Skiing. Skiing is the best thing in the world. It's the meaning of life. Except when your technique lets you down and it's the worst thing ever. Then it sucks. Let's try to learn to minimize the suck to maximize the awesome. Awesome > Suck.

Ski lessons are a great way to get better to make things suck less and be more awesome. Ski lessons are expensive, we're trying to change that by giving up the ski instructors. I mean, who needs competent, professional, instruction when you can have incompetent, volunteer instruction? That's right! This is your chance to work on ski techniques from fellow club members!

That brings us to our first and extremely serious caveat: The people running these sessions are NOT trained ski instructors - we are people who feel that we can explain what works for us with respect to skiing. We could do it wrong, we won't be following established CSIA techniques. If you are looking for a professional and effective ski lesson, hire a professional and get REAL ski lessons. If you're looking to have someone who knows how to ski do their best to help you work on technique, then maybe this is for you.

So who are we?
This program will be led by ACC club members on a volunteer basis.

To start, we will have:

• Sheena Lambert - Skiing 33 years including racing for 10 with moments of glory, ski coached for 2 years, back country skied for 18 years, ski patroller for 3 years, super stoked to help people actually enjoy skiing.
• Phil Tomlinson - Skiing 26 years including being ejected from a race program after 2 years for being unable/not understanding the point of following a course, ex-ski patroller, 14 years in the back country, super stoked to preach the gospel of G.N.A.R.

We may add or remove our peer educators from time-to-time, but you will know who will be running your session in advance.

Who you are:
This is open to any club member stoked to work on technique.

Format:
Please sign up for either the beginner or the intermediate session depending on your self assessed skiing ability. Beginners range from 'never skied before' to 'can survive a blue square'. Intermediates should be confident on blues and be able to ski blacks confidently in good conditions.

We'll be meeting at the base of COP at 7pm sharp. That means boots on and ready to ski. There will be two groups - beginner and intermediate. We will then spend roughly an hour as a group discussing technique and working on drills. At the end of the hour and once everyone has a few things to work on technique wise, we'll end the learning phase and everyone can spend however much time they like (or about an hour until the lifts close) working on technique (or you can take off).

Gear:
Bring your regular gear or rent from COP (just get there early in that case so that you're ready to ski at 7pm).Please bring your regular ski pack - carrying a pack affects your balance quite a bit, so you might as well practice with it on.

Signing Up:
Preference will be given to people who are 'invested'. If you come one week, we'll try to make sure you get in the next week too - we want people to be able to build on what they work on week to week.

Cost:
COP is letting us buy lift tickets in bulk for $20. We will run these evenings in groups of four. The idea is that participants will cover the cost of the lift ticket for the person who is running the session (we're volunteering our time, but we'd like to not have to pay for a lift ticket). So, with a group of four, we're asking for $25.

Safety:
Skiing is dangerous. People die at ski resorts. People (especially beginners) get injured all the time. Please respect that helmets are mandatory, please understand that we are not professional ski instructors, just people willing to volunteer some of their time. If you have the slightest concern about the qualifications of the people running this (assume we have none), then please go get proper, professional ski lessons. If at any point during a session you are the slightest bit concerned or uncomfortable, we'll gladly refund your ticket (plus the contribution to the peer instructor's ticket).