I do know a few extremely skilled skiers and they all seem to have one thing in common: at one time or another, they had the opportunity to put in just a ton of miles on snow. My belief is that while this alone is not sufficient to lead to elite skill levels, (there also has to be good coaching, focused practice,etc.), it is necessary.
There's a guy in the instructor training program I'm at who attained his level 3 ski after just two seasons. So he doesn't have a ton of miles (probably 200 ski days under his belt), but he did deliberate practice under excellent guidance. This story is a repeat of what I saw 10 years ago at Silver Star, where a first season skier/instructor, who started the season skiing only wedge turns, attained his level 3 ski by the end of the year.
In contrast I know a multitude of instructors who have been at this for decades and aren't presently contenders for the level 3, despite attending many sessions and trying their best. The success factors I observe in the successful guys that are sometimes absent in the rest are:
- Consistent time on snow (not just weekends, but also multiple consecutive days)
- One to three mentors who can assess and teach at a high level (no more than 3)
- Deliberate practice
- Moderate or better mind-body connection
- Sufficient physical fitness to move through a range of motion and balance against forces acting on the ski/skier
- A strong understanding of advanced skiing concepts
For me, I've been at this for 12 years now, and am only now getting more consistent turns at the 3 standard--and it still comes and goes. I can put checkmarks against some but not all of the boxes above. I lost a number of years due to inconsistent time on snow (particularly after moving back to Ontario), too many sessions with too many instructors, mediocre fitness, an underdeveloped understanding advanced skiing concepts, and an underdeveloped mind-body connection. Things picked up again once I found a good coach who put me back on track.
In contrast, Razie got his coach-3 in quite a lot less time. It would be interesting to hear his perspective.
And Chris Walker, it would be awesome to see a ski-specific study! Great idea
I've often thought the best business card for advanced ski school lessons would be for instructors to go ripping advanced terrain in uniform freeskiing. Yet many ski schools seem to prohibit freeskiing in uniform.
In Canada, the standard for 3 is scored on blue or black terrain (depends on the turn). We've gotten used to seeing such awesome skiing on TV and Youtube (Candide Thovex, Richie Berger, JF Beaulieu, Tanner Hall, Reilly McGlashan, etc) that the bar on "looking good" is incredibly high. Even a level 3 can look pretty unassuming on steep and deep terrain, even though they could teach the typical advanced skier how to ski better. I can understand why snowschool directors don't want 1s and 2s to ski steeps or off-piste in uniform - it's just not a good image when the instructors are making a series of linked recoveries down Couloir Extreme. FWIW the policy where I used to work was that 3s and 4s could ski where they wanted in uniform, although those guys were almost always booked into lessons, so...
That said, I'd agree that the marketing for advanced and expert skiers is almost non-existent. At the same time, there are far fewer 3 and 4 instructors out there.
