Booked on your gap year or career break. Turned up. Tuned in. Partied hard but skied or snowboarded harder. Passed the exams. Now surely that first day in uniform with your group will be easy. Or maybe not… Here’s a guide to 10 Things Ski & Snowboard Exams Don’t Teach You 1) The Number One Question to Ask at the Start of a Lesson How good a skier? What […]
After last week’s post on women and career breaks, we asked Claire, who left her career in London real estate for a Peak Leaders 10-week ski instructor course in Verbier, how she decided to take the first step… Peak Leaders: What prompted the decision to leave London for Verbier? Claire: I guess after 12 years of selling property all across London it was finally now […]
Sometimes it’s harder to do some wrong than it is to do it right. This was what the trainees discovered as the European Snowsports instructors added the final flourish to their skiing technique before the start of the BASI Level 2 ski exam, often through exercises which pushed the skiers to use unfamiliar – and downright bizarre- drills. A particular favourite was ‘The Charlston’, which […]
‘The child is father to the man’, they say. But this week the trainees were discovering that the nursery slope is very much the father of the qualified ski instructor, as they hit the famous field of dreams which is Verbier’s Les Esserts beginners area. Some might have been loathe to be torn away from the high black pistes and powder bowls of the Verbier […]
‘Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat…’ Or, rather, here in Verbier, the penguin. With the festive season in full flow the trainees spent each morning this week shadowing European Snowsport’s experienced instructors. With ES’s youngest clients known as Penguins, each morning two lucky trainees had to assume the guise of ES’s penguin mascot. Although masquerading as an Antarctic-based water fowl was not […]
