Ski school stories: My best day

Ski lesson Smugglers' Notch Vermont

Last winter we asked a few of our ski and snowboard instructors to share a story about their best day supporting a snowsports student. Their replies show that the word “lesson” really doesn’t do justice to the experience. Sure, the lesson is about learning or improving on skills, and that in itself is exciting. But their stories showed that a lesson can be about fulfillment, exploration, challenge, independence, creativity, friendship and more – all good stuff!

Here is ski instructor Sherm White’s “best day” story:

My private lesson student Jane had skied Smugglers’ before, so we headed up Sterling for the first run. On the lift, we talked about her reasons for taking a lesson. It appeared that she had a low opinion of her skiing, and her main goal was to feel more comfortable skiing with her family and friends on the more difficult terrain that they liked to ski.

We went down intermediate level Black Snake so I could she how she handled more difficult terrain, and it was clear that she was a better skier than she thought. I gave her a couple of small tips, and mostly we worked on boosting her confidence.

The rest of the session we alternated between tweaking her skiing, skiing steeper terrain, and even skiing some glades, which she had never done before. At the end of our session, I asked her to summarize what she had learned, and encouraged her to keep practicing and stay positive.

As I was standing at the meeting area the next day, Jane skied up to me with her kids and husband. She started gushing about the great runs they had just enjoyed together in the glades. Seeing the joy and enthusiasm she had from her newly found confidence is what makes my job so great.

Have you had a great lesson experience on snow? Tell us about that experience in a comment!

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