Come on Grandad

My first batch of work after returning from illness saw me skiing again with Mairead, Mark and Chris. I first met and skied with them last winter over in Val d’Isere. So when they contacted me in the autumn to say they were coming to Méribel and wanted to book, I really looked forward to this particular week.

For many years they had skied together, visited many different ski resorts and thoroughly enjoyed whizzing around on the pistes. However they explained to me that they wanted to move their skiing up to the next level, ie skiing off-piste.

Straight away we discussed both the similarities and some differences of skiing away from the groomed pistes. We spoke about the four performance threads, as previously mentioned on this blog: Physical, Tactical, Technical and Psychological. It was very interesting to hear everyone talk about what was going through their minds at the top, and later at the bottom, with each off-piste pitch. People tend mostly to concentrate on their technical performance, so we all found it refreshing being able to explore the other areas of the performance threads to see how it affected and improved their enjoyment.

Technical aspects were studied of course, however I did my best to keep things simple. The main reason being that skiing off-piste was relatively new to our three intrepid skiers; they had plenty of other things on their mind as well as technique. Simple pointers were the way forward, and they all progressed very well.

We gradually built our confidence and visited some fantastic off-piste areas including the itinerary down to St.Martin, the Lac du Lou itinerary off La Masse in Les Menuires, and we found some fabulous powder in the Mont Vallon vicinity amongst other treats. We all had a great week skiing together, awesome snow and a healthy dosage of banter. Mark proudly told me at the beginning of the week that he had recently become a ‘Grandad’. As soon as he mentioned that, I knew I had more banter material, ‘Come on Grandad, try and keep up’. ‘Would you like a hand up Grandad out of that deep snow?’ The list went on….Here he is ladies and gentlemen, the best skiing Grandad of the week…

Not bad for a Grandad is he? Live with passion everyone.

Martin