Over the holidays I spent three days at a ski resort, my very first exposure to all things snowy.
Full of enthusiasm I joined my beginners group where the instructor informed us that he could speak five languages, and then proceeded to conduct his lesson in four of them (there was no call for Basque in our group). His linguistic flexibility was no doubt highly commendable, but as a teacher he was, in a word, crap. After a cursory explanation of a couple of basic techniques, without any real demonstration or opportunity to practice, he sent us up a lift and down a slope, with disastrous results.
I don’t mind falling over in front of hundreds of people, and I don’t really have a problem with embarrassing myself. What I did object to, however, was that he then proceeded to chastise me for being scared (I wasn’t, just unskilled), informed me that conditions were perfect for skiing – it was sunny and there was fresh powder, and pointed out that even small children could do what I was failing to, and so the fault quite obviously lay with me.
At which point I told him he could stick his lessons and stormed (slid, actually) off. When I had recovered from my tantrum I thought more clearly about what had happened, and realised that my instructor had let me down in two crucial ways. First he’d given me no skills, and second he had severely knocked my confidence. So much so that for the next 24 hours I refused to get back onto a pair of skis.
What I did instead was to watch other people ski. Not the slick black-run types, but other beginners. In particular, I watched the kids (the ones who could effortlessly do what I couldn’t, according to Jean-Luc) and the instructors who were teaching them. And here there was proper learning going on. Step by step, the kids were learning to stand on their skis, move about on the snow, get their balance, proceed slowly down a slope, turn and stop. The teachers took them through each technique and manoevre and only moved on to the next when each child was competent.
With all this in mind I decided to teach myself. I copied the kids, I did the same small moves over and over until my body ‘got’ it and each time I was a bit quicker, a bit more fluid and a lot more confident. Granted, I only got as far as the snow-plough and doing turns but given my disastrous introduction this felt like a major achievement.
People have different ways of learning and maybe Jean-Luc worked wonders with his other students. But despite adults’ wealth of experience, if we’re learning a new skill from scratch, we’re really no different from children. Skills, practice and above all, patience are essential.
Who knows, next year may see me on those black runs too.
04 January 2010
Chasse neige and all that
Over the holidays I spent three days at a ski resort, my very first exposure to all things snowy.
Full of enthusiasm I joined my beginners group where the instructor informed us that he could speak five languages, and then proceeded to conduct his lesson in four of them (there was no call for Basque in our group). His linguistic flexibility was no doubt highly commendable, but as a teacher he was, in a word, crap. After a cursory explanation of a couple of basic techniques, without any real demonstration or opportunity to practice, he sent us up a lift and down a slope, with disastrous results.
I don’t mind falling over in front of hundreds of people, and I don’t really have a problem with embarrassing myself. What I did object to, however, was that he then proceeded to chastise me for being scared (I wasn’t, just unskilled), informed me that conditions were perfect for skiing – it was sunny and there was fresh powder, and pointed out that even small children could do what I was failing to, and so the fault quite obviously lay with me.
At which point I told him he could stick his lessons and stormed (slid, actually) off. When I had recovered from my tantrum I thought more clearly about what had happened, and realised that my instructor had let me down in two crucial ways. First he’d given me no skills, and second he had severely knocked my confidence. So much so that for the next 24 hours I refused to get back onto a pair of skis.
What I did instead was to watch other people ski. Not the slick black-run types, but other beginners. In particular, I watched the kids (the ones who could effortlessly do what I couldn’t, according to Jean-Luc) and the instructors who were teaching them. And here there was proper learning going on. Step by step, the kids were learning to stand on their skis, move about on the snow, get their balance, proceed slowly down a slope, turn and stop. The teachers took them through each technique and manoevre and only moved on to the next when each child was competent.
With all this in mind I decided to teach myself. I copied the kids, I did the same small moves over and over until my body ‘got’ it and each time I was a bit quicker, a bit more fluid and a lot more confident. Granted, I only got as far as the snow-plough and doing turns but given my disastrous introduction this felt like a major achievement.
People have different ways of learning and maybe Jean-Luc worked wonders with his other students. But despite adults’ wealth of experience, if we’re learning a new skill from scratch, we’re really no different from children. Skills, practice and above all, patience are essential.
Who knows, next year may see me on those black runs too.
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