When The Body Is At Ease

Hi everyone, and welcome to the latest post written by your favourite blogging Méribel ski instructor. In last week's post, I tried to give an open and honest account of the snow conditions here in the 3 Valleys. I explained that the weather had been very mild indeed, and the rain level had bounced around the altitude of 2,200 and 2,500 metres. The press had started to pick up on this subject, and it all felt like doom and gloom for a while. Well, can you guess how the weather and snow conditions have evolved over the last week?

As ever, all of the photos featured in this post were taken by yours truly over the last week in either Méribel or Courchevel. The temperatures have dropped, and several weather fronts have passed through depositing a decent amount of snow each time. Nothing too huge, about 10 to 25cms at a time, enough to put a massive smile on our faces every morning we went skiing. Thank goodness for that. Check out the fresh snow on the pistes in these pics.

Every time it snowed, not only did it feel lovely under foot, but it was as though Mother Nature had sprinkled pixie dust everywhere. Anyway, enough of my cheeriness with the conditions, who have I skied with this week?

I've actually skied with a variety of people, all of whom have been previous clients, apart for one. This is always great, because it's nice to catch up with regulars, have a chat, and continue to work on their skiing and show them other areas of the mountain they may not've skied before. A few months ago Aurelia contacted me for some sessions. We first met last season after the borders between France and the UK had reopened. There were two main focus points for us: chipping away at better balance, and simplifying how we steer our skis.

Having better balance is a massive area for any level of skier. There are so many positives if we can achieve this. For example; improved energy efficiency, a better ability to absorb lumps and bumps, easier turning ability, increased grip/friction between our skis and the snow. If we are able to fine tune our balance, the whole of the mountain starts to open up in front of us. In other words, the better our balance and technique, the more pistes become available to ski. That's quite an incentive isn't it?

I've also skied with Judy and Chris from the Lake District, and have done for several years. We hadn't seen each other since before the pandemic, so it was great catching up again. At the start of the session - after a warm up slide - I asked them to try to calm down their movements on skis. In other words to avoid rushing anything. Unfortunately our mind (or brain if you like) tells us to do many wrong things on skis, including snatching our turns. If we can calm down these movements, and fine tune our balance as mentioned above, we will start to relax on skis.

Judy is a yoga instructor back in Cumbria, and as soon as I spoke about being balanced, relaxed and calm on skis, she immediately picked up on this and compared these feelings with yoga. It appeared that what I was talking about had a connection with yoga. The words and phrases that I used were similar, just slightly different at times. Judy quoted "When the body is at ease, so is the mind." I rather liked that, and we agreed to change it a little bit for skiing into....."When the body is steady, so is the mind." Or perhaps steady could be replaced with balanced (on skis).

And this is the key, if our mind (or brain) is at ease and relaxed, then it won't tell us to do all these random things like rushing our turns, or leaning back etc. I hope I'm not sounding like some hippy (no offence intended) or wellbeing specialist, here? It was so interesting to share experiences while developing our skiing . As mentioned in previous blog posts, it takes a trained eye to spot areas of improvement in skiing.

It was a fun day of skiing, with improving snow conditions. We chuckled at how many phrases (or nuggets of gold, as I like to call them) I have come out with over the years. As the afternoon came to a close, I asked if they fancied having a vin chaud - just because Judy had dropped those words earlier in the day. Yes was the answer so I suggested going to a hidden treasure that would be quiet (just above the centre of Méribel), with a roaring log fire, and where the vin chaud was served in a generous sized jug!?! Just the ticket.

One subject that came up whilst chatting, was ski lifts in the Méribel Valley from many years ago. Amazingly, Judy came across a website that showed old piste maps from years gone by. The website doesn't have every single year, but there are some interesting maps. Here's the link if this is your thing.

Later that evening I posted a photo on social media of a smiling Judy & Chris with snow falling. It got a great response, including from them both. Chris's comment sounded like a testimonial. Unfortunately I don't have a testimonial page on my website, note to self. But Chris's message went like this...."A grand day out on the hill. Just what we asked for. Thank you Martin. And thanks for all the hints, tips, tricks, sayings …… stories, hidden quiet pistes and just a jolly good day out." Thanks Chris! Blush.

Right, that's enough for this week, other than to ask have you seen the forecast for this week in the French Alps? Yep, more of the same with regular snowfalls, and it's also meant to get proper freezing cold from Monday onwards. Time to dig out the thick winter puffa jacket, and toasty warm mittens. Live. WIth. Passion. Martin.