It’s a bit like skiing in France.

by Ryan Gregory, February 13th, 2012

For all of elementary school (K-8), I was in a French immersion program. That meant that all classes were in French (except English, obviously). There were some pretty creative reward and penalty systems in place to encourage us to speak French rather than English throughout the day, like tickets (“billets“) of which we would receive a certain number at the start of the month and then lose individually if we were busted speaking English. At the end of the month, there would be an auction for prizes, so the students who didn’t lose their tickets could bid on the good stuff. (For the record, I don’t think I ever had any tickets left by then).

Also during elementary school, I started skiing. Well, my Father made me try skiing even though I was stubborn and didn’t want to. I’m glad he did — I was pretty much hooked after one day. The thing about skiing, which you snowboarders may not appreciate, is that it takes a long time to become proficient. In fact, it’s the sort of thing where you choose one element to work on each season, like bringing your skis an inch or two closer together (after you are able to “parallel”, that is). After a number of years, I was pretty good — my skis were parallel and as close together as they could get.

Some of my friends opted to attend a French high school in another city, but I went to an English high school. Obviously, grade 9 French class would not have been much of a benefit for me seeing as how I was already fluent, so they had me take German instead at first. Needless to say, after many years of not speaking French, a lot of it slipped away.

Likewise, I stopped skiing regularly after I went away to university. In the meantime, technology changed and new ski designs were developed. Whereas I used to ski on longer skis, now even advanced skiers use shorter ones. I found this out when I finally did go skiing again with some of my research students a couple of years ago. At first, I couldn’t believe how rusty I was. (Falling? Me?) But then I realized that it wasn’t just me, it was also the skis. Once I figured out the new feel of the skis, I was able to return to relatively respectable form. Not nearly like I was, but parallel with short turns. I felt pretty sure that if I skied for a season or two, I would be able to regain most of my abilities, along with learning how to ski with the new (and, I guess, improved?) equipment. More recently, I gave a talk at UBC, and during that trip a couple of former students and I went to Whistler. Again, the new skis took some geting used to, my technique was rusty, and my legs were not in any kind of shape, but I could see that with practice, a lot of it would come back and the rest could be re-learned.

I had a similar experience with French recently. At a conference in Mexico, I was seated at a dinner table with some colleagues from France. To my surprise, I managed to have an entire conversation in French during dinner. Of course, my vocabulary was embarassingly limited and my accent was terrible, but I was amazed at how much I could still recall. Again, I was pretty sure that a lot of it would come back quickly if I spent a few months in Quebec or France. On the other hand, I would need to learn the specific idioms and accent of whichever place I was. The French I learned initially was “Ontario French”, which differs somewhat from both Quebec French and France French. (I once got into a heated argument with a high school French teacher about how to pronounce “toy” in French — she had learned in France.) There is also a big difference between being in French immersion as a kid and being a native French speaker, so I would have a lot of new things to learn, literature to explore, and so on.

Being back in the dojo feels a lot like that first time back on the slopes or that francophone dinner in Mexico. I don’t have the abilities that I once had, but I am encouraged by the sense that a lot of it is still there and will come back fairly quickly. The rest I know I can learn with regular training. And there are some differences this time around, as with the new skis and the different accents.

It’s not quite like riding a bike, but it is a bit like skiing in France.

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