My earliest memory about skiing was when I was about 3 years old.
My parents regularly traveled within the Swiss mountain range and I remember when they put me in the snow garden.
Apparently, I loved being in my snow suit and playing with the other kids.
A little later, I took my first descent on bay skis, made out of plastic and which could easily fit on kids winter shoes.
The first picture I got from myself on skis was at the “Bodmi” beginner park, in Grindelwald in the bernese Oberland.
The ski instructor on the picture is a local from the village.
The funny thing is that I regularly crossed him on the slopes or in the village, after I got my instructor license as well. It is only about two decades later that I recognized him on the photo when I was a child.
As a kid, skiing did not have such an importance in my life… I have always been sent to skischool by my parents. Of course, they tried to teach me, but it never worked out well. There was always a topic related to our family life that would interfere with proper apprenticeship of the sport. This is totally different when I was in a skischool class, where a child does have another relationship to the instructor than he does with his parents.
I always liked skiing, but id did it the way I liked other sports as well. I always enjoyed being in the mountains and its surroundings, but it was one activity out of many others. I always wanted to ski in an unconventional way, not always turning around the poles in the supposed direction, sometimes skiing backwards, laying on the back of the skis and passing underneath a friend’s legs. This was a little to unconventional regarding the techniques that where taught back then, when it needed to look as elegant and as clean as possible. I guess therefore the fire never really jumped over…
This changed when I became a teenager. I remember when I saw advertisements of the first Freeskiers: These guys did jump over rocks, even did funky tricks when doing it, and guess what ?!
Some of them laid on their backs and skied underneath their friend’s legs, skied backwards.
From this point on, I was hooked!
The same x-mas, my friend received his first pair of “Freeskis” from his parents. They told us the guy in the ski shop just ordered it from France, without knowing for what they were in fact good for.
In order to own my pocket money, I worked for my Dad. We agreed that he would pay me at once every couple month. After a while helping him out, one of his customers told him he was quite short on cash to pay his due. It was a ski shop. My Dad told me that I could do two things: Either wait a little for the money due for my work and get the full amount or let the ski shop “sponsor” me a pair of skis right now but worth a little less than was owned to me.
This is how I got my first pair of Freeskis myself, the same week.
From this point onward, my friends and I would spend all weekends on the mountains, as soon as there was snow. I do not mean enough snow, or good quality snow. It just needed to be white.
I remember a season when we needed to wait on snow longer than usual. Wee found some old skis nobody would want, went in the forest with them, climbed up a hill and skied down on the dead leaves.
We had a blast: It works fine by as far as you lay back enough. Because you never know, we took our helmets.
This went on for years, always in the same pattern: find the latest VHS Cassettes of freeskiers doing crazy stuff, try it out for yourself, see that it is not that easy than It looks like, repeat the whole circle.
This was also the time when this bunch of kids signed up for avalanche safety camps, to finally realized that they are much more risks skiing of piste then they thought there where and that you need to be well trained in order to enjoy freeriding.
I learned one major thing out of these trainings than still remains with me today
No risk no fun: agreed.
No limit, no life: Always to remember.
They also registered themselves into some contest: The inferno races in Mürren, the Freeride Days in Diablerets, the Zinal Freeride contest… We even participated to the Swiss telemark championship, although none of us did ever telemark before… I finished second last, with one day experience. The last guy did have zero days experience… We always had a lot of fun!
When I was about twenty years old, I realized that finally this skiing thing became more and more important to me and that I was not the worst skier around.
However, I wanted more than the usual weekend program. I wanted to know how the technique behind did work. I never had and ski club experience, neither did I some racing.
This is how I got informed about ski instructor training.
I simply wanted to know the technique.
Once I have passed the boot camp training and got certified, I started to work as an instructor. This is when I discovered how fun it could be to teach some kids myself, to tell them the stories I lived and to show them how it worked.
I was not wrong at all! Over the years I realized how satisfactory it was to transmit my joy of this sport to others, first kids, then adults. I have so many beautiful memories of moments of success, achievements, recognition and simply pure joy !
Some when, I stumbled over this photo I mentioned in the beginning.
I realized that I would have about the same age the ski instructor had back then and so decided to write down my experience.
I was blessed to be able to live such beautiful moments through this sport, for myself, for others, with others that I would not only like to encourage you to give it a try but also to encourage all those teenagers who read this and ask themselves how they could bring their skiing to a next level to check out their nearest Skischool and ask them what it takes to become an instructor themselves.
All the best to all of you and see you on the mountain,
René