This weekend, I had my first ski lesson. Many years ago I snowboarded, but I never took a lesson and was never very good. Last year I started skiing and it was time for a lesson. I will admit, I was nervous about it. But, the kids have been in lessons and the husband is a really good skier. So, either I need to learn or stay at home when they go. Well, I am not the type to just stay at home while others go have an adventure.
We went to Mt. Bachelor for the lesson and they have a great program for ski lessons. It was a two hour lesson in the morning and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. They split us into groups based on what we said about our ability and then after taking a look at us going a little ways they split us up further so that we were all well matched.
My brain was filled with different tips and tricks and I went from going too slow or too fast and not really knowing how to control my speed to completing turns and having a number of different tools to help me.
After the lesson (and some well deserved lunch), the husband and I hit the slopes until the kids lesson was over. I told him what I was working on and what he could help remind me of and I just focused on skiing well. All of my skiing until this point had been mostly frustrating with small victories mixed in. But, I actually had fun skiing after the lesson.
It was well worth the money too. If paying for the lift ticket alone, the lesson is really just a few dollars extra. Just paying for the lesson by itself (having a pass already) made it a bit of an effort to make happen, but I have no regrets. Overall we find skiing to be quite expensive, but we also don’t spend any other money for the weekend when we ski. We wear ourselves out and the rest of the weekend is recovering.
So, if you are hitting the slopes and leave feeling like a fool or just more discouraged than encouraged, I strongly recommend signing yourself up for a lesson. I am guessing I will be taking another lesson before the winter is over.