Who Wants to be a Ski Instructor?

If you have been following my occasional series of posts on how to be a ski instructor (see Part 1 - The Gap Course, Part 2 - Individual Courses and Part 3 - Finding a Job) you will have an idea of what it takes to gain a ski (or snowboard) instructor qualification and start looking for a job. The next question is: Is it for you?

For me, teaching skiing is the best job in the world. However it is not an easy way to make a living. My summer 'holiday' this year was a two week ski training course, since when I have been working six days a week to pay for november ski training before the season starts. If you just want to spend a season working in a ski resort (something I highly recommend and will talk about in a future post) then there are much easier ways to do it than instructing, unless you are already qualified. Working for a hotel, bar, shop or tour company you will have a great season with a lot more personal ski time than an instructor. If you simply want to ski, the chances are you will soon become frustrated with teaching beginners on the nursery slopes.

Teaching is something to look at if you want a longer seasonal career. The investment of time and money to be an instructor means that for most of us it is not worth pursuing for a season or two (although you can always continue teaching part time, either a week or two a year or on artificial slopes as mentioned in the previous post). Most instructors teach for several years to a lifetime, with many working two winters a year - the second in New Zealand, Australia or South America. In the school I work for, the oldest instructor is 67 and has taught there for fifteen years, many instructors have worked ten years or more and even the ski school photos from the seventies have a number of familiar faces on them.

In the Alpine nations ski instructing is usually seen as a long term career, often started as a teenager and ended at retirement age. While the British do not always see it this way, it is certainly to be regarded as more than a holiday job, if only because of the effort it takes to get the instructor license in the first place.

Why to be a Ski Instructor

Before continuing the series on how to become a ski instructor, I thought I would take a moment to discuss why you might want to, and why you might not. Many people start on the road to ski instructing because they enjoy skiing and think getting paid to ski every day sounds like a pretty good deal. Well, there are days when it is like that, but you can easily spend a week teaching without leaving the beginner slope. This is particularly when you are starting out, but almost all instructors spend a considerable amount of their time teaching beginners.

Bad reasons for becoming a ski instructor then - to ski a lot, or to make money. If these are your sole motivation then you may want to reconsider. Perhaps you could get an evening job in resort (there are always plenty of bars and restaurants), or look for a well paid job in a city near the mountains (Geneva, Milan, Vancouver etc.) and ski at weekends. If you are good enough, especially at freestyle you could try and get sponsored - then you really do get paid to ski, but are also expected to work hard and promote the sponsors properly.

Enjoying skiing and being outdoors are obviously important, but for me the biggest reason for doing the job is the reward of teaching someone else to do the sport I love, especially if they are surprised by their own progress. Those hours on the beginnger slope are well spent if at the end of it the pupil has improved their skiing and their confidence. If you do not get anything out of the teaching side of the job you will not last long as an instructor. Expect to spend a lot of time in a snowplough (or wedge) on the instructor courses, and if you cannot see why this is necessary, again you might want to consider other options.

Here are a few other reasons given by instructors I know (most tongue in cheek):

• Working outdoors, living in the mountains
• Keeping fit walking up and down the beginner slope
• Being paid to talk rubbish all day
• Being second only to God
• Altitude is the best hangover cure*
• Apres-ski drinking is mandatory
• The neck up goggles down tan line
• The oh so flattering uniform and the chance to appear in the photo above...
  

*I have paraphrased this from a long story about getting very drunk in Austria, the hangover melting away in the cable car, the moment of revelation about future career choice - I won't repeat it here as I won't do it justice