Verbier Blog 2010

February has not only bought a new intake of trainees but the biggest snowfall this season…..50cm in just 48 hours!!

It’s been a couple of weeks since the new trainees arrived and this year arrival day fell on the same day as hoards of British and French families arrived for the dreaded half-term week. Nevertheless, the weather was pretty good and the trainees, who are now quite used to worming their way through a queue of people, all made the most of the great snow and intense training.

The first week, although fairly intense, is seen by the trainers as an opportunity to ‘break the trainees in’ and get them back to match fitness. During this week there isn’t a great deal of feedback or focus on drills and exercises; the focus is more on getting fit and finding your feet. Sandy, Matt and Dave, the ISIA/ISTD trainers that run the course, are all very experienced at generating confidence and enthusiasm throughout the group. They’re also very good at whipping a bit of discipline into the trainees who, as you can imagine, find the temptation of Verbier’s après ski and vast array of expensive nightclubs all too much.

Despite a fairly relaxed first week the majority of trainees spent their first weekend at the mercy of Flora and Richie, our legendary first-aid guru’s who were flown-in especially from the UK to run the two-day course. I really don’t know how they manage to do it but they manage to make 16 hours of first-aid fly past…….well almost anyway. Unfortunately for Flora and Richie some of the guys had partied fairly hard on Friday night and by Saturday morning were feeling a little precious. Much to the amusement of the other trainees resident gangster and London hard man Jake ‘the snake’ Leefield had to leave the room when Flora started showing a few pictures of bloody injuries.

Anyway, after two days of First-Aid the guys were pretty keen to get back on the slopes and focus on their level 1 examination. As the trainers had been pretty lenient during the first week the second week was a bit of a wake-up call for most. Short-turns, carving and central theme were the main focuses and all of the trainees responded well to all of the exercises and feedback given. It’s amazing to witness the amount of improvement and progression that has happened in just one week! I have to say that after the past two weeks all of the trainees look strong enough to pass their level 1, if they can stay focused!

As a reward for all of their hard work the big man upstairs decided to give us 50cm dump of fresh snow over the weekend, and as you can imagine that meant lots of powder for those trainees that didn’t get too involved on Friday and Saturday night. Needless to say there were a lot of frowns on Saturday morning……but a lot of smiling faces that evening!

The trainees begin their BASI level 1 on Monday so make sure you stay tuned!

Tom