How many lessons required for a beginner couple! (Both in UK & on Holiday)

A snowHead

Ok... My situation, which I can't find on any other posts (sorry if this repeats anything);

- 28, married, persuaded my wife to go on a skiing holiday - now booked (1 week in Arinsal, Andorra).
- She's not particularly sport (reasonably fit, but not coordinated) and quite nervous about the whole thing.
- I'm very sporty and have been skiing before (when I was 12 with school!), so am pretty much a beginner.
- She insists on wanting private lessons, not group (wants it to be 'our' holiday/thing)

So far we have booked a half-day taster at Hemel Hampstead, about 5 weeks before we go... my questions/help wanted/advise;

- How many lessons do you suggest I/we need before we go?

- What format of private lessons should we go for when in Andorra? E.g. 1/2/3/4 hours per private lesson (or whole day)? Spread over the week or all at the start, etc.

- And with each of these... knowing what we will/won't be able to do would be nice!

E.g. if we do a full-day lesson at the resort plus 1/2 day in UK, could we expect to be able to 'travel around' the whole area (Pal-Arinsal and/or Arcalís in this case), being able to tackle all Blues and easy Red runs... although I guess that is un-realistic!?!? This is probably what we would like to do... the inspiration for the holiday is that we went on a walking holiday round lake Tahoe in the summer (e.g. round all the ski lifts!)... and like hunting out lots of different views!

Finally... we've probably got ~£300 or so for lessons (maybe more). Which by my reckoning is about 9 hours of private tuition at the resort.

... any advice is more than gratefully received!!!

P.S. If anyone knows any good instructors or are a good instructor ( wink

) in Arinsal, then please get in touch!

A snowHead

This doesn't really answer your question I suppose but our experience was that we had group lessons for our first three weeks of skiing. These were always in the morning and we skied with our (much better) mates in the afternoons. After that we got into private lessons.

I would recommend group lessons. Learning to ski is quite hard work and it's nice to stand around and watch other people fall over for a bit rather than being the constant focus for an instructor. There's also something to be said for learning from other people's mistakes.

Just as an aside (and this may be heresy on here) but how about learning to snowboard? It's said to be a quicker learning curve - certainly the case with the two beginner boarders I've been. If I was starting from scratch I think I'd be tempted to go that way.

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I'm 28, not particularly sporty and notoriously unco-ordinated (the sort of person who can't walk through a door without hitting the doorknob or door catch with a hip, and as for catching Embarassed

. However I was happily doing red pistes in La Rosiere from the first day of my first week in winter (after ski in a day+ week's lesson glacier skiing in summer). A friend on holiday with us who had never skied before, but who was a keen and very fit cyclist (no fear, good balance etc) skied down reds from the top of the Glacier in Tignes to Val Claret, on the last day of his holiday - without any lessons in the UK before hand - but he was pretty co-ordinated.

Small group tuition has major advantages as a beginner - you need the break time while the instructor is looking after someone else to process the information, and get your breath back. I wouldn't do masses of private tuition on the first day - better to spread it out - you will get tired as learning is hard physically.

The main issue you have is that going as two beginners, you haven't got someone to scout out pistes in advance and report back if they are in nice condition, or a complete nightmare. In Tignes I did a couple of the blacks, but there were a couple of reds I didn't want to go near after seeing pictures of the more experienced skiiers (OH sister nicknamed one (Saxifrage?) the red piste of death as it was mogulled and narrow and steep, while some of the blacks, especially when newly pisted, were really quite pleasant.

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smccaldin, welcome to snowHead

s.

Another vote for group lessons. If you're sporty and she's not then the chances are that you'll be better than her and so she'll spend the week being the worst in the group - which isn't a road to happiness.

Also, I know you reckon you'll be a complete beginner because you last skied when you were 12 - but you're not. You'll be amazed at how much your remember.

Personally, I'd spend the money booking the two of you into a good, English speaking ski school group in the mornings and then ski with each other in the afternoons.

If you really do need to go private then go for two hour lessons - it'll be as much as you can mentally process.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Agree with FlyingStantoni, beginner lessons can also be good fun (well, mine were - but maybe everyone was laughing at me!).

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smccaldin, welcome to Snowheads. Difficult. Unless you're going at a very busy time (when you might have to book lessons well in advance) I'd suggest you wait till after your "taster" lesson and then have another think. Randomsabreur has made an important point about piste grading - some reds, on some days, are far harder than some blacks, on other days. Some blues can be extremely tricky in nasty conditions. Don't get hung up on colours, or being able to ski an entire area - sometimes, especially for less confident skiers, it can be very nice to do the same pistes over and over again - knowing exactly what's round the corner, and being able to relax and enjoy it.

Definitely agree, absolute maximum private lesson 2 hours - or you're just paying for some supervised practice. Space them out, and really go and practice the exercises you've been given (on the same pistes) in between lessons. The muscle memory takes a while, especially for someone who's not specially brilliantly coordinated.

If your wife is keen, then there's a lot she could do beforehand - for example working on balance. Stand on one leg and wave the other around. If she gets good at it, do it with eyes closed. Makes a huge difference, quite quickly.

And remember it's supposed to be fun - having too many targets might make it all seem like hard work. wink

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

smccaldin, I agree with most of the above. I started skiing in my mid-thirties. My partner and I did a 'learn to ski in a day' course at Milton Keynes. We dropped out of the session about 2/3 of the way through because we simply weren't fit enough. I didn't learn to ski in a day but it did help break the fear barrier of trying something entirely new and it familiarised me with the basic equipment. Lessons in the mountains have taught me a lot more, a lot more quickly than snowdomes, but I'm really glad I did that session first.

One thing the taster session will tell you is how much your body remembers about skiing. If you are much better than your wife it might be worth her doing a few extra sessions at the snowdome before you go out so that she isn't always playing catch-up, which could be demoralising.

A lot of couples (possibly even most) do split up for lessons as they often are at very different levels. Group lessons are really good for this as you don't end up skiing on your own and are with people at around the same level. They only take a few hours out of the day and will give you plenty to talk about later, whether you're in the same group or not. If she has her heart set against group lessons then pam w has very good advice.

As to what you can expect to be able to do at the end of the week, that depends on a huge number of factors. Confidence, snow conditions, weather conditions, quality of teaching, fitness, fear of heights/steep slopes etc. Some people take to skiing like a duck to water, others take longer. In my last group class I had one guy who was being moved up a group almost every day (he was a beginner in his 50s!) and was happily skiing reds at the end of week one, I also had one woman who had done the same level of class five years running and stopped after day three because she didn't have the confidence to move on. Confidence seems to be the biggest factor, and fitness levels run a close second.

After all it is free

smccaldin, Also other skills that transfer to skiing make a big difference in how quickly/easily you learn... pam w, mentioned balance - that is a biggy...

Pretty simply being "athletic" may or may not cut it... I believe Rugby and Gridiron players are generally not great to teach (Computer programmers especially from countries where kids do not play a lot of sports are worse)... Dancers on the other hand are usually good - they can stabilise their upper body and know how to use their feet and legs well... (good balance skills and finesse with feet)... Doing things like ice skating and rollerblading build good transfer skills for skiing... In fact coming from a warm flat land I only had a very short ski season (less than 3 months of actual open runs usually) to learn in - so I spent 9 months a year rollerblading(under instructions from friends and instructors) ... The summer I spent most time rollerblading I improved the most in my skiing (without seeing snow)...

If you are really keen to improve quickly on snow then I can highly recommend these types of sports - if they don't take you fancy think about other sports that train balance and will help fitness - perhaps think about dancing, mountain biking, trail running, trampolining... I'm sure you can think of others... Find something and do it every week -perhaps 3-4 times... build skills

smccaldin, did you book through us (insideoutskiing) at Hemel?

i would suggest 3 half day lessons at hemel and you would be confident on green runs and be able to move about the resort during your week away. Private lessons are good but anything over a couple hours is too intenses and better to be in a small group.

a day and a half of lessons probably wont allow you to cruise reds and blues... much better to take a short lesson each morning or every other morning to build on each days skiing as opposed to one full day lesson in resort.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Thanks for all the comments...

Higs, boarding seems a little to 'cool' for me! Plus seems that boarding is better suited some resorts... whereas skiing is more ubiquitous?

I already do a lot of work on balance/core-strength (e.g. I'm already partially through the one/two hundred challenges (http://twohundredsquats.com/)) - but will get the misses doing some stuff too!

skimottaret, yes we did... think we're going to take pam w advise and see how the first one goes and go from there!

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smccaldin, I do not agree that groups are best. You may not have a choice to get a small group of 4 or so, and your wife might get discouraged. If you want her to like it, then slowly does it (even if you get bored). With 2-1 and hour and a half would be sufficient, but you might have to take 2 hours (I don't know about Arinsal). If you have lessons together then you can refresh your core skills, which is never wasted time, and you can get a very good idea of the sort of speed and terrain to use after the lesson. Don't be afraid to ask the instructor/coach, and don't be afraid to ask/insist on a fully qualified one in Arinsal either (ISTD).

Have fun!

snow reports

smccaldin,

Once you've done your taster lesson you should be up and running.

As a former dry slope instructor I used to reckon on having even the worst/weakest punters snow plough turning after a maximum of 3 1 hour lessons. More natural skiers picked things up a lot more quickly.

After your taster lesson a weekly visit (without lessons - provided you can ski and turn in control) to Hemel would stand you in good stead and you could then get by on your own on holiday with (say) a couple of lessons at the start of your trip. Depending how you progress you may even be able to get by without lessons on your hols.

As mentioned above - you won't actually be a beginner. It will be like riding a bike and you will soon get the hang of things again. The instructor will recognise that straight away and should have you on more advanced activities from the off.

Good luck and enjoy it.

I hope (like us) you discover skiing to be the most fantastic his 'n' hers holiday experience!

You know it makes sense.

Interim update:
Had our first lesson at Hemel Hampstead - was great fun - 3 hours with the two of us and one instructor. (Note: Was booked into an introductory session with up to 4 people, but took the day off work and go figure, it was just two of us, although with 4 people it would have probably been as good).

By the end, I was able to ski down the training slope in a controlled (ish) manor using parallel skis + a little plough if speed picked up excessively. My wife was able to plough all the way down, but much slower (and probably a little less controlled?).

We have another 3 hour lesson (tomorrow), two weeks before we go, to get a little more practice (again 2 of us with a single instructor)

On the basis of the first lesson, we have booked private lessons in Andorra:

3 hours on the first day (9am-12pm)
2 hours on the second day (10am-12pm)
2 hours on the third day (10am-12pm)

On the basis:
- basically (within €30) the same as us both doing group lessons
- will allow us to ski round by ourselves on blue runs by day 3! (or at least that's the theory...)

... will update when we get back from the trip!

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

Sounds like a sensible plan of attack.

Above all, enjoy it. It's a holiday.

A snowHead

smccaldin, good work - hope it goes well for you. Enjoy your hols Happy

A snowHead

smccaldin, see you in the morning Very Happy

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

i did levels 1,2,3,4 in england and my mates just helped me out while i was out there and pretty much learned paralell by my boyfriend showing me what to do and trial and error i would recommend doing level 6 or once you can ski at level 4 do a learn to carve or learn to apralell in a day! as i would of much prefered to have been able to ski alot more difficult runs with my boyfriend (this year we went to hausburg and he skied the olympic downhill kandahar run in what seemed like seconds - i didnt have the bottle), its taken me a long while to get the confidence more than anything to ski well /with my boyfriend (who is completely fantastic been skiing for 12 years) ,

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Fantastic. Sounds like you're all sorted. Have an amazing time!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Second Interim Update:

Had our second 3 hour lesson - though I'd give an update/thoughts.

I was perhaps a little premature to think that I was able to parallel ski after the first one... more in my head than in reality!
Spent the first half of the lesson on the training slope really getting down with controlling snow plough (and parallel ski's across the slope). My wife picked it up again pretty well too and we were both comfortably skiing down the training slope.

Second half of the lesson was mostly on the main slope - which I really enjoyed (felt like progress), but my wife lost her confidence and struggled a little at the top. But our instructor kept working with her and see was doing well by the end.

It was also interesting to note that we did a lot more skiing this lesson (e.g. going down the slope) and both of our muscles were feeling it a lot more the next day this time - not sure how you can do 6+ hours a day of that when on holiday... but will see how it goes!

Interestingly, we saw this afterwards (www.insideoutskiing.com/levels.html) and would suggest that we were probably working towards or at level 4 - not sure it was always completely controlled. I was at level 3 after the first lesson (ish) and my wife more like working towards level 3.

Anyway... I think that in retrospect we should have just gone for 3 x 3 hour lessons, as it would have cost us an extra £20 each for 3 more hours of skiing! While we feel 'ready' to go, it would have been nice to have a little more practice, especially as skiing on more chopped up snow on the main slope - which was a little odd at times.

Also, I can thoroughly recommend insideoutskiing as an alternative way to learn - seemed to pay much more attention than the snowcentres instructors doing lessons, well worth the extra £5, plus it was only the two of us, not 8-10 people. But like I said, I would recommend 3 x 3 hour lessons.

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smccaldin, well done!

When you're on holiday you won't really be doing 6hrs + skiing per day - skiing indoors and having a short lesson is much more intense. In resort you will spend longer on lifts, having a break at the side of the much longer piste, stopping for a nice warm hot chocolate, taking photos, admiring the view etc...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

smccaldin, well done! Fitness makes a whole load of difference to how you'll feel at the end of the day and beanie1 is quite right - skiing on holiday probably won't be nearly as intensive.

With regard to instruction just as a comparison, on my holiday last week in Austria there was a total beginner in our chalet who had a week of beginner lessons in resort - 2 hours in the morning & 2 in the afternoon. By the end of the week she still hadn't got off the nursery slope. You've done well to get good instruction in right at the beginning - key is to keep that quality instruction up, it'll make your skiing much more fun and enjoyable. Enjoy your holiday and be sure to report back here how it went snowHead

After all it is free

Another vote for getting quality coaching right from the beginning to get you doing the right things from day one if possible so that good habits/technique become automatic.

There have been sports studies done that have shown that GENERALLY to learn something from scratch from the beginning takes around 50 repetitions before it becomes automatic. To 'unlearn' a bad habit and learn the correct way of doing something takes around 5,000 repetitions before it becomes completely automatic.

Whilst not a complete beginner I have done a series of lessons with Inside Out skiing and both skimottaret, and rob@rar have proven to be excellent instructors both with different styles that have definitely improved my skiing.

I would say that everyone from beginners to experts could always improve aspects of their skiing by having a good instructor/coach spend some time with them.

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smccaldin, we learnt in andorra a few years back and worked well
we went for group lessons (ski school in Andorra) and booked morning sessions. Group was between 9-11 people and we skied from 9.30 until about 1, then this left afternoon to practise for yourself
This ran for 5 days and worked well for getting basics etc
these were all whilst on holiday and enabled us to get a but of an idea of hte mountain and routes
Just as a foot note when we go on hols now we still booked a lesson or two so as not to drop into bad habits
have fun snowHead

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As you get better at it, a smaller and smaller proportion of your time is spent actually skiing and more and more on lifts. In the Snowdome I reckon, for me, an hour on the snow represents about 2 minutes actually skiing downhill.

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rob and sharon, although conversely having a couple of private lessons a year is what I've been doing up until last year - with not really much progress being made. What I've found has made a big difference is a dedicated week's instruction, such as with Snoworks, Inspired to Ski or InsideOut and then the monthly coaching sessions at Hemel with InsideOut. 1 or 2 two hour private lessons with un-recommended instructors of unknown ability did not really make any difference to me. And I've found the better I've got the more fun skiing is! snowHead

You know it makes sense.

.....or several Toofy Grin

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cathy,

A snowHead

Ok... so having received so much advise... I figured I would give you a blow-by-blow account of how it turned out for our first skiing holiday! To re-cap our situation:

- Two First-time skiers (I have skied for one-week when I was 12 with school - but am now 28, Abi - my wife - had never skied before)
- Heading for Arinsal, Andorra for a week
- Had 2 x 3 hour lessons @ Hemel Hampsted snowdome before we went

Having put much time and thought into how best 'to learn'... we opted for private lessons (over group ones);
- 3 hours; Monday (9-12)
- 2 hours; Tuesday (10-12)
- 2 hours; Wednesday (10-12)
e.g. ~ the same a group lessons (maybe €20 more expensive overall)

The theory of this would be that by the end of the lessons, we would be able to get around on the blue runs by ourselves and explore the different sectors...

So how'd it went:

Day 1: First-hour was good... on the nursery/magic carpet slope and pretty much leaving off where we got to in the UK (controlled and linked snow-plough turns). Thus, by 10am, we were ready to go on our first chair lift, up a green run (just as the hordes of group lessons where heading to the nursery slopes) - it was looking very promising.
However, then Abi decided that she was very scared (once at the top) of the green run and it took about 30-40 mins to coax her down it... ending in floods of tears.
Mainly this is because it was a very tough green - and most people think the run should have been rated blue (and moderate not easy one), plus the perspective wasn't easy - steep at the end, with a clear view of the valley below, not good for anyone still concerned with being able to stop.
Thus, we then spent the last hour of the lesson on the nursery slopes, trying to dodge a load of other people... but Abi did re-gain her confidence a little.
In the afternoon, it was more of the same, except the weather closed in and I pursued Abi to go up the green chair lift again (as you now could not see the valley, thus the 'height' issue was less severe) and we completed the run twice - although very slowly and controlled.

Overall - disappointing, but felt progress had been made.

Day 2: 3/4 runs on the nursery slope before the lesson, plus one at the start of the lesson, then we went up the main chair-lift to the primary blue-run that runs through-out the valley (Les Fonts). This was a reasonably long-run (circa 1.5km) and most of the top is easy-blue/hard-green, i.e. much smaller step-up than the longer green-run, although to get to the base camp, you still had to finish on this run. Went very well, took an hour to get to the cafe (above the green run), where we stopped for a 10 min break. Then spent the rest of the lesson heading down the original green (again this took a while and bit of coaxing). In the afternoon, we repeated the same thing again by ourselves and it all went Ok, plus I did my first red run (well, part of a red-run, and did some other blue runs in the resort).

Overall - very good, as going half-way up felt like progress and Abi was about Ok with it.

Day 3: Repeated the same route as Day 2, by this point I was parallel turning consistently and Abi was starting to get towards small snow-plough to parallel. The instructor spent a little more time with me and was getting me to start carving turns - which was great. Got to the cafe in reasonable time, but then (as this was our last lesson), our instructor tried to get Abi to do the steeper (red run) section which I had done the day before... and Abi got about 10m down the 50m slope and fell over and couldn't get her ski back on (we later found out her binding was set too long), a few more tears later, she walked back to the cafe and then struggled with the green return run... so a bit of a nightmare all in! We then repeated the run again (as per day 2, after a little time re-gaining confidence on the nursery slope). Although I also went to the top of the mountain, returning on a pretty tricky blue (IMO!).

Overall - Abi lost her confidence again, we had finished our lessons on a bit of low, but were just about Ok to get around ourselves... so the lesson strategy had worked to an extent.

... right, that's the end of the first part of the account, will add more later... including thoughts and what we would have done differently!

A snowHead

Day 4: Our first day without lessons... and Abi was a little nervous generally. Started by going up the Les Fonts lift, but this time Abi (by herself) opted to do the Les Fonts run, which is definitely harder than the alternative blue we had been using for the previous two days! But she was determined and it all went rather well! Abi then was a little frustrated at not being able to parallel turn, and I wanted a little more instruction on carving (given that our last lesson was effectively cut short, with the instructor coaxing Abi down the mountain).
Thus, we decided to get another hours lesson - but kept to our 'known' easy route and spent about 40 min with Abi trying to get her to turn and 20 mins with me dedicated working on carving. It was during this that the instructor pointed out that Abi had been skiing on the inside edges of her skis, even when traversing, rather than skiing flat... which was then causing problems trying to go parallel.
So Abi didn't quite get to parallel, but for the next two days we were planning to go to the other sectors (Pal and Arcalis).

Overall - good day, glad we went for the extra lesson (in the afternoon), but Abi was still struggling with her technique and could have done with a few more lessons (maybe 2 x 1hrs).

Day 5: Headed to Arcalis... mainly with a view to do the long 9km green run together, with me disappearing to try some of the harder routes - now being able to handle all the red runs I had tried (circa 6). When really well, dispite Abi being quite nervous (not knowing the area and the piste maps being very stylised!). Got half-way down to find the cafe that services the top area and neat green drag lift (about 400m run)... which Abi then spent an hour trying to get her confidence up and practice parallel... shame this wasn't in Arinsal, as would have been an ideal slope to hone skills on!
Later on, we continued down the green, but it was a very hot/sunny day and this caused top problems; 1) Abi fell over on some slush, and again had problems getting her ski back on, and 2) Towards the bottom on the return to the base station, the surface was pretty much ice (due to lots of people using the slope)... and Abi really struggled with this... 20 minutes and tears later we finally got to the bottom, but Abi then wanted to go back to Arinsal on an earlier bus and get back onto the nursery and green run at Arinsal... which we did.
I was a little frustrated and annoyed about this... so got off the bus early and went into the Pal area (which is connected to Arinsal) and left Abi to it for a few hours. But having done this, it was great as I could stick to the less busy and more snow covered red runs, plus got in my first (easy) black at the top of Arinsal.

Overall - visited a spectacular skiing area... which was great... but the snow/ice conditions meant Abi's confidence took a tumble again

Day 6: Plan was to head to Pal, but the weather was awful, wind/snow/rain, so having headed up the mountain and done our 'easy' run (which is required to get the chair-lift to the top) to find the chair lift closed Sad

So, we headed back down and got the bus to Pal and had a reasonable time skiing a green and few blues there... but were soaked by this time, but Abi was actually really confident by now which was really good to see.
So after lunch we headed back by bus to Arinsal and did the old favourite one more time, which was good... assuming as Abi had to be pulled off the chair-lift because of the very strong wind!

Overall - rubbish weather, but a good positive days skiing... a nice-ish way to finish off the holiday.

Final thoughts and advice to follow...

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Help!!

How many lessons required for a beginner couple! (Both in UK & on Holiday)

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