One for the instructors...

Not discounting the good advice others have given on this thread, but in defence of Hoop: I think they had booked this holiday a long time ago when money wasn't as much of a concern as it is now.

Let's face it; getting a group of friends to come to a decision on what pub to meet at is difficult enough, never mind choosing the right resort. If it is a group of blokes then they almost definately thought they would all be candidates for the winter X games after day 2, so Chamonix being more advenced probably did not feature in the beer enhanced decision making process.

It sounds like he has done the right thing in stressing that lessons are an invaluable investment and should not be left up to a mate to pass on his bad habits. But they are having non of it.

So he is in an akward position. The way I see it is that he has three choices:
1 - refuse to teach them and give them all the information they need to book some lessons. This is not going to make him popular.
2 - pay for them to have lessons so he can sod off and enjoy some skiing. A popular choice but why should he pay for them. (I suggest this investment can be recooped as a stealth beer tax over the duration of the holiday)
3 - try to "tell them what to do and work it out for themselves" (which sounds a lot like trying to teach them) In agreement with everything others have said, this is a very bad option.

If you are going to take option 3, then make sure you go to the Le Tour area of Chamonix. The wide open and less steep lower slopes there will be much less crowded. They will stand a better chance of being able to learn something.

That said, countless relationships have been destroyed by friends/boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives trying to instruct.

Remember, progression from beginner to intermediate level is as much about confidence as it is about technique. If you do not have confidence in your abilities to instruct them, and you probably shouldn't, then you will find it difficult to impart confidence on your mates.

My advice is to go with option 2 if you can afford it. You mates might see how serious you are if you are forced to stump up your own cash.

Good luck.

Tony_H wrote:
With the greatest respect, are these people total idiots?
Anyone thinking of skiing anywhere, let alone somewhere like Chamonix, without taking a full weeks worth of lessons must have something missing upstairs.

I don't know, have you seen some of the people that ski? It can't be that hard :D

Joking aside you're quite right of course. More to the point, it's his holiday as well, it's a bit selfish to impose like that, he's going to want to ski himself not be confined to a few easy slopes and waiting all the time.

In the same situation I'd not teach them but actually posing the question to instructors is a bit difficult, I can't teach someone in France simply because I'm not allowed to without a barrow load of paperwork.

The right answer's got to be you can't teach them and it probably wants spelling out up front to avoid misunderstandings. At the same time you can make it clear what you can do, help getting lift passes, getting hire kit, meeting for lunch, skiing for a few hours on some easy slopes and so on. Just getting around the mountain is awkward for novices, they're worried they'll get on a lift and not be able to ski down for example, so that's something you can help with for a few hours.

I'd get this sorted PDQ as well, without booking you might struggle to get lessons set up and then you're stitched up. At the same why not book yourself a private lesson? Makes the point nicely that a) you need to do your own thing and b) you're not an instructor.

Ise wrote:

At the same why not book yourself a private lesson? Makes the point nicely that a) you need to do your own thing and b) you're not an instructor.

Neat solution.

steverandomno wrote:Not discounting the good advice others have given on this thread, but in defence of Hoop: I think they had booked this holiday a long time ago when money wasn't as much of a concern as it is now.

Let's face it; getting a group of friends to come to a decision on what pub to meet at is difficult enough, never mind choosing the right resort. If it is a group of blokes then they almost definately thought they would all be candidates for the winter X games after day 2, so Chamonix being more advenced probably did not feature in the beer enhanced decision making process.

It sounds like he has done the right thing in stressing that lessons are an invaluable investment and should not be left up to a mate to pass on his bad habits. But they are having non of it.

So he is in an akward position. The way I see it is that he has three choices:
1 - refuse to teach them and give them all the information they need to book some lessons. This is not going to make him popular.
2 - pay for them to have lessons so he can sod off and enjoy some skiing. A popular choice but why should he pay for them. (I suggest this investment can be recooped as a stealth beer tax over the duration of the holiday)
3 - try to "tell them what to do and work it out for themselves" (which sounds a lot like trying to teach them) In agreement with everything others have said, this is a very bad option.

If you are going to take option 3, then make sure you go to the Le Tour area of Chamonix. The wide open and less steep lower slopes there will be much less crowded. They will stand a better chance of being able to learn something.

My advice is to go with option 2 if you can afford it. You mates might see how serious you are if you are forced to stump up your own cash.

Good luck.

With the greatest respect to all who have posted opinions on my predicament (and they are greatly appreciated), this is the only post that I feel pays any heed to the situation.

Simply saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here) "instruction is ESSENTIAL, your friends need their head read etc etc" doesn't really help me solve what is proving to be a difficult and stressful problem.

With regards to the choice of resort...most literature that I read, and advice taken from various sources (websites, friends) suggested that Chamonix had enough skiing of all levels to cater for my group. I know that a lot of the skiing in Chamonix can be considered advanced, but there is surely enough to sate my desire to ski and my friends' desire to learn. Maybe another resort would have been better, but it's booked...and has been since early August when we weren't so concerned by money. Again, telling me "what we could have won" by booking in Mayrhofen isn't helpful. All it does is make me feel worse about a situation that I already feel responsible for having created.

I've emailed a recommended ski instructors company (Evolution 2), and will hopefully convince them all (my friends) that at least a couple of 2 or 3 hour private lessons at just over 10E per hour are a good idea, but at some point we're going to be skiing without an instructor (does anybody have lessons all day, every day for a whole weeks holiday?!), and I would have liked to be able to help them along. Now I just feel like I'm going to get someone killed if I try.

Hoop,
AS PER DAVE MAC AND TONY H,
your friends will not have a holiday if they don't book lessons. simple. it's a false economy to not have lessons. and what happens if/when someone falls and hurts themselves because they have no idea what they're doing? what if they career into someone else on the piste because THEY can't stop?
having taught children to ski under the watchfulness of the ski school in N, i can tell you it takes me two and a half days from complete beginner stage to get children on the lift system.
please show your friends selected posts on this, no, all the posts, so that they can at least make an informed decision. good luck- you'll need it! L.

ldavies wrote:Hoop,
AS PER DAVE MAC AND TONY H,
your friends will not have a holiday if they don't book lessons. simple. it's a false economy to not have lessons. and what happens if/when someone falls and hurts themselves because they have no idea what they're doing? what if they career into someone else on the piste because THEY can't stop?
having taught children to ski under the watchfulness of the ski school in N, i can tell you it takes me two and a half days from complete beginner stage to get children on the lift system.
please show your friends selected posts on this, no, all the posts, so that they can at least make an informed decision. good luck- you'll need it! L.

Re: false ecomomy...I fully agree, and am doing my utmost to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

Re: the second point. I'm sure you're not suggesting that people having lessons never fall and hurt themselves? Obviously, lessons enable you to learn faster, in turn reducing the likelihood of a nasty fall as time progresses, but the reality is that anyone can have a fall and hurt themselves, whether in a lesson or not. Even experienced skiers have nasty accidents all the time. My friend's father was the president (or something like that) of Norfolk Ski Club and had a horrendous injury recently from a seemingly inocuous piece of skiing.

Was somebody on here not asking for advice the other day as their wife had had a fall on her first lesson and broken her wrist?

Hoop, like most forums, read the replies and make your own decisions, these guys are only trying to give you advice based on their experiences, it is completely up to you if you take the advice. Happy holidays 8)

Ian Wickham wrote:Hoop, like most forums, read the replies and make your own decisions, these guys are only trying to give you advice based on their experiences, it is completely up to you if you take the advice. Happy holidays 8)

Of course. I'm not suggesting that people are being knowingly or deliberately unhelpful.

On a lighter note...I see you're in Norwich. Do you ski at Trowse at all?