Squirreling Away

Hi everyone and welcome to the latest post from your favourite blogging Méribel ski instructor. We are racing our way through January already, and historically this is a quiet period of the ski season. Granted, it's nowhere near as busy as the New Year period, but it does feel as though there are more and more people visiting this time of the winter. I don't know the official figures to back up this claim, but that's my impression. Some of this might be that I seem to be hearing an increase in different languages. It's the summer holidays for Australia, Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries. I've also heard Spanish, Japanese, Italian and Dutch people on the pistes and as well as the American twang at various times with different British accents! Is Méribel becoming more cosmopolitan?

Last week I was skiing with Susan, Mick and Astrid who I've skied with for many years now. It's always nice catching up and finding out what they've been up to since the last time we saw each other. They were telling me about their Italian ski holiday last winter in Madonna. And I shared some of my teaching experiences from last winter and the previous few weeks. One morning we were on the Tougnete 2 chairlift, and I pointed out the Écureuil black piste to them. Just a few days before their arrival, I had skied down there with Keith and Sam, see previous blog post. Translated, an écureuil means squirrel. It's also a terribly difficult word for us Brits to pronounce. I explained to them that squirrel is also a difficult word for the French to pronounce as well, a couple of my colleagues at the school have told me.

This triggered one of those bizarre chats you have on a chairlift, with Susan, Mick and Astrid translating squirrel into different languages. Susan is Welsh, and squirrel is 'wiwer'. This sounds so different to how it looks written by the way. Astrid is German, and squirrel is 'eichhörnchen' in German. And Mick speaks Italian, and squirrel is 'scoiattolo'. Anyway, enough of that chairlift chat.

It was fun skiing with them during the week, and we squirreled away with their ski technique and effectiveness in the sometimes difficult weather and conditions.

This is taking me off at an angle here, but stay with me. Back in the early 2000s, British Cycling created a Research and Development department called the 'Secret Squirrel Club', headed up by Chris Boardman. The idea of this was to try to find any marginal gains for British Olympic cyclists, be it equipment, wind tunnel testing, nutrition, psychological support and other areas. It was believed that any marginal gains would gradually help improve performance.

What's that got to do with skiing? Well if you think about it, any technical, tactical, physical or psychological marginal gain can only be a good thing. Thanks to a trained eye looking at skiers, and a plan to make these marginal gains, any good changes will become more automatic especially when we are challenged. These challenges can either be steeper pistes, variable snow conditions, poor weather or all of these together.

Many of you will be aware that I try my best to post regularly on Social Media, as well as write these blog posts. It's sometimes tough to know whether this effort is worth it, but I keep plugging away. On 'X' (Twitter) I have over a thousand followers. Although that's not a massive number, that's quite a few, and I'll be honest to say I won't know who most of these followers are? Anyway, I received an email from David and Juliet the other day, who asked if I had any availability. When we met up Juliet explained that she had followed me on 'X' for a few years, and had suddenly wanted to make contact and book a session. We had a lovely morning talking about various aspects with skiing balance, and also steering, especially in tricky conditions.

I've recently asked my website people in the Ski Hemsley IT department (!) to set up a Testimonial page. Several clients over the last couple of winters have suggested I do so, and this is now in action and will hopefully go live soon. So this has meant, when I remember, I'm asking people to write a testimonial for me. A couple of days after our session, Juliet contacted me back with her testimonial;

"Martin is born to be a ski instructor! I was pretty nervous before the lesson started; the whole performance anxiety thing. Martin immediately put me at ease. His analytical eye is precise and his pointers made an immediate difference to the technical accuracy of my skiing. The day after the lesson I skied better than I have ever skied. Martin’s approach is understated, but this belies the effectiveness of his interventions.We will be delighted to tie up with Martin again next year and cannot recommend him enough … Juliet (and David)"

‍How nice is that? Thanks Juliet.

I've had some variety of skiing standards recently including several total beginners. It's nice skiing with people of different standards, especially introducing people to this wonderful sport.

I'm just about to start another busy period of full day lessons with different sets of people from all over the world. Skiing is a global sport with plenty of passion. Which leads me to end with my usual mantra, Live With Passion. Martin.