After about 11 ski trips in 8 years I had a year off in 2012. I'd hit a bit of plateau in terms of my enjoyment of skiing, I wasn't sure about my technique and the time had come for a rest. To put it into perspective, in a half day at Les Deux Alpes two of us had skied every black run back to back so I knew that I was alright at skiing, but not sure where to go next. I was aware that I was totally ignorant of ski techniques really - my skiing was based on 1 week of novice lessons and then just doing a lot of it.
Move forwards to 2013 and I've just got back from a week in La Plagne with an Action Outdoors UCPA fully coached trip. I opted for a confirmee (experienced skier) on-piste week. We had a brilliant instructor: Jean Jacques was from the local ESF and was clearly very experienced and also very relaxed and a lot of fun.
The good news was that he said "you are very good. You have a natural style. Only one thing: you need to not look at your feet."
That was a serious boost to my confidence. I always like to think that the more time you spend doing something then the better you become, but I'd hit a bit of a plateau on my last ski trip. So maybe all that time spent skiing down mogulled runs had paid off.
It was a good group 12 skiiers and all about the same speed so there wasn't much waiting around. Jean Jacques fed us a really good variety of challenges involving deep powder, steep ramps, trees and narrow tracks. It never got too heavy; the difficult parts were mixed with easier bits. As the week went on then we spent a lot of time skiing steep and deep snow.
On Thursday he took us on two proper off piste trips on new powder.
Overall a brilliant week and I'm totally wired for doing more now. I've got a lot of video to trawl through now, hopefully it can be refined into 3 or 4 minutes.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Sounds good, and a very positive report for the UCPA - I've always wondered what their tuition is like (hadn't realised they used ESF, thought they rolled their own). Out of interest, was the group all English or mixed French/English (not sure how the Action Outdoors element works)?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
It was 11 French people, a French instructor and me. We got on fine.
I understand a bit of French, just enough to sort of get the gist of what he was saying. He spoke better English than my French so it all worked out. I just tended to pay a lot of attention when following where we were going.
The UCPA generally use their own tutors. I was told by someone in my group that they bring in the ESF for the higher grade classes if they don't have enough of their own with the diploma.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
