New Zealand Ski Instructor Course – Week 5
Week 5 started out with some personal ski development to get us ready for our exam which we began to realise was only 3 weeks away!
After waking up and raring to get on the slopes our hopes of bettering our technique were dashed by strong winds battering Porters ski area and we were told that it was shut for the day so we decided that our time would be best spent playing an adapted game of volleyball using a picnic table for the net. After an intense game of boys vs girls it was the boys that came out on top. Later that day we decided that in order to improve our fitness it would be a good idea to gather a load of the local ski instructors and play a game of football in the local school field. 14 goals later we decided to call it a day as no one could see the ball anymore and many of us found out just how unfit we actually were as we staggered home to get ready for dinner.
After finding out that on Wednesday the wind had got the better of Porters again we decided to make haste for a local club field called Mount Cheeseman. As we arrived at Mount Cheeseman decided to break track in the mighty beast as we were all itching for a ski. While ascending the road to the club field we ran into difficulties as the snow had drifted across the road due to the wind and our trusty bus sank into what we thought was the road which later we found turned out to be over a metre of snow. We all jumped out of the bus to lend a hand in trying to dig out the road to let the queue behind us pass but with no joy. We had to call in the cavalry in the form of one of the piste groomers from the ski field above us. While Jason was waiting with the bus we all stood at one of the corners of the road and practised our level 1 progression lessons to keep warm, after a while of running through our lesson plans we were greeted by some of the local club members who were interested in why we were walking round in circles and singing songs. It wasn’t too long before the groomer had freed our bus and Mount Cheeseman had shut due to wind so we returned home for another game of football with the instructors.
On Thursday the weather had brightened up and so had our spirits. We arrived at Porters and were given the red coats to help out with teaching a coach full of kids from a local school. A massive effort was put in by everyone and most of the kids were doing good wedge turns by the end. After lunch we worked heavily on our personal skiing and we all stepped up the game and massive improvements were made in all our skiing. Jason was so pleased with our improvements that we had a little bit of time left over to go for a free ski and a few of us smashed bluff face on some less than perfect conditions. All in all a great day was had by everyone.
Friday we arrived at the mountain and were given the red jackets once again but this time we didn’t have the comfort of an instructor to help us as we split into teams of 2 and took a lesson by ourselves, once again we excelled ourselves and saw huge improvements in the students skiing which only added to our confidence.
Week 5 ended but a few of us didn’t have our fix of skiing for the week due to the couple of closed days so Jason dropped us off for a for a free ski day on Saturday and after doing the whole mountain we found that we liked bluff face the best so we spent the rest of the day smashing bluff face on lovely ‘powder sugar baby’ snow and once again a great day was had by all.
Week 5 saw huge improvements in all aspects of our skiing and teaching which has given us great confidence in going into the last 2 weeks before our exam.
What a week, bring on the exam!
