Skiing after the Spring Festival always carries a sense of melancholy, for the following reasons:
    First, it feels like this ski season is coming to an end and there aren’t many runs left—I still have many ski resorts, slopes, and technical goals I haven’t achieved, which makes me quite reluctant to let go.
    Second, I feel like I started learning to ski too late. I wonder what the maximum age for skiing is? For example, is it no longer possible to ski after you turn 60?
    With these thoughts in mind, I went skiing twice this week:
    The 18th was my first time skiing after the Spring Festival (the 16th time this season). After more than ten days off due to the holidays, I could clearly feel my skiing edge had dulled; more importantly, I had run 1,500 meters on a treadmill the afternoon before, leaving me with insufficient energy the next day. It now seems that having ample stamina is essential for good skiing form. This time at Nanshan Ski Resort, I suddenly felt like I had forgotten how to ski—especially on the beginner mushroom slope, where I fell twice and left feeling rather disgruntled. Skiing really is a spiral process of progress.
    On the 22nd, I geared up again, with the main goal of conquering the beginner mushroom slope at Nanshan. From the cable car, I watched the expert skiers on the intermediate mushroom slope showing off their impressive skills, which I truly envied. Seeing them skate down swiftly and smoothly with their legs together and making quick, small turns made me realize just how big the gap was. But every fish has its way of swimming, and every shrimp its own path—my current goal is simply to be able to ski down smoothly, regardless of whether the movements are technically correct, stylish, or fast. After two solid hours of practice, I was basically able to ski down smoothly. The characteristics of my movements were threefold: first, I primarily used the snowplow (pizza) stance, adding a bit of sidestepping when needed, without aiming for speed; second, when encountering mushrooms, I turned and used my left and right feet alternately to push off the mounds to control my speed; third, when facing deep pits, I went around them—though I did try skiing through one but didn’t succeed.
    Through these two skiing outings, I realized that speed and steepness aren’t everything in skiing. Mushroom slopes are genuinely fun, and I plan to focus on tackling the intermediate mushroom slope on my next trip to Nanshan. Of course, I’ll still mainly use the snowplow technique. Once I’ve had my fill of fun with the mushroom slopes using the snowplow, I’ll work seriously on parallel turns for the next season.
    Also, following the suggestion from forum user Snow Chunk, I practiced steep slope sidestepping seriously during these two outings. I can now comfortably complete it on the steepest parts of the intermediate slope at Nanshan. My goal for this season is to achieve “neither too far forward nor too far back, meaning being able to strictly control the track width to just the length of the ski; and being able to move freely forward or backward while sidestepping by adjusting body weight,” which I think shouldn’t be too hard.