My Bizarre Do and Figure it out Later Mentality

So Brigitte pointed out that I have this serious problem of just spastically doing something.  Case in point - when I was in High School, the only extra-curricular activity I participated in yearly that was directly tied to the school was the Ski Club.  Skiing was great and all, but after a couple years of it I got bored and wanted to learn how to snowboard.

Being in a family of eight with a mom and stepdad on teacher's income meant that I generally didn't get new things that were expensive.  My violin was given to us by my Aunt & Uncle, they had found it in their attic when they moved into their house and nobody in their family played.  My skis were second-hand, as were my boots and poles, although I did have a new ski bag to carry them in.  And when I asked for a snowboard, I got an early generation Burton, almost identical to the one in this photo, although with better boot bindings that would actually keep the board attached to my feet.

As far as lessons were concerned - well to be honest I didn't want to pay for lessons out of my pocket, and I didn't want to ask my parents to pay for lessons.  I had already started to build a rather fragile ego, and for some reason I just couldn't see myself taking snowboarding lessons, especially when I had found the ski lessons somewhat humiliating - being forced to go on a bunny hill while your friends who had parents that had already introduced them to skiing at a much younger age are going all over the mountain didn't help much.

So I set out to teach myself how to snowboard.  Bear in mind I had no computer at home, no internet access, and the public library had no books on snowboarding.  I had no friends who knew how to snowboard.  The only information I had was the basics of skiing, and the basics of skateboarding (at which, I am sad to admit, I am terrible).

So I swallowed my ego a little bit and trekked up the bunny hill on foot, attached the board to my feet, and made an attempt to go down without serious injury.  I fell immediately.  I got back up again.  I fell again.  I got back up again, and made it a little distance, and then fell down.  Hard.  Ouch.  This was sucking bigtime, but at least nobody I knew was watching me and laughing - as far as I know anyway.

So I kept it up for the rest of the night of that particular trip to the mountain until it was time to go.  And when I was done I had figured out one very vital thing that every snowboarder must learn before anything else.  I learned how to fall down without seriously injuring myself.  I learned how to put most of the energy of a fall into the board, making the actual landing of my hands and body very light by comparison.  Once I figured that out, the rest came easy, because I no longer had the fear of serious critical hospitalizing injury.

The next ski trip I went down the mountain face, and before the night was through I had travelled to the summit of the mountain.  I made a bit of an ass of myself in my attempts to figure out how to get off a lift designed for skiers with only one foot attached to my snowboard, but I managed to not knock anybody else over in the process, which was important.  And ultimately, I enjoyed my early generation Burton snowboard which would now be forbidden from being used on the mountain due to the danger of using such outdated equipment around others - you know how that goes.  But I liked it much better than skiing.  I think part of it was because I had a better sense of satisfaction from having taught myself how to do something that most people would take lessons to learn.  I never became a master snowboarder, and I never figured out how to snowboard on a half-pipe, but it was fun nonetheless.

So yeah - that's my mentality toward things I don't know how to do that I have determined to do.  I just do them, feet first, and try to figure out how to fall with minimal damage.

But I might save myself some of the pain of learning with some research.