Ski Teacher Training

‘Hi, my name’s Rebecca and I’ll be your ski instructor today.’

Eight familiar faces smiled back at me encouragingly. Most of them still had the examination ahead of them. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to be asked to do the teaching assessment so soon and wasn’t feeling as prepared as I might have been. I had been fairly sure that as a non-native speaker of German I would have a few more days to revise the various specific explanations and exercises.

No such luck.

‘Today we’ll learn how to keep our balance while skiing in a straight line,’ I continued (in German – that is to say, not quite so eloquently).

OK, so the exercise I had been assigned was fairly straightforward…

I explained and demonstrated the correct body position (skis hip-width apart and parallel. Ankles, knees and hips slightly bent to enable movement) and watched as each member of the group in turn copied me. We then moved on to various up/ down/ left/ right balance exercises. I watched closely and made minor corrections to their body positions; and Micky, my ski instructor, looked on.

All things considered, it didn’t go too badly: I only forgot one word.

After I had finished the assessment, Micky observed as the rest of the group skied down to the bottom of the slope, and I waited to hear his verdict. He was a young, bear-like Austrian with a penchant for beer and schnapps and when I got a black eye from my first attempt at snowboarding (the anchor lift hit me in the eye) he sat on the snow and stared at me. Snowboarding wasn’t really his thing, either.

On this occasion, he turned to me and said, ‘It’s harder in German, isn’t it?’

I agreed.

I think he intended to give me a friendly pat on the shoulder, but he ended up nearly knocking me over. ‘Passt,’ he said, which doesn’t translate as ‘you’ve passed’ but means something along the lines of ‘alright’ and was the highest praise we could expect to receive from Micky (I took it to mean I had passed). Talking was much the same as snowboarding for him. Why bother when you can ski?

Over the next few days, we practiced, practiced, practiced; and it snowed, snowed, snowed. We spent most of our time in the cloud, where everything was white, and my skis did unexpected things beneath me. ‘It’s a proper winter,’ Micky said with a grin on his face as the wind howled around us. I tugged on the collar of my coat to protect my cheeks from the biting snow. ‘But it can make you feel sick,’ he continued, in one of his rare conversational moods, ‘when you can’t tell the difference between snow and sky.’

Only once did the sun come out, and then it was indescribably glorious.

The course took place in a small town called Söll in Austria, and I had intended to commute there every day from Scheffau, the village where I worked last year and would continue to work after I had completed the course. On the first evening, however, the offer of food and beer was a tempting alternative to a two-hour wait at a cold and dark bus stop. It then transpired that my new acquaintances (Hendric and Milan from Cologne and Lena and Julius from Munich) had a spare bed… The next day, I moved in, and spent the evenings feasting, drinking beer, playing cards (the person with the most points had to wash up) – and, as the final exams drew nearer, revising…

We had a theory paper and three more practical examinations: in the first one, we were tested on our own ability; in the second, we had to demonstrate snowplough turns; and in the third, parallel skiing with snowplough turns. Finally, we returned to the hotel at the bottom of the mountain to find out if we had been successful… It’s not much fun being near the end of the alphabet! Still, it was worth the wait: my name was read out, Micky shook my hand (all but crushing it) and presented me with the certificate: ‘Congratulations,’ he said.

I had passed!

The next day (after due celebrations, of course), I was doing it for real:

‘Hi, my name’s Rebecca and I’ll be your ski instructor today…’