Make ski lessons free and you'll see a big revival in the sport. The number 1 reason why snowboarding is taking over the hill is that it's easy.
Skiing isn't easy and kids these days don't seem to like anything, that's not easy. It's the slacker mentality that's poisoning our culture.
Now when I say ski lessons should be free, I've now made an enemy of every ski instructor out there, right?
Hold on!
Ski lessons should be free and instructors would get paid by tips. Hiqh quality instruction would be the norm and instructors would make more money.
Sounds crazy, right? That means it'd probably work!
But back to the topic.
Today on the lift I talked with a woman who most definitely was a motivated skier. She started to tell me about her lesson yesterday. She then went on to tell me how confused she was.
In the morning, she skied the front side with her instructor. One the front side the instructor told her, "Don't pressure the tongue." Then in the afternoon they skied the back. When they got to the back the instructor told her, "Pressure the tongue."
Now, is this a contradiction? To her, it certainly was and she spent the rest of the day "Not really having a clue about what to do in the back." Think about it. In the morning she was given one set of instructions and in the afternoon she was given -- seemingly completely different instructions! In her words, "The guy completely contradicted himself"!
In the instructors defense, when they got to the back he was probably trying to teach her to stay a little more forward, because of the powder chop. I'll buy that.
But getting back to PMTS. In PMTS, this wouldn't have happened. Skiers are taught to use one set of movements. Pole plants and body position are always the same. While it's impossible to predict if the woman would have skied better had the lesson been PMTS, after talking with her I'm convinced her learning experience would have been way better. She would have got to the back and used the same turn, etc. that she was taught on the front side.
The woman then went on to tell me that she's been taking lessons but "I haven't gotten any better." Now, it's impossible to lay the blame on all the lessons she's paid for. It could very well be that she's not practicing.
But in talking with her, she didn't sound any different than other skiers I've talked to on the lift. You guys all know me, I talk to people. I've talked to so many skiers who basically echo this womans sentiments; they pay for lessons but can't seem to describe what it is they were taught, or they wonder out loud why they don't get any better.
If growth is the issue, how can a sport grow if the majority of the participants never get past the blue level? How can a sport grow without a true learning system in place?
I think PMTS fills a lot of holes. It's a true learning system that teaches skiers primary movements, from day 1. It's affordable, quite inexpensive, because students can learn from the 2 books and videos.
I dunno man. I really do believe that if getting skiers back to the hill is what the movers and shakers want, the key to the whole thing is the ski school. Every skier should get enough free ski lessons to get them to parallel. Direct parallel should be taught at every ski school in the land -- a ski lesson at Vail should be exactly the same as a ski lesson at Okemo. Imagine if you could ride up the lift and everyone on the chair knew what the weighted release was. Or what if you could talk to other skiers going up the lift about "tipping to the little toe edge"? People who've never met could help each other. The slopes would be safer.
Skiing will never be easy -- it might never be called cheap. But if ski industry would just wake up and focus on the ski school, not Coors Light, I think you'd see a big increase in skiers.
Happy New Year!