“Snow board instruction is a business. So perhaps the instructors know the secret of snow boarding , but they don’t tell you. They want to keep you turning up for lessons, always chasing the elusive secret.”
“No, I reckon the instructors don’t know themselves how they do it. They just look at people and can’t understand why they keep falling over. It’s natural to them to carve their way down the piste, and they have no idea what people are doing wrong.”
“Could be that they are unconsciously competent. Or it might be that Ecole Ski Francais puts something in their breakfast every morning so that they forgot how to instruct. After breakfast all the can say is what they’ve been trained to say during electro-convulsive therapy sessions: ‘And now peeevot’, ‘Weight on the front leg’, ‘Straight wiz ze upper body, and harms out for balaaance’.”
“Or it might be that all there is to it is leaning forward, pivotting, and having a straight upper body. And we just haven’t managed to do all three things at once yet. Maybe there is no secret, maybe they really do want us to learn.”
“No, I wouldn’t have thought so. It’s much more likely to be drugs in their breakfasts, or some conspiracy to keep you going back for lessons. Nothing to do with our inability to follow simple instruction.”
There’s a woman with one leg being taught how to ski here in Les Menuires. A rope around her waist connects her to her instructor, who only uses one ski himself to follow her progress. There are small children, maybe only five years old, trussed up in protective helmets and fancy ski-wear. The mini-pupils stream down in a conga after their instructor, who often will tow a less confident child with a ski-pole. And there are accidents on the slopes. An upright crossed pair of skis and poles demarks that there is a prone person awaiting a sledge to be strapped onto, before being towed by a mountain rescuer to safety, and to somewhere they can have their bones re-straightened and their joints re-socketed.
Lastly, there is me. I am learning to snowboard. I am learning that falling over is a sport. I am learning that when I do fall over, if I carry on moving and get back to my feet, then I appear more skilled. One thing that is sure to make me fall over is my instructor, Stefan. Stefan with the long scar down his face and jaw, whose origin I daren’t enquire about. Perhaps lion taming gave him the mark. Perhaps it was a treacherous rock on some off-piste helicopter skiing adventure. But it is not the sight of Stefan’s scar that makes me lose my concentration and head into the snow face first. It is his unnerving ability to spot when I am concentrating on a tricky manoeuvre such as trying to avoid a tree. When he spots these moments, he yells my name. Then he yells advice in a strong french accent, such as, “Peevot ze back leg!”
The sound of my name is enough though. My head turns to better hear the advice about to issue forth from Stefan’s direction. As my head turns, my shoulders move, my hips break rank, my legs lose sight of their mission, and as I hear the word, “peevot”, I slam into the snow. If I was a dog and Stefan’s other name was Pavlov, I’m sure I would associate trying to pivot my back leg with falling, pain and a beardful of snow. Maybe this is the anti-training in play that forces people to learn so slowly. Maybe this is why I keep going back for more lessons.
The other things that make me wipe out on the snow are never apparent to me until I hit them. They are the first three things I mentioned that I share the snow with. I generally crash into small children, the skiing monoped, or people awaiting medical attention.