As a ski instructor, your workplace will up on the top of a mountain. But
that mountain can be anywhere in the world! Many ski instructors are able
to combine their career with world travel.
This is certainly true for Martin Olson. "It was a fantastic career choice
for me," he says. "I learned about managing people while improving my own
skills to the point where I was a...representative for skiing
and teaching for 20 years."
This took him all around the world.
"I have been a demonstrator or coach of six demonstration teams traveling
all over the world. We made films twice in Japan. I taught the army in Austria
and France, judged the World Powder 8 contest four times and I ran a ski school
in New Zealand for two years."
Olson has no regrets about his lifelong career choice. To him, being a
ski instructor is unique. It's provided him with opportunities he would
never have had otherwise.
"It is hard to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied and invigorated
at the end of the day," he says. "All this was possible because I could ski
and knew how to teach it."
Other ski instructors say that it is wonderful to be paid to do something
you love!
Arden Thompson is a ski instructor who works the famed Snowy Mountains
range in Australia. Since he lives south of the equator, he's working
while we're enjoying the summer weather. His work season is from June
to September.
During this season, he spends most of his time on the slopes.
"The ski season in Australia is relatively short compared to other countries,
but thanks to my job I really get to make the most of it," says Thompson.
Being a ski instructor is not all fun and games, however. It is plenty
of work too. Thompson teaches as many as 25 students each day, instructing
them on everything from the basic techniques to complex aerodynamic strategies.
"My students are quite varied in their abilities, so my teaching range
has to be quite broad," says Thompson. "On any given day, I might be instructing
a group of little tykes who have never even seen snow before, a beginner's
senior group and some of the members of the local ski team."
This is true for other ski instructors as well.
Judi Busche is a ski instructor at Sunrise Park Resort in Arizona. She
teaches skiing on the weekends only, since the rest of the time she's
an elementary school teacher.
Busche never knows what the weekend will bring. Since she teaches all levels
of skiers, she may get beginners who are nervous about the bunny hill or advanced
skiers looking to get better on the moguls. She may teach group or private
lessons.
Like most instructors, Busche got into the business because of a love of
the sport. Yet it was also a love of teaching in general that got her involved.
Her favorite job is running the women's-only ski clinic. The two-day
clinic is an opportunity for women to learn with other women in a supportive
and stress-free environment.
"It builds a confidence and camaraderie" that is harder to achieve in a
mixed class, Busche says. That's because people in a mixed class have
different learning styles. Sometimes students feel intimidated by others in
a larger group.
For his part, Thompson enjoys teaching kids to ski.
"I love teaching the really little guys because they have so much fun with
it and, consequently, so do I. I get to use my imagination and play. When
one of the kids falls on the hill and gets upset, I ski over to them and make
a big, silly deal about falling right beside them, and we both start laughing,"
says Thompson.
Regardless of whom you're teaching, Busche says the key to being an
effective instructor is tuning in to the individual. Different people have
different skills and different fears -- as an instructor, Busche has to tune
in to those to get the most out of a lesson.
"In a group lesson, you have to look for patterns," Busche says. For example,
maybe one person needs work on hand position, but the other four need to work
on turning. She will mention the hand position to the one person, but gear
the lesson toward the majority needing turning practice.
This job requires a special kind of individual. After all, not everyone
who can ski can be a ski instructor.
"You have to be able to read people in a hurry," says Thompson. "By this
I mean you have to size up the members of your class and decide what kind
of people they are, and how they'll best learn. It's a bit like
amateur psychology."
The selection of terrain for a beginner's class is one example of
why a ski instructor needs to be in touch with their students.
When Thompson teaches a class, he starts on a relatively flat area at the
base of the ski hill where he can show his students the proper posture and
some of the main techniques for getting down the hill safely.
Once this session is finished, Thompson has to judge the class to decide
where to take them on their first ski run.
If the terrain Thompson chooses is too difficult, the class will get discouraged
and lose their self-confidence. If it's too easy, the class feels disappointed
and unchallenged. And there's no guessing who will do well and who won't.
"Those who had it together on the flat area sometimes fall apart on the
slopes, while those who looked a little shaky come out stars. You resolve
the situation by pulling out all your confidence-boosting tricks and get them
to the bottom of the hill. Then get them back up the hill again to do it by
themselves," says Thompson.
While encouraging novice skiers is a challenge for Thompson, he says it's
the expert skiers who really put his teaching skills to the test.
"When I'm working one-on-one with members of the ski team, I really
have to be at my best -- not only because I'm showing excellent skiers
how to refine their skills, but also because it's harder to motivate
them to become better when they're already so good. I have to push them
really hard."
Great challenges come with great rewards and Thompson says teaching skilled
skiers offers both.
Thompson's relationship with one of his students from the ski team
has been particularly rewarding. When he started teaching skiing in 1984,
one of his students was a seven-year-old girl. Eleven years later she was
on the ski team -- and he was still her instructor!
"One of the most exciting moments of my career has been watching her take
first place in her first ski team competition," says Thompson.
With excitement like this, one has to wonder what Thompson does to relax
in his time off.
"Ski, of course!"