TR Taos Feb. 1-7, 2020

[liquidfeet]

Thank you so much to all of you who are answering my question about the educational component of the Taos Ski Week. I wanted to go with the group this season, and almost did. I'm setting aside $$ for next year's trip, assuming there will be one again.

I am always interested in how people learn. I've been an art teacher all my life, first teaching in high school, then college. Late in life I discovered skiing and became a ski instructor. My background in art instruction is important in how I teach skiing. I was always a "different" art instructor, focusing on technique first, content and innovation last. Many art teachers in the schools where I taught focused primarily on helping students put personally generated content into their work, or on encouraging the student's individual creative impulses. I was the technical drill sergeant in those art departments, insisting that in order to communicate content or do innovative media manipulation the student needed to know the visual language (the technical stuff of art) and what had come before (how others had built that language). Figuring out how to put what I was teaching into words was a big deal for me as a teacher, and I worked with my students to help them use words to describe what they were doing as well so they could help each other. So that's where I'm coming from when I ask what people learned.

On the other hand, one of my favorite trainers, whose teaching I worship, liked to go as wordless as possible in lessons. "Can you do this?" was his approach. But then he doesn't post online .

 

[marzNC]

I loved the Taos women’s ski week and would do it again in a heartbeat but for me as a skier it’s the Alta Lodge women’s ski camp that made a radical change. It may simply be that I was really “getting” the Alta instructor. I was also the lowest skilled and slowest in my group at Alta so I really had to push myself to keep up, and force myself to confront very challenging terrain — the long-lasting impact was mental above anything else. At Taos I was the fastest and most confident in my group, and I wasn’t tested as much. I did love the many bump drills we did, which were very useful. I had a fantastic week.

All this to say: lessons are not just for technique, they help with the mindset.

Agree that good chemistry to an instructor is important, whether the lesson is an hour, 2 hours, or multi-day. Everyone learns differently. Also depends on what someone wants out of a given week. Working on technique in a lower group vs skiing more challenging terrain with an instructor serve to achieve different goals long term. Being able to switch groups based on interest is an advantage for doing a Ski Week. Although that's easier with regular Ski Weeks than during the Women's Ski Week.

I've been both the best and the middle in terms of ability for my four Ski Week groups, as well as in other lessons involving other people. I learn different things depending on the composition of the group. I happen to learn a lot when an instructor is teaching someone else. When I was the best last Jan, every time I was the immediate follower behind the instructor, he would up the speed in a way was exactly what I needed for a short set of turns.

The contrast between my two groups last season showed up on Day 1 of the second Ski Week. For my first group, the middle of Hunziker (off Patton) was something we did midweek, with a full stop at the top and some suggestions of how to ski it, or at least how to get started. For the second group, the instructor went over the short, steep shot into Hunziker without stopping on Sunday. The first group stayed on blues and blacks. Everyone in the second group had said they wanted to ski double-blacks during their Ski Week. The second group hiked the Ridge towards the end of the week. That was after the instructor talked the last hold out into giving it a try because she knew the snow was excellent (20+ inches of fresh powder) off the Ridge.

 

[marzNC]

Thank you so much to all of you who are answering my question about the educational component of the Taos Ski Week. I wanted to go with the group this season, and almost did. I'm setting aside $$ for next year's trip, assuming there will be one again.

Your questions always stimulate good discussion.

Fair to say that based on what I heard last week, there will be Divas returning to Taos for a Ski Week next season. Like this season, there will probably be Divas there more than one week since Taos Ski Weeks are available mid-Dec thru late March. It's only Women's Ski Week that is scheduled for a particular week. When the week was picked for 2020, we didn't know that early Feb would be Women's Ski Week or that Deb Armstrong would be actively involved. That was a bonus for the Divas who could make it Feb. 2-7.

 

[Kimmyt]

I am always interested in how people learn.

I shared a private once with @RachelV and the first thing the ski instructor asked us was what type of learners we were, respectively. Turns out, we are completely different in that aspect despite having similar ability levels and she seems much more like you, very analytical and technical and she likes to have things broken down for her which the instructor indicated was not typical as most of the time he had to dumb down the technical jargon. I on the other hand, am a completely intuitive skier, which made his job challenging for me because I really have to just try stuff and see what makes sense in my body. But I'm fairly happy bopping around after someone on the mountain and waiting for the breakthroughs to happen. I can ski a lot of stuff on the mountain, but for the life of me I can't have a conversation about angulation and edges and initiation and blahblahblah. The instructor did do a great job working with both of our learning styles, in the end, although I'm sure we didn't make it easy for him!

 

[santacruz skier]

I'm a visual person. Demonstrate please and I'll follow.

 

[marzNC]

I'm a visual person. Demonstrate please and I'll follow.

I'm visual to the point that I'll turn around so that I'm facing the same way as the instructor at a stop when something is being demonstrated and explained. Learned a great deal this time just watching the instructor's use of poles on groomers. It's not that pole touches are required, but the way she did them is better practice for how poles should be used on bump terrain.

I shared a private once with @RachelV and the first thing the ski instructor asked us was what type of learners we were, respectively. Turns out, we are completely different in that aspect despite having similar ability levels and she seems much more like you, very analytical and technical and she likes to have things broken down for her which the instructor indicated was not typical as most of the time he had to dumb down the technical jargon. I on the other hand, am a completely intuitive skier, which made his job challenging for me because I really have to just try stuff and see what makes sense in my body. But I'm fairly happy bopping around after someone on the mountain and waiting for the breakthroughs to happen. I can ski a lot of stuff on the mountain, but for the life of me I can't have a conversation about angulation and edges and initiation and blahblahblah. The instructor did do a great job working with both of our learning styles, in the end, although I'm sure we didn't make it easy for him!

Really good instructors make semi-private lessons feel like parallel private lessons. For the Request Ski Week, the four of us were quite different in personality and ski experience. I had a lesson at my home mountain in Jan with two adults and two tween kids, all advanced. The instructor (PSIA Examiner level with 25+ years experience) came up with drills we could all do that would help. He gave us each different instructions about what to focus on.

The advantage a Ski Week instructor has is that they have 5-6 consecutive mornings to work with. So they can take a little time to get a feel for someone's learning style.

One category for learning style is called "kinesthetic," which means "relating to a person's awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs (proprioceptors) in the muscles and joints." One of the Level 3 instructors at my home mountain leans in that direction when she teaches. Was pretty interesting having a little Diva clinic with her several years ago.

 

[diymom]

, assuming there will be one again.

I'm hoping to go again next year. And possibly help set up some sort of lodging package if other Divas are interested. Turns out that one of the women in my group was the director of sales at TSV. She said she could definitely help put something together, and I have her card.

 

[TNtoTaos]

I'm a visual person. Demonstrate please and I'll follow.

Yep - same here!

 

[liquidfeet]

I'm hoping to go again next year. And possibly help set up some sort of lodging package if other Divas are interested. Turns out that one of the women in my group was the director of sales at TSV. She said she could definitely help put something together, and I have her card.

Keep me in the loop!

 

[marzNC]

Finally getting around to checking my photos from my extended ski trip out west in February. Not good about remembering to take group shots. But managed to get one towards the end of the week. @diymom and @Bookworm were around all week too.

@Yamaste , @teppaz , a group mate for teppaz , @snow cat , @Olesya Chornoguz , @santacruz skier , snow cat's sister