 Poster: A snowHead
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Short version:
Use them if you are ever in the ski area.
Long Version:
Ive always treated myself to private lessons on the first 2 days of a holiday. I therefore feel as though I have a fair amount of experience of instructors and their ability to get the best out of me.
This year, I arranged for my wife to have a couple of lessons. She has just spent 14 months recovering from the reconstruction of her ACL, and a trip to xscape prior to the holiday was (for her) a very very nervous experience. I decided to tag along.
Having searched the forum and internet for reviews I plumped for Reflex ski and organised lessons through Christophe who runs the business and coincidently was our instructor. I met a few of the other instructors during the week, and another couple from our hotel had also picked Reflex and had had a similar experience to my wife.
Firstly, they speak very good English. In Christophe's case, his wife is English which helps. They are extremely sociably, putting you immediately at ease, so we had some good banter. This does make a difference.
He was very understanding and patient at the start, working on basics. Although more accomplished (or is it fearless) than my wife I also found it very very useful. Some of the tips he gave us created a feeling I had not achieved previously in hardpacked conditions and stayed with me for the week. Despite having completed numerous drills with other instructors in the past, the ones we completed focused more on building a sensation rather than just some text book stuff.
The next day, my wife was already more upbeat, and as conditions had improved so had her skiing. Christophe had picked up on this and really pushed her in terms of ability and confidence. The trust she had in him helped, to see her producing dynamic turns on a steep red followed by shorter and shorter turns was brilliant.
All the time he was offering me tips to trial either on or off piste at the side. This culminated in a few little jumps and an off piste excursion. My wife was soon joining in!
She continued to progress throughout the week and so did her confidence. On the way home she was singing his praises saying how much difference he had made to her holiday. To me that says it all.
From my perspective, he did up-sell me a lesson later in the week saying I needed to be pushed. Had I not been so impressed I would not have bothered, but being bullish I was intrigued. I was expecting some black and moguls works, and that's what I got in the end but not how I expected. It started in the form of short turns on a steepish section with my eyes shut! I cheated after about 8 turns but we persisted, and my feeling of the tempo required really improved. Next Christophe took me a for a little run to practice the turns just off piste turns on moguls etc. At the top of the next chairlift we traversed across a mountain and moved into a small bowl the other side. I just assumed it was short cut. Here he handed me a receiver and gave me a lesson in how to use it and find him in an avalanche. having never done this type of thing before, my mind was racing, but the confidence I had in him helped. What followed was a 2 hour decent making fresh tracks, followed my some narrow and moguled tracks through a forest till we reached the snow line! Ok a small walk followed, but this was too the nearest bar so I could get my pounding feet out of my boots and to buy him a beer. It was an amazing experience and will stay for me forever. I felt guilty when he only charged me for a 2 hour lesson, but I like to think he enjoyed my company as much as I did his!
Thanks Reflex.
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