Life After SnowSkool – Mike Lewis

Bromley-boy Mike Lewis is reputed to have turned down a starring role in The Only Way Is Essex to join SnowSkool’s ski instructor course in New Zealand. Given the immediate propulsion to super-celebrity status (and all-round twat-ness) this would have offered, you may think that Mike may now be regretting his decision to turn them down but life has been kind to Mike since he graduated as a NZSIA level 2 ski instructor…

SnowSkool (SS): Yo Mike, what’s up? How’s life been since NZ 2009?

Mike Lewis (ML): Good, man! I’ve been all over the place – have now completed four seasons in four different countries in two years!

SS: Let’s start from NZ. How was that for you?

ML: NZ was such an awesome season. The snow was fine, as good as you expect in New Zealand but we had some scarily good trainers and a great group of guys and girls on the course. Wanaka is just the best place – the people are so friendly and welcoming and outdoorsy! The pass rate was high and I was stoked to be graduating as a Level 2 instructor.

SS: And so on to the northern winter…

ML: Yeah, I applied for and landed a job with the Red Eagles Ski School in Gerlos, Austria. I had never been skiing in Austria, let alone in Gerlos and so didn’t know what to expect! Gerlos is in the Zillertal and offers 166km of slopes so I knew I wouldn’t get bored. It was a busy season, I was teaching British and Dutch skiers from beginners to black-runners and I think I learnt as much as I hope they did!

SS: How did you find your arrival in Gerlos?

ML: I was nervous arriving out in Austria but you soon realise that every Ski & Board School is like a big family and most instructors are there for the winter, ready to ski, ready to work and ready to make new friends. It’s not too tough to relax and enjoy yourself in that environment!

SS: Fair one. And what happened when Spring came round?

ML: In February, I started applying for jobs in the southern hemisphere and by early-March I had a job lined up starting in Thredbo in June. Thredbo is equi-distant between Melbourne and Sydney in Australia’s Snowy Mountains.

SS: Skiing in Australia!?!?

ML: You know this, Phil! Yeah it felt weird to think about skiing in one of the world’s hottest countries but it’s not half-bad…2000ft of vert keeps skiers happy. Work-wise, it was a very successful season – pay rates in Australia are very good and I saved a lot of money that season!

SS: Where did you head to after Oz?

ML: Again as you start approaching the end of the season, you really want to have something sorted for the next season. I was offered work back in Gerlos but I was also offered a job working in Bansko, Bulgaria as a senior ski instructor and that swayed it for me.

SS: How was Bulgaria?

ML: A lot better than people give it credit for! Bansko is a good-sized resort and an ideal place for a ski instructor to ply his/ her trade…

SS: Why’s that?

ML: A lot of Brits want a cheap first-ever skiing holiday and so Bulgaria works on that front but as “never-evers”, they need lessons to keep them safe and to progress their learning. I was maxed-out six days per week on average and made some very good money that season.

SS: That is what it is all about! What about this season?

ML: I’m taking summer 2011 off from instructing – my first summer in three years! I have a job as a Senior Instructor at TUI Travel and so will be instructing again come November/ December but where has yet to be determined!

Uni Snowsports – A Case Study

Having attended a snowboard instructor course with SnowSkool during my year out, I enrolled at the University of Leeds and the first thing I did was sign up to the snowsports club. Just before the start of my 4^th year, in May 2009, I was elected President of Leeds Snowriders (Leeds University Snowsports Club). The role of the club is to bring together like-minded shred heads and to organise regular trips to the snow.

It’s fair to say that I had underestimated how much time I would have to devote to the club. Running a club of over 1000 members is no easy ride, especially when those members are students who are often drunk…and nude. Fortunately though I had an awesome committee working with me and we had a great year!

Over the course of the year it was great to see a sizeable growth of the club. We took 300 students to Val d’Isère over the Christmas break and 430 students to Val Thorens at Easter (the biggest trip in the club’s history!). Throughout the year we also entered teams into the university freestyle and race competitions and organised heaps of social events. This included the infamous Snowriders ball, at which 250 students descended on a previously quiet hotel, drank way too much wine, had a massive cheesecake fight, and generally disgraced themselves – a pretty successful night in my opinion!

Out of all the events that we ran my personal highlight was organising our end-of-year social, an event that saw over 600 people attend. Complete with live bands and DJs, a half pipe and skate demo in the grounds of the venue. To top it all off we organised a real snow rail jam – in June no less – complete with ski and snowboard demos from the likes of current European X Games bronze medallist skier James “Woodsy” Woods and GB snowboard legend and all round hero Dom Harrington.

All in all my year running the club was both challenging and extremely rewarding at the same time. It required the vast majority of my time when I wasn’t working on my degree but as a result I made some incredible friends and gained some invaluable skills that I wouldn’t have been able to acquire elsewhere.

I would highly recommend getting involved with your university snowsports club. There’s always a super friendly, welcoming atmosphere and it’s a great way to meet like-minded people who share the same passion for anything and everything snow related!

My SnowSkool Scholarship in Banff by Shauna Rigby – Week Eleven

The day had finally arrived – the morning of our Level 2 exams. The sun was shining but not everyone was keen for the  start of a very long and stressful week!  Despite the dread, all of our skiers headed out to the front of Sunshine Village to meet our new test conductors and sort things out. We met at the ODD cabin and were split into 4 groups. Our conductors for the week were Ben, Casey, Kenji and Don – four very experienced Level 4 instructors. I was in a group with Ben. The day took off quickly when Ben had us skiing bumps straight away. The main focus was on being more aggressive and keeping forward the whole time. Everyone had different things to work on and by the end of the day quite a few of us had accomplished those goals.

We swapped course conductors on Tuesday morning so that it was a fair assessment of us. This time I got Casey, who is Technical Director at Sunshine. He was a lot more serious than Ben, which had it’s good and bad moments! Casey got us doing a little bit of teaching but mainly focused on our skiing ability. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were probably the most stressful days of my life!!  The course conductors gave no insight into whether or not you were going to pass so everyone was freaking out. The pressure of Level 2 got to a lot people throughout the week but Friday morning brought some smiles with it – the conductors seemed to be a bit more happy than usual which put everyone more at ease. The snow was in perfect condition and the temperature was nigh on hoody weather! It was the last day of exams and everyone was putting in 100% to make sure their skiing and teaching were up to scratch but it was still non-stop exam pressure until 2pm when we finished. The worst part, however, was the 2 hour wait for results as still no one had any clue as to what their results would be.  As we gathered upstairs after the longest two hours of our lives, we sat in a big group and listened to the conductors announce individually who had successfully completed and passed their CSIA Level 2 exam. Everyone was applauded individually, which made the atmosphere great!  I have never seen so many happy faces at once. We even had a few tears of happiness from the boys (Fraser McGougan) haha. All of the Banff SnowSkoolers should be congratualted for an amazing set of achievements with 100% of the boarders passing and about 97% of the skiers passing!

After a loud a cheerful busride back to the hostel everyone headed straight to the kitchen for fish and chips to celebrate our awesome results! There was karaoke in the Storm Cellar and lots of graduation banners put up for us which got everyone in the best mood. For some it was their last night with SnowSkool as they were getting up early for a long plane trip back home. With only 2 weeks left on the course, we are all starting to fit in as much as we can.  Race coaching course starts on Sunday, followed by the avalanche and back country courses. There is no rest for a lot of SnowSkoolers – we tough it all out!

The SnowSkool course has been an amazing experience and all the weeks of training paid off on Friday afternoon. Fingers crossed for the people completeing courses next week – another badge to add to the collection!!

Ciao

Shauna

For more info about the SnowSkool scholarship, click here.

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My SnowSkool Scholarship in Banff by Shauna Rigby – Week Ten

Our last week of training with SnowSkool before our Level 2 exam – how exciting!

This week has been one of the best weeks so far. I got to ski with the instructor Dom this week which turned out to be great. It was the first time I had him for a whole week of teaching. We got into groups for the last time ever and I got to ski with people I had not skied with throughout the whole course – aussie boys Sam D’Arcy and Tim Sanderson plus Joost, Euan and Johnny were in my group. We had a blast! On Monday morning Dom took us for some intermediate parallel to start off the day. The weather was warming up but it kept snowing occasionally. The group had a great morning but the afternoon was even better! We got to rip up around the resort and did some teaching at the same time. Dom knew how to mix it all up well and keep us entertained.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday having a go at teaching the groups. Everyone seemed to be pretty confident in what they were doing which is a good sign for our Level 2s. Wednesday’s weather brought some great powder for us and Dom let us spend most of the day just shredding. We got some great shots of the group skiing knee deep on Shoulder run. It was amazing!!

Thursday was St Patrick’s Day! Shane and Rob were dressed up in big green costumes all day and they represented Ireland in style. It was a nice sunny day up at Sunshine Village and Dom decided to let us work on our technique and teaching in the morning and then we did a bit of free skiing in the afternoon. It was a lovely, relaxing day and everyone seemed to have smiles on their faces for all of it. After we finished, I went into town with Kirstin and we bought some clothes to make a St Paddy’s day outfit. Table cloths work really well for anyone who is interested haha! We had a great night down in the Storm Cellar with Shane and Rob setting the Irish tone. The barmen changed the colour of our drinks to green as well – it looked awesome!

Friday was amazing. The snow was perfect, the sun was out and it was possible to ski in hoodies! Dom let us take over for the day so we could practise some last minute teaching – but in our own fun way! We got to take turns going wherever we wanted on the mountain whether it be bumps, tree skiing, terrain park, groomed runs or skiing off drops. It was such a nice day and we finished at 2pm instead of 4pm and went to Trappers Bar with everyone. Luckily it was warm so we sat on the balcony outside and enjoyed the afternoon sun. All the instructors joined us for some food and drinks and we all talked about what we would be doing after the course and life in general. Once the day was over we went back to the hostel for a great barbeque dinner and prepared for a big night in the Storm Cellar with a Hawaiian-themed karaoke night. We were also celebrating Tom Kershaw’s birthday that night which was good fun. Friday night was the best way to end of the last week of training.

As we come close to the Level 2s starting on Monday I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone the best of luck for their exams and fingers crossed we all pass with flying colours! I’d also like to congratulate all those in Big White who successfully passed their exams.

Shauna

For more info about the SnowSkool scholarship, click here.

My SnowSkool Scholarship in Banff by Shauna Rigby – Week Nine

Week 9 in Banff saw an intense week of training in preparation for our Level 2 exams after an enjoyable week resting up.  Monday morning was really nice – the sun was out with the occasional flurry of snowflakes and the temperature was above -10^oC. for once!  We got to pick our own groups for a change and then the instructors had the chance to choose who they wanted to ski with. My group was a great deal of fun with Barbie, Connor, Matt Halidu and Pete. Small in number but hilarious!  Chris chose us as his group to instruct for the week – we had the best time cracking jokes all day, especially Mr Halidu with his great sense of humour. We practiced our intermediate parallel turns and skied through bumps. Chris has a habit of making us do speiss turns, where we have to stand still and jump from left to right down the hill – it’s the most tiring and uncoordinated thing to do but nonetheless we saw a great improvement in everyone’s jumps by the end.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent practising our teaching, skiing short turns, bumps, snow ploughing and intermediate parallels. On Tuesday night I went to the waterslides with Kirstin and enjoyed relaxing in the hot tub for the first time on this trip. It was so much fun going down the slides and by the end we had the biggest smiles on our faces. Wednesday afternoon was a new experience for everyone - the ice wall at the hostel!  It takes some time for the ice to build up on the frame so it’s strong enough and when it is, they open it up for people to use. This time we had pro-climbers come specially to show we SnowSkoolers how to do it and introduce us to something none of us thought we would ever do in our life. Two people were able to climb at once which made it a lot of fun. Goggles were a must due to the amount of ice that some people were kicking off! I had a great deal of fun especially considering I’m not a big fan of heights! My arms were killing by the end but it was definitely worth it.

Friday brought the fresh tracks to the mountain!! Our instructors decided to let us have a powder day full of free skiing through the trees and exploring the mountain for drops and jumps. It was awesome! The temperature was 2^oC – above zero for the first time this season, which was such a good change. Our group had a great day with Chris and it was the best way to end a long week. Once everyone was back at the hostel and had eaten dinner, our superhero costumes came out for the themed karaoke night in the Storm Cellar and there certainly were some creative ideas between us all! The Cellar was packed and karaoke went off – everyone got up there at some point during the night which made the atmosphere great fun.

That was it for the week. Next week will be our last week of training with the SnowSkool instructors before Level 2 exams commence. Fingers crossed for everyone going for their Level 2!

For more information on future scholarship programmes, click HERE

 

My SnowSkool Scholarship in Banff by Shauna Rigby – Week Eight

This week in Banff has been a very relaxing one. It was our first week off in 8 weeks! Let’s just say I spent it regaining my energy and catching up with people from back home. The highlights of this week were shredding the powder on Monday, sleeping in on Tuesday, Wednesday AND Thursday, and learning to snowboard on Friday – not to mention the Jersey Shore themed night in the Storm Cellar.

Last week’s cold temperatures left us with no lessons at the end of the week, so to make up for it we had a day’s training on Monday. The snow was dumping and the powder was building up quickly which made for a great day of skiing. This time I had Dom as my instructor, for the first time in the program.  He took us to Wa Wa straight away and headed to the trees for some fresh tracks. It wasn’t all fun and games though as we learnt how to introduce someone to powder skiing for the first time. It’s quite a different stance compared to normal skiing. By the end of a great day skiing however, I was extremely tired! Once the bus drove us home, we had a nice dinner and then headed off to bed.

Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday were spent catching up on sleep, watching movies, shopping, doing my washing, cooking, walking around town and the list of lazy things goes on! I did enjoy a trip into town to watch the Chelsea vs Manchester United match. There were about 13 of us who watched – with only a few Man U supporters. Unfortunately Man U lost and there were triple the amount of smiles in the room for Chelsea’s win!

Friday was a whole different story! Duncan Evans was kind enough to put his new instructing qualifications to the test by teaching me to snowboard. I was lucky enough to borrow Kirstin Lindsay’s snowboard and boots for the day instead of having to hire some.  At first I couldn’t manage to get the hang of it but after 2 or 3 runs I was having the best time! We boarded up Goats Eye, Angel, Divide and Wa Wa – not to mention the terrain park! I didn’t do any jumps obviously but we met up with Tim Sanderson in the park and he showed off his awesome skills. Tim is an amazing skier – he has a lot of guts to pull off the tricks he does. By the end of the day I was wrecked! I had so much fun and a big thanks to Duncan for being such a great teacher!! The end of the afternoon was the beginning of a big night – our Jersey Shore party!  Surprisingly, quite a lot of the guys really got into it and headed into town and to get spray tans during the day. They definitely fit the part well with tight clothes, big hair, lots of makeup, hair gel and sunnies! It was a lot of fun, not to mention the karaoke at the Storm Cellar! If you want to see everyone in their fake tans, take a look on the other Banff Blog for some great pictures!

Level 2 training commences tomorrow and everyone is getting ready for a big couple of weeks. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us all!

Until next week,

Shauna.

 

For more information on future scholarship programmes, click HERE

My SnowSkool Scholarship in Banff by Shauna Rigby – Week Seven

Week 7 in Banff – but it was hardly a full week as the freezing temperatures limited our activities!

We started off Monday morning by splitting into groups according to who wanted to work on training for their race coach course and those who wanted to focus on their Level 2 course. I got Chris as my coach again this week. The morning was spent doing lots of intermediate parallel turns and slalom turns. The snow was pretty good so Chris took us through the trees a bit as well to mix it up and make it more enjoyable. I left at lunchtime feeling unwell and I went back to the hostel.  I had a long nap which helped a lot but even so, I wasn’t up for playing soccer that night but I heard it was one big game!

On Tuesday, Chris took us to the terrain park for a couple of runs. We worked all our excitement out of the way so we could give our full attention to short turns. We skied down the run Divide which proved quite a challenge. After lunch, Chris did some video analysis of us doing three different types of turns and because it was quite cold, we went inside for and watched the videos of us all. It really helps when you can see what you need to improve on!

Wednesday was FREEZING cold at -27 degrees C! We only managed to do a few runs before heading inside to warm up. We went back out and did some one-ski skiing for a while but this drill did not keep us any warmer so Chris just let us go to lunch earlier than usual. The food was warm and yummy as always but the temperature outside got even cooler so we decided to head to the ODD cabin to watch some World Cup DVDs and talk to Casey, a Level 4 ski and race coach, about our race coach course next week. He is extremely experienced so it was really helpful chatting to him. Despite the cold weather, however, the night racing in Norquay went ahead as usual – Fraser and I were the only ones who went up because the others had injuries or couldn’t bear the cold! This week, it was slalom. The course was good but quite a few gates were snapped by those extra fast men! It was hard racing slalom without my proper slalom skis but I managed to make it down safely.

The rest of the week was very quiet because the lifts couldn’t open due to the low temps of -35 degrees C.  I spent Thursday and Friday in the hostel catching up on my washing and emails but Friday night was a great deal of fun! Most SnowSkoolers caught a bus into Calgary to watch the ice hockey match, Flames vs Sharks! The traffic was really bad though so we missed the first 20 mins of the game which included 1 goal and a fight! After getting off the bus and walking the rest of the way, we finally made it to the arena. It was huge! The place was packed with Calgary Flames supporters. I think I saw a maximum of seven Shark supporters the whole time. I had never been to an ice hockey match before, and wow, was it an experience! I think there were more fights between the fans than there were on the ice but it didn’t make the game any less exciting! It was a disappointing end to the night though when the Sharks won the penalty shoot out. However, it didn’t dampen anyone’s mood and we were all very lively on the bus trip home.

I had a great time this week despite the cold! I can’t believe we are almost finished with the trip. Only a few more weeks left and then I will be heading back to Australia. Level 2 is starting to kick in so everyone is going to be a lot more focused in the coming weeks!

Ciao for now from Banff

Shauna

For more information on future scholarship programmes, click HERE