. I understand why many skiers don’t like moguls, but I am starting to appreciate them.

On Sunday, I took my kids and my brother-in-law took their kids to Roundtop. The conditions were great and the lifts weren’t too crowded. The younger kids skied in blues with one of my brother-in-laws and I led the older kids on the double blacks. In the afternoon, Roundtop held a Pond Skim competition. Participants dressed in customs and skied or snowboarded over a pond of cold water. After watching the first few folks dropping into the pond and only one of them made it, I headed over to the double black slopes to do a few runs down Gunbarrel, the steepest slopes out of the three resorts: Roundtop, Liberty, and Whitetail.

I shared a lift with an older woman and we had a short exchange. She shared with me her personal story about her late husband who used to work at Roundtop as a mechanic. She lost her husband over pancreatic cancer. She also revealed that she was wearing his jacket. I was touched. She was such a sweet woman.

After three runs on my own, I met up with my three boys (Đạo, Đán, Xuân) and their cousins (Hân, Khôi) and they all wanted to do Gunbarrel. My three boys and Khôi made it all the way down. Hân plowed down just a quarter of the slope and freaked out. He didn’t want to go all the way down, but he couldn’t go back up. His only option was to slide down on his behind. The second time, Khôi plunged into a tree. Thank goodness he didn’t fall on rocks. After that we went home.

This weekend was probably our last ski trip for the season. The resorts will stay open until next Sunday. Looking at the forecast, the weather will be warm next week. I am not so sure if we can take our last trip next Sunday.

Here’s a clip of me taking my time down the Gunbarrel.

This winter, I skied from green to double-black-diamond slopes without taking any group or private lessons. I learned everything from watching YouTube.

Unlike figure skating, skiing has no standardized curriculum, or I could not find one; therefore, I had to do the research on my own. Now that I had done it, I wanted to share my experience. If you want to learn to ski on your own and want to take your journey to the next level, you may find the instructional videos helpful.

If you had taken skiing lessons and were taught how to plow (pizza), you need to unlearn it. You need to move from plow to parallel. Janus Hecht’s “Two Keys to Parallel Skiing” has unlocked my parallel skiing. It took me a few days to make the adjustments. Once it was clicked, I hardly went want to plowing.

Once you can parallel, the next step is to learn the hockey stop. Again, Janus Hecht is the man to watch. Hockey stop is not only an essential skill, but it is so much fun to do, especially the hop to stop technique, which Hecht also covered in the video.

Once you’ve mastered the hockey stop, you can make the transition to short turns. I find the step-by-step video from miromiro for short turns to be helpful. In addition to short turns, the instructor (I can’t find his name) shows the jump-turn technique. I love jump turns and use them all the time to ski down the double-black-diamond slopes. In this video, “How to Ski Steeps,” Warren Smith shows how step turns and jump turns can help you navigate the steep slopes. It is incredible to watch.

Skiing moguls appears to be intimidating at first, but it is so much fun maneuvering around those bumps. Like anything in skiing, you want to go with the flow rather than against it. In this video, Darren Turner shows how to ski moguls with ease. I find his instructions to be approachable. I learned “How to Jump on Skis” and basic carving technique from watching him. I am in the process of learning advanced carving from this video. I can’t find the name of the instructor, but her technique looks amazing.

I hope these tips will help open up your skiing journey like they had done for me. Happy skiing.

I returned to the ice skating rink today for the first time in more than two weeks. My chops had regressed. I could barely do the salchow jump and couldn’t do the toe loop jump at all. It is quite a challenge to learn alone. I don’t have my kids to motivate me anymore. They no longer wanted to do figure skating. I don’t want to give up yet. I am going to keep trying. Maybe I should take some private lessons to help me accomplish these jumps.

I also returned to the skatepark to rollerblade when the weather permitted. I am working on my pumps. Dropping in has been scary as hell, but that’s only half of the battle. Pumping out is less intimidating, but harder to do. I spent months already, but I am starting to get it. My sons are no longer interested in rollerblading so I have to go solo. I made a video of my progression from last year to now.

They still love skiing and snowboarding; therefore, we have made tremendous progress together. Đạo, Đán, Xuân and I can do black and double-black slopes. Unfortunately, the season seems to be over already. I put together a video of our 2021-2022 skiing season. We’ll definitely go with the season pass again next year.

Skiing and skating have provided me with two benefits. I haven’t had a gout attack and I have been drinking on a regular basis—a glass of wine and a bottle of hard coffee a day. I also lost my beer belly.

On Monday, I figured out how easy it is to combine video clips together using iMovie. All I had to do was selecting the videos I wanted to combine. As a result of this exciting discovery, I put together a few longer video clips:

• My Journey to Rollerblading is a collection of clips showing my progression within a year.
• The Daredevil Đán shows clips of my second born doing a bit of wild techniques on rollerblade.
• Skiing 2022 reflects on our ski trips for this season.

I am starting to use YouTube more. If you want to see new video, subscribe to my channel.

We arrived at Mount Snow around 10 am and the lines for the lifts were already long. My sons and I took the express lift to the top of the mountains. We started off the green trail so Vương could come along. Then Đạo, Đán, and Xuân went ahead without us. I had Vương on the harness and I skied behind him to keep his speed under control. Skiing with a toddler was harder than I had expected. It took us at least half an hour to complete the green trail, which was long.

By the time we made it back to the main entrance, it was already noon time. After lunch, I hit the black slopes with Đạo, Đán, and Xuân. Once we made it past the main lifts, the lifts to black and blue slopes had no line. The conditions were great. The terrains were somewhat steep. We made several runs. Time went by fast when you were having fun. It was almost 4 pm and we had to go.

The kids and I liked both Okemo and Mount Snow. The former was smoother than the latter. Both of these resorts definitely were worthwhile for the eight hours of driving. We’ll definitely come back next year if we have the opportunity.

As the weather in Virginia and Pennsylvania gets warmer, I feel a yearning for snow. I don’t want the skiing season to be over yet. When my wife suggested that we should head to Vermont because it snowed, I took her up on it. Since the boys had off school on Friday, we could make a short getaway. She booked a small house on Wednesday and we hit the road on Thursday. The drive took eight hours.

Friday morning, we headed to Okemo. The weather was beautiful and the conditions were fabulous. I took Vương on the magic carpet on the bunny slope then the “magic seat” for the green. He enjoyed the runs and wanted to do the green again. This time the operator didn’t let us take the lift. Vương required the lift ticket even though he was free. I had to go to the frontdesk to get one for him. By that time, he no longer wanted to ski anymore.

I joined Đạo, Đán, and Xuân on the expert slopes. The trails at Okemo were wide and long. The black slopes connected to blue slopes; therefore, we could ski for a long time before reaching the lift again. I loved the long runs. They were great exercises.

Xuân had caught up with us. He switched to parallel and felt comfortable on the black slopes. It was nice to be able to ski together with my boys. Okemo had so many trails that we had to follow Đạo. He led us to where we wanted to go. I told him I wanted to check out the double black diamonds. He pulled out the maps and showed us the way.

We had a great time and we definitely will return to Okemo in the future. Tomorrow we’ll check out Mount Snow.