Group or Private Lessons for Beginner Adults

A snowHead

Was hoping to get some advice/ opinions for ski lessons.

We are 2 Adults, have done one week ski school in Niederau, thoroughly enjoyed it, they classed us as lower intermediates (I think we are more beginner - barely managing parallel turns and quite nervous) and we were put in a lovely group of 6 who we got on well with, with a great instructor and thoroughly enjoyed our 5 full day (4 hours) tuition, and headed off happily on our own to some Very easy reds on the last day.

This year we are considering the following:

a) 3 x 4 hour Group
b) 5 x 4 hour Group
c) 3 x 2 hour private - just the 2 of us.

I think this year after 3 days we will be happy to head off on our own again. Last year it was a nice group of people whom we got on well with and as it was just the 2 of us on holiday we enjoyed the social side, but did we just get lucky with the group of people last year and actually we would benefit far more from the private tuition?

Your thoughts?

Thanks in Advance

A snowHead

I'm probably not the best person to comment as never really did lessons until the end of last season, however I'd have thought group would be best. As you've said it's good for the social side, and it's easier to ski when it's more enjoyable. From what you say I'd have thought you wouldn't get enough out of a private lesson to make it worthwhile at this stage.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I'd say have a private instructor. I only took up skiing at 45 and, apart from 3 half-days of ski school I've always had an instructor for just two or three of us, and I think I've come on much faster than I would have done otherwise. Sometimes I manage to stay on my feet for 10 minutes in a row.

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Thanks Snoody, Good advice about now not being the right time to fully benefit from Private lessons,

Any more experience?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I guess another option is something like the MYAsH Bash, a SnowHeads event specifically for beginners (it's at the end of the month so possibly a bit too soon for this season).

What's good about that is that you can ski in group lessons and then still spend the afternoon with a group of people (if you want). There's also the possibility of skiing with 'smart alec' skiers who can give advice and tips. Personally that's something which I prefer as I'm not keen on the rigidity of lessons. I've learnt a lot from either Youtube videos or from skiing with people that are better than me, in fact I've just spent the week with @Kooky and @Scarpa and feel that it really helped my skiing to be doing things that were out of my comfort zone.

Ultimately I think it kind of comes down to the individual. I like to learn by doing and pick things up in my own way, either by skiing with people or from some YouTube videos. If you do that though you need to be aware that you'll probably develop some bad habits.

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I find private lessons absolutely superb...if you get an instructor who works for you. I have had an equal amount of good and bad instructors. Just booked lessons with a guy I thought was excellent and am really looking forward to them. I'm a fairly confident try/do anything person.

I have a friend who is nervous/apprehensive about most things including skiing. For her, the private lessons are a must as the group learning thing would not cut the mustard, she needs the 1 on 1 focus.

It's horses for courses and I would advise to try both, and then see what you prefer. This goes for people of all levels and in far more things than skiing.

After all it is free

For me it comes down to value for money. I think until you are confidently parallel skiing on reds and maybe doing easy blacks you're likely to find a ski school group where you are a similar level to the others in the group and are looking for similar things. Certainly that's been my experience. Yes a private lesson might progress you a bit quicker - but it's a lot more expensive (whether that is still value for money to you probably depends more on personal financial circumstances). Once you get beyond that point you might not get a group that is at the same level or wants to work on the same things, so group lessons might become worse value for money, or at least be a bit of a gamble, compared a few focused hours of private lesson followed by personal practice time.
There are some group lessons for more advanced skiers which are generally good value, for example specific coaching holidays (like those offered by Inside Out) or the group lessons on the pre-season or end of season bashes.

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@SnoodyMcFlude, Thanks for your answer. Smile

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I would recommend booking the three days and, then if you get a good group that you like add on the extra two days when you are there.

My husband and I have done this in the past and not had a problem, as have others when when we had full week booked and they'd only done half days. It's never been a problem.

I like the social side and it gets me out of bed (no matter when I get in) and I always find I develop new skills. I can ski all pistes comfortably but having group lessons (with those of similar standard) I have done off piste and ski jumps something I'd never have been brave enough to do without being in the group lessons.

I usually find they are good value and not being as fit as I should I like the pace of them. When I did a two hour private lesson, I was wrecked and struggled to get best from it as I wasn't fit enough!

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I think it depends on what you want to change about your skiing (as well as how much money you are prepared to spend). A decent instructor in group lessons across the week should have plenty of time to develop a broad range of your skiing skills, as well as having the time to lead you around terrain which stretches your comfort zone by the right amount. In a private lesson you have less time for that (unless you get a lot of private lessons, obviously). In my experience the private lessons are better for working on a narrow range of things, maybe just one or two issues which the instructor thinks will make the most difference to your skiing.

Having said that, I think a more important choice of private v. group, is good v. poor instructor.

@snome, is that just one week on snow (in resort)?

There are some factors like your fitness, which resort, which ski school (eg max group size for shared lessons, min group size before they cancel the class), whether you're going in a busy week, and whether one or both or you would self-rate as overly cautious or overly gung-ho, but I'd probably suggest group lessons in non-stupidly-busy weeks.

You'll get a lot out of the private lessons and learn faster in them than groups, but I wouldn't have got as much out of the same or similar cost of private lessons as group at that stage of learning. I guess it's down to supervised practice at an appropriate pace on an appropriate progression of terrain.

In my first week we had a remedial French girl added to our group from a parallel French-language beginners class. That didn't help. In a later week of ski school we had some very nice Irish lads fail to turn up on time the odd morning for self-inflicted reasons so ski school became private to two of us.

You know it makes sense.

Having had a number friends who have gone through the beginner-intermediate progression in the past few years, I would recommend the group lessons at this stage (i.e. your second week on skis). For the first week or two of learning I'd say there's an awful lot of value in learning together, having a few people around you of similar ability, and generally not having too many things to learn at any one time and sometimes just playing follow-the-leader.

My pals seemed to get a good start by doing group lessons for at least their first 2 weeks of skiing. After that some decided to go on their own with a private lesson or two per week to keep progressing; others decided they wanted to do another week of groups. from memory I don't think any of them kept with groups after 3 weeks, but all of them had at least 1 private lesson per week following on from that until they were confident to ski most of the pisted runs, and do them reasonably well.

Personally I think traditional ski school starts to lose it's value for mid intermediate and onwards, but for beginner-low intermediate it's perfect.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

It can be nice to learn things in group, as not only do you learn from your mistakes but you learn from others mistakes as well.
I was in an inter adult group in Andorra a couple of years ago, we had a 14 yr old girl just about keeping up with us, but at some point she was near the top of a steep pitch, traversed all the way to the edge (failed to turn), and lost bottle to turn around and face the other way. Instructor showed her how to put one ski near straight down, the other nearer horizontal, and then just lean on the former and follow the curve round - he said they called it a "now get out of that". In ?12 weeks or more of tuition I've never seen that, thought it was great.

A snowHead

I'd say group lessons
There's a big social side to it that actually gives you confidence seeing people of the same level make the same mistakes you are takes the frustration out of it. you want to be enjoying yourself and i find a group does that. the amount of times you make a comment to someone in your group mid run with out even knowing it vs skiing behind someone in silence until the bottom of the run makes a big difference

A snowHead

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. Lots of very good points to consider. I think we will
Continue with the group lessons again this time.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Thanks again seems quite a few found the private lessons quite intense. I think we would too at this stage so we have booked more group lessons and will consider private ones when we have progressed abit more. Booked a week in neustift for the glacier and Schlick 2000 can't wait!

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Group or Private Lessons for Beginner Adults

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