The Instructor Factor – The difference good instructors make on the season
Cody in Whistler is finding his snow feet…
Three weeks into my ski instructor course with Alltracks Academy, the best ski holiday of my life, and I’m flyyyying down the slope! When I put my hands out it feels like I’m going to take off, and if I don’t look where I’m going and hit a bump that can actually happen. However I could never achieved all this improvement by myself, no-way. It’s down to the three separate instructors that have guided me through into my third week. Just observing the quality of Canada’s best shooting past (leading the hazard that is the snake of the ski school) You can tell that whistler has a strong foster of ski instructors. Without a doubt, I will be better come March because of them.
Ryan was the first to mould our group into something that resembles a coalition of capable skiers. I remember the day our group hooked up with him and began to ski as one. I suddenly realised that I had become the thing I fear the most, a ski school snake…. but putting that out of my mind, I was soon doing back-flips all over the mountain under his teaching (joking of course). In actual fact he took us back to basics and showed us that a snowplow is actually a lot harder than a back-flip, because I haven’t done it for years. At the same time he focused on our technique, so that we saw improvement in all categories of our skiing over that week. As for our second instructor, Petra, I’ll never forget the moment I met her. She talks, acts and even looks a little like Sappho at the Erna Low London office (aka: the person who edits out all the good parts of my blog!).
Petra - who reminds me of someone at home!
In any case, Petra again showed me some stuff that I never realised came into play with skiing, for example the positioning of the hands. For years I’ve been dragging my inside hand at waist height, oblivious to the fact that it forced me to lean back and lose balance. However Chris is the man that has really given me the confidence to take on any terrain. The secret? Attack it! You may not want lean forwards into a 99% incline mogul field, but trust me, it’s the best way.
I can’t imagine how I’m ever going to be one of these guys by the end of the course! They’ve made such a difference to my skiing, and I’m supposed to be qualified like them by the end of the season? It’s a strange thought. I look forward to it though, and I’ll only charge £200 an hour.
