Jane Owen
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From
October 23, 2007
France's bully boy ski instructors
Our Teen Family travel expert (and the world's most useless skier) finds she still loathes the French ESF ski instructors
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Always have ESF and never met anybody like you describe. They are sometimes young instructors that spend their year offering lessons either in the mountains or on the coast. Somey are very experienced locals that know their patch extremely well. They really look after the group. These myths about the French being impolite are standard stereotypes. The instructors we had for my young daughter were excellent and caring. If you are very nervous then you really do need to be in the right group or take the time to have some private lessons - skiing takes some learning but a good instructor can assess a group and get them to make session on session progress. They also know when to take it steady to avoid injury. As for language it is very hard not to find a French instructor that cannot manage in English but then it is quite easy to go into a French speaking group provided you have a littel school French. My best teacher ever was in Italy not ESF granted but no real English but what charm.
N Monk, Stevenage,
Think yourselves lucky, when I learned to ski, the only instructions that the far from bi-lingual instructors would impart were - bend zee knees, don't sit down.
Mathew Rowlands, Perpignan, France
Whilst I don't agree that ESF are all bad, if anyone is holidaying in the Three vallys this season, I strongly reccommend giving Magic in Motion a go. Groups tend to be smaller, the instructors dont seem to have an ego when it comes to blue runs and all of them spoke excellent english (some of them were also very good looking- not strictly a requirement...but a definate bonus!). I was in Meribel for a season in 2005, and took several intermediate snow boarding lessons to improve my technique- my boarding improved no end! Having had lessons with both ESF & Magic in Motion, I would pick the latter every time.
BH, Reading,
I've had plenty of ESF lessons over the years and never come across an instructor showing off or giving preferential treatment. The same can't be said for some of the single 30 somethings rabidly competing for attention and pole position in the instructors tracks.
In a group of say 12 people, especially when it's freezing, it's incredibly frustrating to be continually waiting for the same couple of people. The stragglers then don't get a rest as the group carries on as soon as they arrive making the problem worse and translates into their complaint about 'not waiting'.
All they need to do is move to a group that better fits their technique, speed and stamina and then they could be the cold ones doing the waiting.
The instructor is quite obviously going to use slopes that push the ability of the group as a whole. If you just do lessons in the morning, that leaves the whole afternoon to potter around less challenging blue and greens.
J.Flubert, London
Jamie Flubert, London, England
On the other hand, I work for a schools tour operator which routinely uses ESF instrutors in resorts all over the alps. We very rarely have anything other than positive feedback from our groups concerning their instruction.
Christa, Bourg d'Oisans,
Thank you, Madam, for airing your opinion. I have passed your article on to our ESF so that they can benefit from it...Surely their peaktime over 450 male and female instructors (among whom quite a few British, some New Zealanders & other nationalities) are not all "bully boys"...Nevertheless, a bad experience such as the one you and your teenage daughter were submitted to ealier this year shows there is still room for improvement and I am sure the point will be taken.
Hoping Méribel shall have the pleasure of your visit again in the coming winter or summer seasons, I remain, yours sincerely,
JM Choffel
Méribel Tourisme
J.M. CHOFFEL, MERIBEL, FRANCE