The End of a Class

This year at Corpy provided me with my first chance to take part in a multi-week school program. Meaning one of the local grade/high schools would bring up a bus load of students on the weekends for instruction time.

For the past 8 weekends, I spent each morning with 9 junior high school students who wanted to learn to ski. The afternoons were spent with 2 grade school students, and 2 junior high students.

At the end of this past weekend, both groups expressed their disappointment that our time had come to an end. A few of the students also asked if they could continue on taking more lessons from me. They all seemed to say the same thing to me, they enjoyed learning to ski with me because we didn't do just drills. We did a few, but we spent more time going down runs fast, going down runs slow, cutting through trees, taking jumps, bumps, and learning to ride a box together. I watched one student move from never having skied to riding the black diamonds with us, only to consistently crash on the flat run outs back to the lifts. I watched all of them learn about the joys of riding in powder.

For me it was a sad end. I really enjoyed working with these students over the weeks. It gave me a better clue as to how they were progressing as skiers, and really became a lot more fun once we got to know the names for each other. I'll miss my classes. But hopefully I'll see them on the slopes as the season continues.