On strike

For most of this week the spring weather has been on strike. It felt like the start of winter with several cold, windy and snowy days. Tough to be skiing in, but that meant even more of the fresh stuff. We've also seen some stonking skies this week as well, please note that this photo has not been touched in photoshop.

I've had some sessions with Sarah and Georgie this week, pictured below. We concentrated on building confidence at the start of the week by looking at increasing speed control on various pistes.

We looked at making the turning ski grippier in the snow, not by using muscular strength, but by using our body weight. My philosophy is to direct our body weight down to the sweet spot of the ski, underneath our feet, which as a result increases friction between the sharp metal edges and the snow. We found that there are many times when we can in fact have too much friction, so we also looked at how that could be managed. A great choice to have, enough friction, or too much friction. Tony, Maggie and friends were also introduced to this choice, as well as multi-tasking further with steering control.

The weather today improved greatly, which allowed me to make the most of the quiet pistes, and to again appreciate the scenery. I caught up with Rick who kindly took some photos of me enjoying the fresh conditions.

It's a busy week next week. The Altitude Festival is returning to Méribel for a second year. A long list of celebrated stand up comedians, international DJ's and musicians including KT Tunstall are all performing. Have a look at their website for more details, http://www.altitudefestival.com/ .

Last year's Festival was a great success, including the world's highest comedy show at the top of Saulire. This photo was taken last year up at Saulire with Marcus Brigstocke and Andre Vincent after the performance.

Britain's best ski racers are competing here in Méribel at the British National Ski Racing Championships all week. Plus, and most importantly for me, I will be skiing again with Arthur. I need to get re-charged in time for Arthur's visit because he always skis hard and fast, and takes jumps at any opportunity. I'll let you know how it all goes next week.

Martin

Road trip

It's time to own up yet again that I just love skiing. I adore being in the mountains skiing with friends, and sometimes, just sometimes I miss those ski holidays from all those years ago. So last week it was decided that I would selfishly book a day off from work, so that Harriet, Rick and I could all go to Val d'Isere for the day and partially relive such times.

Our friend Phil G from Nottingham was on holiday over there. We drove over with our flask of strong coffee, a bag of pastries and a rendezvous at the bottom of a chairlift. What a great day, awesome weather although very cold; great snow, plus a naughty lunch of burger and chips. We even risked skiing down the 'Face' black piste which hosted many of the World Championship races last month, note the scaffolding for the spectactor stands in the photo above. I've never skied on such an awful piste for years: it was steep and very very icy. We even competed in our own version of 'The World Side-Slipping Championships', because there was no other option to side-slip however much we tried to turn effectively.

Thankfully that took place mid afternoon, so the only option was to then head for the sunny slopes and stop for a vin chaud. Boy oh boy, I was really in holiday mode, to the point of enthusiatically participating in exaggerated discussions on who won our championships, Harriet swears she won because one 'turn' resulted in at least a forty metre descent !?!

Earlier in the week I skied with Jan. Her goal was to try to gain more confidence in skiing away from the piste, whatever the conditions. The Spring sunshine had taken away the possibility of finding powder, so we really concentrated on fine tuning on-piste skills.

Balance and steering - especially patient steering with her feet - were practised off the side of the Mont Vallon pistes. Video was also used during the morning to help Jan see for herself the important effect these skills have, on both piste and off-piste performance.

We both benefited from great weather to be able to work in such environments. To be honest, last week was amazing. Day after day of bright Spring sunshine, without the snow being too affected, with my favourite sunsets to boot. This picture was taken looking down the valley with the Brides-les-Bains bubble in the foreground.

I also had a few sessions with Vadim from Latvia. He arrived at the beginning of the week tired after a heavy workload in the last few months because he works for the Latvian Central Bank. We concentrated on the importance on the role of the turning ski, instead of getting distracted by other factors. With this we were soon all over the mountain. Another great example of meeting wonderful people in this job within the mountains.

Speaking of which, the Dublin bunch from last week. Mary, Rohiyah and the others skied really well developing their confidence by practising the transition from snowplough to parallel skiing on the green pistes.

Next week looks as though the fine weather will continue but with cooler temperatures. I have very little of my own work so I'll keep you posted on what comes my way. Have a great week everybody.

Martin

Sunny days

March has finally returned to normal. After plenty of winter storms recently, we are back to normal March conditions, ie stonking sunny days with warmer temperatures. Sunglasses and strong sun cream are the norm now, plus baseball caps for the chosen few with little hair !?! Snow conditions are still excellent, even with the change in seasons. See the photo of me taken today by Harriet.

Last week was great fun. I enjoyed looking after a kids' group lesson of blue piste standard. They were made up of three Russians, three French and a girl from Hong Kong. No pictures of them for obvious reasons (permissions from all parents / instructor language limitations!) but what a lovely bunch. They seemed to be loving the sport, even though their instructor wasn't quite fluent in all of their native languages.... It was great to see them smiling every morning before the lesson started, and tired but satisfied when meeting up with their parents at the end. I'm still searching on the internet for 'one behind the other' in Russian though. Not to mention "Wait for me at the top of the lift, Mikhail!"

On Friday last week I took a day off, and tried to simulate a scene from the film 'Dumb and Dumber'. In other words I placed myself directly under the flight path of a busy airport, not Heathrow, but a more chilled out but active Méribel Altiport. What a buzz experiencing both the take offs and landings. Brownie points to those who can name the ski lifts in the background!

This week I'm meeting up again with some lovely ladies from Dublin that I first met in January. Their goal is to start the process of moving on from the trusted snowplough to the 'Holy Grail' of skiing, the parallel turn. Plus, Harriet is working hard on her skiing.....This morning we worked on her being more stacked for carving, in other words having a robust body position over the skis. She has really worked hard at this the last few visits, and it's paying off fantastically.

Martin

Super Saturday

After teaching Anna on Saturday morning, I caught up with my wife Harriet for our first 'Love Ski' in several weeks. The weather couldn't have been better, our first sunshine for many days. Plus, heaps and heaps of fresh snow.

It had recently stopped snowing after nearly 48 hours, up to half a metre of the stuff on the upper slopes. In fact we had too much fresh snow for powder skiing, it sounds bizarre doesn't it.

Medium to flat slopes were useless, we stopped dead in our tracks with the sheer resistance. But no way did I want to go on steeper slopes because of the higher avalanche risk, as tempting as it was!?!

So we looked around and found the odd safe pitch. By the way, I don't think Harriet was posing for the camera with her smiles, because both of these shots were taken with a zoom lens.

I can't deny that I love the photos that Harriet took of me wearing my new goggles. I just love the reflections of the mountains and weather, and of course the photographer as well.

Yesterday was also amazing weather, sunny and cloudless skies. But today went back to you know what, yep, heavy snowfalls all day. What a fantastic start to March.

Martin

March snowstorms

It's great having Harriet back in resort. I now don't have to worry too much about the next meal, the food shopping, and the car being dug out at the end of a snowstorm (apparently she managed to ski this morning too!) It's snowed heaps in the last couple of days, which meant a tough week with the weather, poor visibility but fantastic fresh snow conditions.

This week I've had the pleasure of teaching complete beginners, where we've all experienced various emotions and sensations. On Thursday for the first time ever the team skied on the fabled fresh stuff, brilliant reactions all round and endless smiles. They all said that it was much more enjoyable skiing than on 'normal' snow, even though the visibility had dropped.

Each day their confidence grew, to the point where on Thursday they were ready to let rip and go for the racing snowplough position. Oh dear, I may have started something there. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting people from various backgounds, including an Irish banker, a Dutch Government immigration lawyer, a French journalist student, an English midwife, a junior doctor from Cambridge and others. Skiing is a great leveller.

In the next few days the weather is forecast to improve, plus our good friend Dominic will arrive for his first skiing holiday in many years.

Martin

Roving Rachel

This week I've met some fantastic visitors to Méribel. I've had a couple lessons with Rachel, Alex, Jan and Joe, see photo below. We've looked at the basics of ski technique, ie balance, steering and grip. After a few trips down the Altiport green piste we agreed to venture further afield.


We looked at how the snow conditions can affect our performance, and how our mental state can affect the route that we take down slopes. As much as possible it's nice for me to show different routes around the massive Méribel ski area, especially quieter unknown tracks. At the end of this afternoons session I was chuffed to be able to share this knowledge and take such a track to avoid the late afternoon rush hour. But within a few seconds a shout of 'MARTIN' shot my way.

I quickly looked behind me to see just three skiers instead of four. Panic stations, but hang on, all I could hear was 'Are you OK Rachel?' amongst giggles. As instructors we have gut reactions, and this time it wasn't great.

Where the hell was Rachel? I couldn't see any evidence, no movement, nothing, just debris of ski equipment. However, after 20 seconds or so a large tree trunk swayed, and then Rachel's head popped up, plus further giggles. Joe and Alex got down on their stomachs to reach for Rachel. I reached down as well, but into my bag for my camera sensing a couple of cheeky shots for the blog.

Did I panic, you bet. Did I feel a little guilty, massively. But we all went for a beer down at Jacks bar after skiing. A great story was told by everyone, and further lessons were booked by 'Team Extreme'. So that concluded another great day in the office.

Plenty to look forward to this week. Snow storms and cold temperatures are heading our way. Plus Harriet is finally back out again from England on Thursday to look after me. Happy days.

Martin