My First Sit Ski

Since I was in junior high I have been involved in various sports off and on. One of those sports that I came to love early on is downhill skiing. I was encouraged to learn to ski by my physical education teacher, Bob Dyer. He would take me to Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation for one week every year in junior high. That first year I had a lot of trouble of course as anyone learning something new does. Throughout that week I gave Bob a lot of mean looks haha as I was eating snow quite frequently. He would just look back and smile and usually say something like what are you doing down there haha. He even caught me not paying attention once and just sitting there and pushed me over and made me get back up. I later came to understand this was just his way of toughening me up and making me deal with things in life. He often challenged me to try new things or push myself to greater limits and today I am very thankful for that.

So back to skiing. I skied throughout high school and then went to college. I ended up getting away from skiing when I moved to Vermont to attend Vermont Technical College. I continued to dabble in basketball and other things from time to time but wasn’t the athlete I had been.

About 8 years ago or so I finally came back to the sport of skiing and found that what I had learned stuck with me. I love the feeling of racing down the mountain and feeling that rush of wind. I also love the freedom it gives me to get out and explore in the winter without dealing with pushing through the snow. I also joined the race team a few years ago to get a little more of that rush of speed but also to better myself. I have learned so much just by joining the team and have become a much better skier. There is one final piece though that will push my performance to the next level, and that is my own ski. As it is right now I use a program ski generously provided by Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation. While this is a great benefit to being part of this program it also means that other people are using the same ski and the settings and fit are not what they need to be for my body. It also means that I have to reset everything each time I use it so it really is never quite the same twice. That means I am almost re-learning each time I ski to some degree. Of course it is reasonably close so I am able to ski with it. Having my own ski would also allow me to race better and be able to ski anytime I want with friends or family which is tough to do now.

I recently received a grant from the Kelly Brush Foundation to get my first personal sit ski. The foundation is unable to provide full grants due to adaptive equipment being so expensive. If they did that less people would have the opportunity to enjoy the sports or activities they love.

In order to come up with the rest of the funds to get my own ski I have started a fundraiser. I am hoping to raise as close to $5000 as I can and then I will have to find a way to come up with the rest. If I am unable to raise enough I will just donate the money to the Kelly Brush Foundation.

The fundraiser can be found at:

My First Sit Ski

The video below is me trying out the Tensor sit ski by DynaAccess. This is the model I am trying to buy. It was amazing how much better it was to ski in this equipment.