NEW: Beginners & Novices Courses

After years of specialising in teaching intermediates, advance, expert and elite skiers the art of all-mountain skiing we’ve finally decided to offer limited courses for Beginners and Novices to learn the art of skiing the Snoworks way right from the beginning.

Phil Smith, Snoworks director explains what’s in store for any beginners or novices coming on a ski course with Snoworks.

So what can a Beginner and Novice expect from Snoworks?
Exactly the same philosophy as intermediate, advanced and expert skiers coming on a Snoworks Course.
• An open philosophy
• Skills based teaching
• Output focused
• Measured not judged performance

Of course that may all seem a load of gobbledygook if you’re thinking of learning to ski. So lets explain more in layman’s terms.

In the past ski instructors associations developed ‘manoeuvres’ and ‘methods’ of doing things. These methods were given names like:
• Snowplough Turns
• Stem Turns
• Parallel Turns

Instructors would learn these manoeuvres and be required to demonstrate them accurately. Of course what happened next is the instructor would take these manoeuvres and do exactly what they believed was required – teach them to the learner. They would:
Teach skiing to the learner
rather than
Teach the learner to ski

Those two statements may sound the same but they’re far from it.

Teaching skiing to the learner
This involves taking skiing, the manoeuvres of skiing and teaching them to the learner.

Teaching the learner to ski
Is completely different. You begin with the individual. Their desires and needs, their athletic ability and emotions. You take the snow texture, the terrain and the weather. You then take a completely different objective than achieving a particular ‘manoeuvre’. You take the objective of ‘control’. To control the speed that the learner wishes to travel at and the direction the skier needs to travel in. You then take all the knowledge and understanding you have as a ski instructor and help create leaning.

Still sounds the same?
I’ll put it another way.

Teaching skiing to the learner – creates robots, mimicking what they’ve been taught.
Teaching the learner to ski – creates individual skiers, able to control their skiing and adjust to all the different types of snow and terrain on the mountain. A happy controlled skier.

Of course most ski instructors and ski schools have all moved away from what we call ‘manoeuvre’ based ski teaching to ‘skills’ based ski teaching so hopefully wherever you end up you’ll learn skills rather than manoeuvres but on a  Snoworks Course you’re guaranteed it.

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