Ski instructing and lots of patience..........

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So I have had my first taste of ski instructing. Anyone who knows me well will know that I have very little patience and I am aware that there were lots of Doubting Thomas' (Mum and Dad to name two!) who didn't think I would make a very good teacher as a result of this!

Anyway last Thursday we had our final lessons with Marie-Eve and Guy preparing us for our lessons this week. Mainly we were running through the important factors in relation to safety and class management.

Friday morning we rolled up to ski school at 9.30am to be allocated an instructor who we were to shadow for the day. Despite my request for a young and very dishy instructor I ended up with one of the older guys, Paul. We ended up with a complete beginners class non of whom had skied before and there were 11 kids and 1 school teacher. The first morning session wasn't too bad and I was pretty much bored for the first hour but then ended up one on one with a kid that was struggling with his snowplough and snowplough turns. In the afternoon we went up to the top of the mountain on the gondola to do a really easy green run with them all I can say is how much carnage can be created in a two hour session. Lots is the answer and this is a list of the memorable disasters that struck:
• One girl got in the gondola with her skis despite being told by Paul how to get on the gondola and also having watched her friends put them in the baskets on the outside. Iended up having to grab them off her making sure I didn't knock anyone out who was sat down I ended up jumping into the gondola just as the doors were shutting
• Within 100m of the gondola station heading down to the easy slope we had three fall and I was the back marker for the group so it was my responsibility to make sure we didn't lose and and I usually ended up picking them all up as it was taking too long for them to stand themselves up. Anyway as I was picking one up a forth came flying past literally sat on the back of her skis out of control and she went straight into a wooden fence that marks off the jump park. Thankfully she wasn't hurt but I did end up having to take my own skis off so I could crawl under the fence to help her out!
• One lost a pole on the chairlift back up which I then had to ski down and collect and then catch up the group on their way down the run for the second time
• The girl I was on the chairlift with sat down as soon as she got off the chair so wiped out and lost both skis and poles causing the chairlift to be stopped much embarrassment for both of us!!

Just this one day made me realise how hard I was going to have to work this week when I was given my own class. After Friday's events I decided that another half day shadowing may help me out and it would be good experience. I had nothing else planned for Saturday so duly rolled up at 10am. It was my intention only to shadow in the morning and free ski in the afternoon but for various reasons got conned into doing the whole day. The day went a lot smoother than the first day although in the morning I ended up teaching three of them on their own as the instructor set off down the mountain and we never caught him up with him again till we went down for lunch.

By the end of Saturday I was slightly daunted as for those two days there had been two instructors to the class so whilst it has been hard work it was easier with one leading and one following behind picking up the pieces. Even the instructor I went out with on Saturday afternoon commented how much easier it is with two of us and how he hoped we could be teamed up another time. All I could think about though was that as of Monday I was going to have exactly the same class size but all to myself......

Sunday we had a day off from skiing and in the morning Marie-Eve and I cleaned the common areas of the chalet - they haven't been as clean since the last time we did it.... Then at lunchtime we set off to go snow tubing however on the way we stopped of an the Pont du Glace. Basically for that weekend only an "ice bridge" had been created so that you could walk all the way across the St Lawrence river. Unfortunately the bridge was disappointing in that it was a path across the ice of the river however it was still impressive that we were able to walk across.

After this we headed straight to the tubing park which proved to be some of the best fun you can have...... Basically you sit in a rubber tyre and throw yourself down different pistes. The pistes were marked out in severity like a ski mountain so we started off on a green run and progressed quickly upwards till we found the double black diamonds. We were really lucky as on most of the runs you were able to go down with a maximum group of 8 so we were all able to hold on to each other and go down the slope which meant a lot more hilarity and a lot more speed. We spent 3 hours going up and down the various slopes and the only reason we gave up was because we were starting to get numb bums and were starving as it was nearly 6pm.

On Monday morning I rolled up to the ski school at 9.30 in readiness for my group. I ended up with the complete beginners class however they had already done two days skiing at another mountain so could do the basics. In the morning we just stayed at the bottom on the nursery slopes however they were more than capable of controlling their speed and so in the afternoon I took them to the top of the mountain.

I had 10 kids and 1 teacher and I set off down the easiest run bearing in mind it would take me 4 minutes on my own to get from the top to the bottom I was expecting it to take them 35 minutes....... 1hour 35 minutes later we were only just getting to the bottom!!! The kids were great but the teacher just lost all her nerve and it would have been quicker if she walked down. At one point I sent the kids on as I climbed back up to her as she was stood still and as soon as I got to her she burst into tears!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was very nice and calm and just fed her a snickers bar that I had in my pocket to keep her quiet.

I think it is an impressive record to get a teacher crying on my first day of teaching - I had expected kids to potentially cry if they fell over and that is to be expected but a teacher!?!? I will now impress upon you all that I learned just how patient I can be with people if I really need to.

Needless to say I needed a beer at the end of the day - unfortunately it didn't stop at one beer...... 10 later and I rolled home with Sam and Nicky from the group and Guy our course co-ordinator and assistant director of the ski school. Everyone just looked at us as we walked in and within a short period we had cleared the lounge of everyone as we were obviously being loud and very annoying.

My second day teaching was much better and thankfully I wasn't hungover (once again I'm sorry Mum). At the start of the day I only had 6 kids and 1 teacher (the teacher that hadn't been with us the afternoon before) as the rest of the kids decided they weren't skiing due to medical reasons (such excuses being my feet hurt and I have a headache!). I was happy though as it made my life a lot easier and we flew down two runs that morning with no problem. In the afternoon I lost the teacher and another kid as both decided they wanted to spend the afternoon on the nursery slope. However two kids were dropped down from a class above as they weren't able to keep up. We once again went down the easy green run and after a debate of taking them on a forest run I decided it was too icy so took them down the easiest blue.... The group managed it really well apart from one girl who completely lost her nerve for no apparent reason and it ended up that I had to get another instructor to radio ski patrol to come and pick her up on a skidoo as she refused to ski any further.

Yesterday I ended up with my full class again apart from one teacher so I had 12 in my group which proves really hard to teach and the job becomes more about safety and class management. Anyway we had a great day and they all seemed to really enjoy themselves and by the end of it most of them were able to parallel turn in a fashion. Despite the problems the kids thanked me at the end of the day and gave me a $15 tip =;0)

Despite all the problems and frustrations (including toilet stops 20 minutes after lunch) I have to say it has been really good fun teaching but I am sure this blog will have put quite a few of you off from wanting me to teach you.

Today is a free day and since I haven't actually skied properly in so long I am going to take advantage of the powder and hit the slopes for a few hours......

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Photos

A random ski surfer
Yes this guy was flying across the St Lawrence on two skis using the wind as his power.

In the tornado.....
This ride meant all 8 of us got to sit in a big round life raft and fling ourselves down the slope - it span round like mad!