Snoworks GAP skiers

Snoworks GAP Blog Weeks Five And Six: Bryony Nelson

After a week of less than perfect weather, suddenly it was flawless – sun, snow and smiles. Having arrived two weeks later than everyone else, I was very happy, as it meant I could try and bring my goggle tan up to par with some of the other members of the group, notably Tom H and Maya.

As in the previous week, we were shadowing Snoworks clients for half of the day, benefitting from the experience of the instructors. Most of us got to shadow the all-terrain groups, allowing us to explore more of the plentiful off-piste that Tignes has to offer. For me this meant spending most of the session face planting into the merciful soft powder and ejecting from skis while my fellow ‘Gappies’ Tom A and Jonny were left to pick up the pieces!

The remainder of our days were spent teaching our own mock lessons to each other, implementing what we had learnt shadowing the Snoworks team, developing our own teaching style and testing our technical knowledge of the Central Theme – the building blocks of learning to ski. Our Snoworks trainer Lee was kind enough to throw some role playing into the lessons, telling certain “clients” to be challenging and unresponsive, testing our adaptability and customer care skills. Of course, some of us were happier than others to step into the breach and be as difficult and disruptive as possible during the lessons, naming no names…Ed Lynskey!

Week six saw the whole of the Espace Killy open up and more people to flood into the resort. Happily this meant an extra half an hour in bed as we now only had to go two bus stops to get to the morning assembly point rather than going all the way up to the Grand Motte! We used the extra space to practice our piste performance, working on carving clean long and short turns. To the dismay of some (me) and the delight of others we also spent time skiing bumps, requiring precise technique and an increased rate and range of movement, denting egos and sorting the proverbial men from the boys.

Our time in Tignes with Snoworks culminated in a group meal on Thursday in Lo Terrachu accompanied by a beer or five. Needless to say there were a few not so fresh faced gappies for our last day skiing. It was a bittersweet day – morale was high as we considered how our skiing had progressed throughout the course, masking the sadness of leaving Tignes and Lee.

And now we move on to Courchevel to tackle our BASI Level two. After six weeks training intensively with the Snoworks GAP team we are all feeling confident and raring to go.

Wish us luck…

About the author: Becoming a ski instructor can be challenging, hard work and fun. Snoworks run a six week GAP ski instructor program to qualify as a BASI level one and two ski instructor, enabling successful candidates to work in several countries including Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Japan. Three pupils from the October to December GAP program in Tignes provide us with their stories from week one to six.


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