To ski or not to ski... Philippa's experience

After six years of skiing, I decided that I wanted to go on a season and be able to ski every day. So I chose the EA ski and snowboard ski internship, to help develop my own ability and to teach others how to ski. I'd skied for the equivalent of 40 days, which I thought was a fair amount!

Since coming to Japan and starting training….boy my skiing was not what they wanted, but hey, that's what practice is for right?! When starting the training program my overall skiing was referred to as ‘European’…by this they meant that my stance was laid back and pretty chilled. I certainly felt that I had a lot to relearn! The training itself was really good, I had James teaching me and it's been technical but also fun, which is a win, win. The number of hours we were skiing was quite intense, but the style of skiing isn't as hard, it's just putting everything together, there's so much to concentrate on!

To be honest there's a lot of stuff that I've learnt that I hadn't really considered when skiing. A lot of my skiing is self-taught so it's been great to learn a better way, allowing me to ski more efficiently. I'm so happy to have taken this opportunity, I've learnt so much already! Having taken my written exam I now had to face the practical! Easy, right?!

The exam has arrived

On day two of my exam, I wasn't quite sure how it was going. There was so much to take in and work towards, it's not just based on personal skiing but also how we teach. We were set a task to help learn the ‘learning progression’, so I taught some fellow interns how to 'Hop Scotch’…a game I haven't played since age 5! I think it worked out well, I even had my examiner join in and without realising it also helped focus on ski stance.. winning! Each day we had to undertake a different teaching task, this time focused on skiing, as well as developing the wedge and parallels.

The final day came and we were watched by 4 NZSIA Instructors, this definitely made me nervous but I knew I had to ski my best. The results approached fast and sitting in a room amongst my fellow EA people waiting to be told was terrifying! Sad to say I didn't pass, I missed one mark on my parallel skiing. I was gutted! However, held my head up and decided to retake a day later… I'm thankful to be able to say that after 5 long days I PASSED! I can now say I am a Level One Ski instructor... Here's to a happy season!

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