Assignment 7

Role Models Influence Our Lives

In anyone’s life there will always be someone they will look up to, and chances are that person will influence many things in their life. A role model can influence how a person acts, dresses, his or her goals and much more. Everyone has a role model growing up and many will have one, maybe even the same one, as an adult. They help shape who we are and will be while giving us something to strive for. My role model in life has always been the pro skier Mark Abma.

Abma was always training at my home mountain when I was a kid, and when I skied and saw him all I wanted to do for the rest of my days was ski. Without me even realizing he had set up goals in my head. I joined the Apex Freestyle Team and started training much harder on the hill. I also began training off the hill getting in shape and practicing new tricks on trampolines and diving boards. My weekends were not the typical teenager weekend of sleeping in and slumping around all day. I would wake up at eight in the morning make a hearty breakfast and go out to train. I began progressing at a decent pace and soon caught up with many of my friends that were already a part of the team.

I talked to Abma occasionally but soon he was barely ever at Apex. He would be flown to far off locations to film with the production company that had picked him up, Matchstick Productions. But watching him on the screen stomping cliffs bigger then I could have ever imagined inspired me. I had reached a plateau in my learning, I had no new tricks I felt comfortable trying and never really tried to learn anything new. Watching his parts in movies made me overcome this “skier’s block”, I remember the weekend after I watched his latest movie trying to many new tricks to remember. Sure I may have not stomped them all but now there was room for improvement and I was ready to fill it.

The last way I believe Abma influenced my life was how I dressed and acted. The style given to us kind of skier’s may be labeled as “gangster”. But the baggy loose fitting clothing was also accompanied by brightly colored apparel and accessories. I also started becoming much more outgoing, as Abma and many of the other pro’s I had met and knew were always the life of the party. Some people may call our kinds of jokes and humor immature, but once you’re a skier you’ve learned that the most important thing is just having fun. Plus you ski much better that way. Role models can influence a persons life in many ways and everyone will always follow in some way their role model.