Back to Basics - Week One

So how do you split up 49 skiers into teaching groups?

That was the first order of business on Monday morning.

Guy got us roughly split into 7 groups ranging in how much bottle we thought we had. Dom and Arthur went for the mental double blacks top group, Mike went for a one a bit less than that and I went for a nice easy don't get myself in hospital in the first week group. Nick picked a level similar to me, Ed was off snowboarding and Ben, apparently only booked the accommodation and so went off skiing some crazy off piste stuff all week by himself.

The group I picked ended up quite a good mix and all about the same level. We have
Tansy, Alice, Amy, Chris, Pete, Ciran and Myself. Our instructor for the week is Donie, who is a small Canadian lady, who turns out seem to have taught half of the other instructors.

We spent the week starting to learn the basics again, such as planting your polls, not leaning back, getting you hips and shoulder parallel to the slope in a turn and finishing your turns completely.
We had exercises where you held your polls in out to the sides (to lean the right way), at half way (to get us lower down), at our waists without hands (to get us to bend at the waist) and on our shoulders to get the shoulder line parallel to the slope.

Arther and Dom spent the week coming back shattered and tell us all the mad things Guy (who took the top group) was making them ski down, and loving it of course. Mike didn't have so good a time of it as he twisted his knee and is going to be out of action for a couple of weeks at least.

By the end my group seemed to be getting quite a bit smoother and looking in control. Most of the time we spent on the pistes but we did do a couple of bits of steep towards the end of the week. The conditions ranged from foggy to clear to very windy and cold. We didn't get much in the way of new snow but the base is deep so it was all good groomed runs.

I've been out drinking with most of my ski group and we had quite a jolly time of particularly the Tuesday night Karaoke at the Crystal Lounge. Pete signing 'Bust a Move' is a memory that I hope will remain strong for a long time!

My house mates are not bad for a night out either although as they are all on the 11 week version of the trip they are on a bit more of a budget.