My gig as a Ski Instructor - a post-mortem

I just got back from turning in my ski instructor uniform at the Summit at Snoqualmie. A lot of you have been asking me how my ski instructing at Alpental went. Well, it was the first time I've ever been a ski instructor and also the first time where I was handling a group of kids ages 8 - 12. Let me tell you - it's no different than running meetings in the corporate world (LOL). The program that I taught was an 8-week consecutive program which meant that I had the same group every weekend. Initially, I was only in it for the free ski pass and the chance to ski up high in the fresh pow before lessons started. But in the end, I found it to be one of the most gratifying things I've ever done.

My groups on both Sat and Sun were all Level 1 skiers with little to no ski experience. I immediately thought - oh "*#@!....8 weeks of daycare so their parents can go up Chair 2/Edelweiss and have fun. At the end of our first session on St. Bernard (the bunny hill), I promised my groups that I was going to take them up to Sessel which was an intermediate run - I remembered each kid looked at me with their big saucer eyes and said 'no way!' They all just wanted to stay on St. Bernard where it was safe. Ha - not if you're skiing with me. By the third session, I convinced them to follow my tracks down the steeper hill. After we finished our first run down Sessel, they all looked at me in amazement that they made it down all in one piece and it wasn't as hard as they thought it would be. A couple of sessions later, they were ready for a more advanced run off of the Armstrong chair which we did the last 2 weeks of the program - they totally exceeded my expectations. At the end of the program, it was so satisfying to have their parents come up to me and thank me for getting their kids past the fear factor and showing how much fun skiing was. There were a few times where I tried to move my students to other groups that I thought was more appropriate for their level but each time, the parent would come to me and ask me to take them back because their kid was having so much fun skiing with me.

There were definitely challenges. I had kids lose their equipment from the chair, one kid almost fall off the chair (I had to catch him from 10 feet off the group), another kid throw a tantrum and after I side-stepped 100 yards up the hill to deal with him, he threw his poles at me (yeah - I talked to his dad immediately afterwards....little punk), and wayward skiers. I'm sure there were more but I can't remember because I'm just really happy that I accomplished my number one goal....that these kids have fun (oh yeah, and that they learned some good skiing techniques). Most were already looking forward to their lessons next year.

Things I learned as an instructor:
-Pick out a student who can be your 'go to' person in a pinch. Someone who can lead a group to a meeting point and keep them there while you chase down a wayward student (which was almost every other run - I started calling him 'Bode').

-Have the students take turns being the 'leader' each time down the hill. Not only does this help keep your group together, but it also gives some of the quieter students a little nudge to lead their peers and build some confidence.

-For individual student attention, take turns riding up the chair with them. It was really cute how they would fight over whose turn it was to ride with you. But, they wanted to know: a) if you were paying attention to them as they skied down the hill, and; b) how they were doing and if they were getting better.

-And, the 2 rules I always enforced on the hill: ski in control, and most importantly: HAVE FUN!!! I created a fun zone at the bottom of Sessel where after skiing the run together, at a certain point, we would all turn around and ski backwards to the chair line. That was so much fun and the kids got a huge kick out of that. And, the 'adventure zones' through the trees with bumps and jumps were also 'fun-time.' But, both of these exercises played an important part of ski instructing (rotating ankles to use different parts of the ski for control, balancing body over boots, confidence, etc.) - they just didn't know it. At the end of the program, *they* were leading me through the trees.

In the end, would I do it again.....ABSOLUTELY!! Thanks to my little rock stars: Christoph, Hans (yes, these 2 are destined to be skiers with names like that), Quinn, Lauren, Joseph, Brooke, Chase, Nolan, Andrew, and Casey (my one kid who did a black diamond run....inadvertantly....LOL). See you on the slopes!