I’ve Gone from Never Skiing to Ski Instructor – But I Still Want to Improve
19 March 2018
16-year-old, Molly Cook is already a talented ski instructor. She’s got some pretty neat skills on her two planks, most of which she learnt at The Snow Centre and practiced in the mountains. To look at her now, you wouldn’t imagine she once couldn’t ski at all, but as we all know, everyone starts somewhere. Here’s how the love of skiing started for Molly.
It started with a little inspiration…
“When I was 4 years old, I was taken to watch my cousin skiing. I thought it was absolutely amazing and I couldn't wait to try it out myself. I was lucky enough to get the chance to go skiing a week later at the Hemel Hempstead slope. It was back when the now real snow slope, The Snow Centre was just a dry ski slope. I have had a love for the sport ever since.”
Progressed to weekly lessons…
“As soon as The Snow Centre was built I started properly learning how to ski on real snow, attending a Junior Lesson every week on a Saturday morning. After my first lesson on the old dry slope, I could never have imagined that I would be able to ski on real snow inside, and so locally to where I lived. I thought it was so amazing that The Snow Centre had real snow! This made my learning experience so much fun.
Learning to ski at The Snow Centre really helped me prepare for my mountain holidays. During advanced coaching sessions, I learnt important skills like how to cope with variable terrain and how to adapt my skiing to suit the conditions. As well as improving skiing technique, my sessions at The Snow Centre helped prepare me for the rules of indoor and mountain ski slopes, allowing my mountain holidays to be purely fun experiences.”
It was mostly about having fun…
“The thing I like the most about skiing is how much of a good time I have doing it, and how I can always improve my performance. It is really motivational to have fun doing something that I always want to get better at. This is what made me want to keep progressing at the start of my journey, the better I got, the more fun I had.”
The instructor badge became the goal…
“When I was learning at The Snow Centre I would always come home after my lesson and tell my parents that one day I will be one of the people wearing the red jackets, the colour of the instructor's jackets at the time. My ski instructors made all of my lessons fun and that is something I have always wanted to do, because that is what encouraged me to want to become an instructor myself. Sadly, I never got to wear a red jacket as now they're blue, but I didn’t mind once I qualified.”
Helping others learn, proved very rewarding…
“Now that I’m a qualified instructor, the thing I like most about teaching at The Snow Centre is seeing people come regularly for lessons and watching them improve. I find the job really rewarding, partly because I remember how I felt as I improved on my own ski lessons every Saturday.
Knowing how far I have come with my skiing makes me feel really proud. I think it’s cool that a few years ago I was still learning with the instructors I now work alongside. Being able to teach people who are just starting their skiing journey often makes me feel my own learning journey was even more worthwhile.
For anyone considering learning to ski I would say to give it a try as you never know where it may lead you. It’s a fun experience and there is always room for improvement and progression. If you really enjoy skiing, and you’re considering becoming a ski instructor, from my own experience I can tell you, all the hard work pays off and you never know, you may be inspiring the next generation of ski instructors yourself.”
If you do want to get into skiing, then head over to our adult ski lessons, kids ski lessons, and private ski lessons pages.
