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| The start of another stunning day at Aspen Highlands |
If I were to have a quiet conversation with any
‘of-the-moment’ celebrity chefs who happen to be French and classically
trained, I’d ask them what dish they yearn for, what food they reach for when
they really just need a decent meal to warm the spirit. My firmly held belief
is that the best French chefs, any of them worth their weight in sel de mer, would want to curl up in the
corner of an old village bistro or their grandmother’s kitchen and have a roast
chicken. No noise; no fanfare; no foams or towers; definitely no molecular
gastronomy; just a roast chicken. Of course, the meal I have in my mind’s eye
is a mere roast chicken in the same way that the Dalai Lama is a “mere monk”,
as he likes to joke. There is nothing easy about preparing a great roast
chicken, and there are far too many mediocre or high-falutin’ ones in the world.
Difficult doesn’t mean complex, simple doesn’t mean easy, and the only result
that counts is whether the roast can ease the body and transport the mind to a
happier place. And yes, in this way I am also talking about the craft of
teaching skiing and snowboarding, and of doing it well. Bear with me, I’m getting
a bit misty.
One of the odd dynamics of the corps of people who teach
skiing and snowboarding for a living is that there are some among them, not an
inconsequential number, who believe that they have achieved such a lofty status
that they no longer have to teach beginners. It is true that those of us who have
been teaching for a while and ski and ride at a certain level do tend to work
with more proficient guests who have skiing and riding as an established part
of their lives, but that doesn’t mean we don’t teach beginners. Or at least it
shouldn’t; and I have a big chip on my shoulder about those pros who think it
should.
The simple fact is that teaching beginners never fails to be
rewarding. Every successful beginner lesson creates skiers and riders, and if
we teach because we really do love our sports in a deep and meaningful way then
this is the greatest result of what we do as instructors. Equally important to
us as pros, beginner lessons are the very best window on the quality and
content of our own teaching, and they are the ultimate test of our beliefs and
understanding of how people move and learn. Make it happen for people on their
first ever day skiing and riding, and you’ve shown your real mettle as a
teacher.
To be clear, there are many instructors out there doing a
fine job of working with their high-level guests who don’t agree with me about
beginners, but I happily call them out on it and genuinely enjoy challenging
them to make it happen for folks at the very beginning of their snow sports
journey. Often those instructors hide behind being cool when I do this.
Sometimes, they make excuses. Often they are too vanity-stricken and preoccupied
with trying to become famous on social media as impressive skiers or riders for
ten seconds at a time to understand the pertinent point in the first place. Occasionally they agree with me and then become
nostalgic for the simple joy of teaching beginners, and that’s when I know that
I am speaking with a truly great and dedicated pro, and one of my people. Yes,
the pros who are my people are like the chefs who long for a great roast
chicken. The idea of aligning the two may seem far-fetched, but I promise that
the look on the faces of my instructor friends is the same as the great chefs, and
so is their memory of the satisfaction that warms our hearts as a result.
I haven’t lived here in Aspen Snowmass long enough yet to
have a local bistro where I can become a regular, slinking in late after a long
day and in need of a good roast chicken and a glass of wine (oh how I do miss my
friends at Chez Henri in Warren, VT). I need a bistro in my life, so that’ll
have to happen when we return to normal. Thankfully, I was lucky enough this
winter to work with a few wonderful people who had never skied before, and to
share our sport with them in a way that opened the door to their own love of it
and, hopefully, to a lifetime of skiing. I’m quite confident that those
beginner lessons, those shared experiences, will turn out to have been the most
joyous teaching moments for me this winter. Those lessons (and so many others)
continue to serve as a vital reminder of why I love teaching skiing.
I enjoy nouvel
cuisine as much as anyone; I certainly spend a great deal of time teaching
people on Aspen Highlands’ legendary expert terrain; I do very much love
coaching race athletes and training instructors; but it’s still a roast chicken
in a warm bistro that I long for at the end of a long day and it’s the beginner
lessons that keep me grounded and satisfied as a pro. That, and a real and a
figurative glass of red wine and a warm fire, for my guests and for myself, keeps
it all in perspective. And don’t even get me started on the value of a great
soup à l’onion gratinée – pardon me, it must be time for dinner.
