Colder Weekend But Great Snow!
On Friday, I had a group from American Family Insurance and some school kids from Oregon, WI. The lesson took longer (we went over) but had a good time, so I didn’t mind.
On Saturday, I had a private lesson with two girls (9 and 11 I believe) and we worked on some edging and a little carving. The hour flew by but we covered a good amount of the mountain (ok, hill).
I then had a private lesson with Mario, who bought equipment and was a beginner skier. The lesson went well and he bought another private lesson after lunch. One problem we had was that his bindings were set at 5 and he kept coming out of his skis. His probably needed to be set at 7 or 8. I suggested he go to a ski shop and have them adjusted as this setting was not working for him. Also, his ski pants were a bit too long and always clipped into his bindings with his boots. I don’t think this helped.
I did have fun with him on the lesson and he did well. He wasn’t sure about going to the top of the mountain but I got him up there and we came down slowly. I said it’s better he go up to the top with me and I show him how to manage his way down rather than go with his friends the first time and have no idea what to do. He agreed with me on that. If he truly wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t have taken him up there but he was fine. His skiing even improved as we took the longer trails down.
My Teaching Methods
One of my philosophies with teaching skiing is trying to continually move people on. If they’re struggling with one thing, I don’t want to continually keep them on it where there’s some degree of failure. The thing to do is try something else or move on. There’s often another way to accomplish the same thing, so I try that. Also, with most people, if you move them on to the next thing, the thing they used to have a problem with is all of a sudden easier to do… amazing – I love it!
Come on out and ski!
-Tony
