The SnowPros midweek ski club

Discover our ex-pat mid-week ski club in the Portes du Soleil

Our midweek ski club has been running for about 5 years now and is made up of the keener skiers from within our local expat community.

Depending on who is available, it can range from 4 to 8 people and the dates are set well in advance because these are busy people with lots of things going in their diary all the time.  I normally send a whatsapp to the group the week before once I’ve had a chance to look at the weather and work out where the good snow and conditions will be.

We normally all meet up around 8h45 in a local cafe and then after a bit of catching up we make a move up to the top and get our skis on.  I’ve always got a new topic or something for them to think about in a general sense but the first few runs of the day are just for warming up as some of the group won’t have been on skis for a while.

We will then spend the next hour or so working on a theme.  Usually early in the season, this will be balance related or to do with the transition between the turns so that we aren’t rushing our turns too much.  A lot depends on the conditions though and often the topic of the day might revolve around what the mountain is offering us that day in terms of the snow conditions.

I believe strongly in skiing the conditions the mountain gives us as a learning tool and persisting with your lesson plan when the conditions don’t suit it is a recipe for unhappy clients.  The group knows this and they know that I’ve always got something up my sleeve for all weathers.  For example, it’s silly to try and practice carved turns on a powder day, so on a day like that we will work on keeping our skis flatter and using the other ways of getting a ski to turn to do the work. 

Later on in the session when we have covered the general topics that apply to everyone, we will generally do an hour or so of individual one on one lap coaching work.  This gives a fast turnaround and lots of runs to make some big technique changes in a short time.

Now this all sounds very serious but the midweek group are all very strong-minded individuals and sometimes it feels a little bit like herding cats to try and keep their mind on the skiing.  I don’t mind though because I never laugh as much as I do with this group.  They are super fun, outrageous sometimes and best of all, they look forward to a decent lunch and some strong opinions over a few beers afterwards.

Drop us an email or a WhatsApp if you would like to join our mid-week club or set up your own.