Ski instructor - First day of work

Bryce Wilson now an official ski instructor after just 3 weeks of training on EA’s ski instructor course is about to start his first day work living his dream getting paid to ski! Bryce’s job offer was guaranteed before he left home with EA Ski and Snowboard!

Check out this Bryce’s first day teaching was below on his fifth ski instructor course blog update from New Zealand.

Waking up Monday morning at 6am to throw a pair of snow pants and ski jacket on sounds strange to some people but to the EA crew its just anther day.

The staff bus leaves each morning at 7:15 am from the town of Methven and begins its long journey up the narrow and curvy road to the car park of Mt. Hutt. The bus ride gives some a chance to catch a few more Zs or take in the awesome view of the sun peaking up over the Southern Alps.

Once arrived we head into the staff hut to gear up for the day, as the rush of instructors come through you hurry to grab your jacket and slip into your ski boots trying not to step on any toes while doing this little dance of getting ready. Once geared up I head up the stairs to check the schedule and see what my day is going to look like on paper at least, I see I have first line up at 9:20 and a workshop at 11:30 so far the day looks like a nice easy day to start my first work week of the season.

As I was standing at the line up waiting for the first wave of guest to come over I began to think about all of our training we had over the past few weeks and if I remember how to actually teach it to a guest I began to think “what if I cant get them to even wedge, what if I cant get them to ski at all, what if they hate it”?

These thoughts raced through my head as I stood their waiting for what seemed like forever, finally it was time as I got introduced to my first guest I smiled, shook hands, introduced myself to them and let my first ski lesson as a certified level one ski instructor begin. All the thoughts about forgetting information and the “what if’s” I had seemed to go away as soon as I was standing in front of my guest starting my lesson.

Halfway through the lesson I noticed that my guest were all smiling and enjoying their experience from not knowing how to get into their skis to making perfect wedge turns down the beginner hill. It was such an awesome feeling knowing all the hard work you had put in over the past weeks just paid off in that one-hour lesson by a smile and a thank you.

After the first lesson the rest of the day and every lesson I had after went fast and by the end of the week each lesson got better and better from my teaching style to being able to fix their skiing ability. Seeing the change in each guests skiing was one of the best feelings knowing that you helped them have a positive experience that they will talk about to other people. Just like that the first week is under your skis and you finallydoing your dream job as a ski instructor at Mt. Hutt!