Poaching Ski School

[Mr. T]

The all inclusive B&B, carve, spa retreat!!!

[b0ardski]

Your niche calls:cool:

[DiveBomber]

The mtn/company want to make money anyway they can... Your bills don't give a crap how you make money.

When you are about to miss a payment, and an opportunity presents itself, you aren't going to be thinking about ethics of a multi million dollar company are you?

You paid for the lift ticket, you can do what you want.

They make plenty of money, and Im sure they arent charitable in the least.

So, what? you cant close a business deal on the mtn? Or just as long as it doesnt relate to anything the mtn provides??

What if you didn't work for any mtn and someone comes to you and says "teach me"? Do you say "oh I'm sorry I cant cause I don't work there"? "Go to their ski school."??? On public land, your taxes pay for, I say you are in for some of they action just as a big company is.

MONEY TALKS, Bull $hit walks

[David Glynn]

Joel, This is a great thread. I don't have much time to answer in a compete way tonight so just a few thoughts.

The companies do not own our knowledge. They do not own our love for the sport. They do not own someone else's desire to learn. They do not own our freedom of speech. They do ( for the most part) operate on public land, that's OUR land. And lawyers..................well don't get me started; at what point did they get to run the country.

Joel I would just walk in a little faith and do things for the love of the sport and if people want to spread a little cash your way well good on you. We do this for the joy of the movement. They do it for the love of the money.It's great not to be a rock for a little while; let's all enjoy the motion while we can.

I tell my kids that there are only two things in life that I have figured out: One is that we should enjoy our lives and two, that we should help others enjoy their's.

Joel you have done more for this sport than any ski school ever has and I reckon that this is as good a time as any to say thanks for teaching me the motion. What a sensation!

Merry Christmas everyone

[D-Sub]

but sometimes I get about $1000 or so for each half hour....

:freak3::freak3:

[Mr. T]

When he is not getting $1000 per half hour, he is getting sexual favors for his tutelage.

[b0ardski]

shred's ride must be long & stiff:lol:

[bobdea]

you guys have to stop using the "IT'S ON PUBLIC LAND" argument it does not hold water in court and even though these places on public land they can come up with just about any reason to remove you from it and it's their right as a renter.

It's wrong, I agree with that but it's the way it is, should be different but it's not. Like every other natural and public resource it's sold out to the highest bidder and all you little people can go get f ucked because you don't have money.

[willywhit]

I think you should just "teach for tips". It's not a big deal IMHO. Essentially it's free and the person getting the tips can choose to buy you some beers or whatever after the fact.

Joel, great thread. interesting to hear people siding with a mountain that won't allow freelance instruction on their hill.

you know that kiting is going through some changes with this kinda stuff. Certified instructors or not, teaching on public land/beaches... and now Real thinks they own certain terms and techniques in the kite school world.

Personally ,I'd rather just "donate" my time and gladly accept a hefty tip.

;) ;) nudge nudge , know what I mean ?

but

not allowing non corporate ski school instruction on the hill ?

C'mon.

Save some loot, get a digicam and find a friend that carves well. Have him film a bunch of your turns, review it on the chair ride up and work on the weak spots. Review the stuff again at night over beers.

This ain't rocket science.

Unless the instructor is a Billy Bordy or JG level carver/teacher, spending big loot to tweak your carving seems silly.

Joel's Carving Tours B&B - complete with hot tub and a free shuttle to the Glenwood Canyon Brewery sounds like the best idea yet

http://www.glenwoodcanyon.com/

[Mr. T]

I was a board instructor at Copper Mtn. back when and it was always interesting to see Club Med run ski school classes on the hill. They used a follow the leader, euro approach to teaching. The instructor had the class make sort of a snake down the hill where they would try and emulate one another, and at the same time, piss all other trail users off. The kicker was that a couple of instructors, usually wearing furry animal constumes, would go from lesson to lesson dispensing booze from a boda. Ahh, Club Med! Sort of amazing given our litigous society how Copper allowed this.

[JoelP]

Willy,

we sure don't want bandit kite instructors showing up anyplace and teaching, it would be an ugly scene as you very well know...yuck..

Carving is SO much easier to teach, logistically wise!!!!!

Anyway the Carver B&B is 4 blocks from the brew pub and I have quest privilages at the Hot Springs Atheletic Club...I drop you off at the club (Hot pool, steam, sauna, etc) then I go shopping for THE best meal, pick you up and drop you off at the Brew Pub then I proceed to go and cook up dinner and then pick you up when it's ready. Oh the luxury

The only thing I'm missing is a primo kiting location for summer

Hey...when are we going to have a BOL kiters vacation in Brazil ???? Now we are talking.

Back on subject: I love helping people out and if the rider is a mid level on up then just a little bit of time and we are usually off having fun together. It's the beginners/low level carver that needs a lot more time and patience. I've got the patience but not necessarily the time unless I can make it worth it. Then I can spend a whole day and get something done with someone and that's what I've been asked to do now and then. My argument would be that the SkiCo isn't getting that job done and I'm just making for more happy customers of theirs...but if I got caught...my argument is worth ****. I think the risk is low and it seems from feedback here it's a needed service not being supplied so if the situation comes again I'll give it a lot more positive thought and go from there.

thanks, Joel

[David Glynn]

Joel, On the subject of someone poaching potential carving students from me I really don't care, I would just be happy to see someone new learning to carve. The ski school here could care less about potential carvers. I have yet to teach a carving lesson here through ski school. i tried to get a program started here and it feel on deaf ears.

Besides the ski school poaches from it's own right here. For example I had an assigned private today and it was given to another instructor at the last moment because they had higher priority not because they had better teaching skills. That's the kind of **** tha sticks in my craw.

I started teaching because I missed coaching freestyle skiing. Initially I had fun with it and had high hopes for getting more people into carving but as that hope was erased and I started to see the politics of the instructing scene the fun has started to wear off. I'm seriously thinking of turning my uniform in and saying good bye to the whole thing.

Coaching seems so much more fun for me. I've only got a couple of kids but they want to be on the hill and nobody bothers me and I work through the club but I think I could do it outside of the club as well.

One of the biggest problems I have with ski school is knowing how much they charge for a full day private (and how little of that goes to the instructor) and how many people that really want to learn are turned away because of the greed involved. Skiing and snowboarding have become too expensive and lessons are off the chart. $600 for a full day private. I couldn't afford that nor could I justify spending that in todays world. None of my friends can afford that either.

So I say power to the under ground instructors especially those that do it for the love of the sport and enjoy turning people on to it.

And I strongly believe that the public land issue is huge and I don't care what some lawyer says.

Keep it cool Joel, keep it real and don't get caught.

[Dan]

As an intermediate (at best) carver with very few opportunities to get instruction, I say poach away! If you're worried about getting busted by the ski area, just tell people "I'd like to give you a private lesson, but the ski area doesn't permit freelance instruction" when they ask you for a lesson. If they're really interested, they'll suggest one of the workarounds that have been mentioned above (you don't get paid until after leaving the ski area, etc.).

It's hard for me to imagine that you're going to get caught - it's a very gray line for the ski area to police...friends giving tips to their riding buddies and private instruction don't necessarily look that different.

[Steve Prokopiw]

Joel,based on my friend's experience of getting blackballed at Vail,I would not advertise your great b&b idea(I'm approaching something like that for cycling btw).I can't imagine that Skico would be much different than Vail about it.One thing about Skico is they paid a higher percentage to instructors than Vail but it wasn't enough to make me move over there since I had other reasons to be in the Vail area.They're all greedy,but Vail was among the worst once they went public.The crazy thing is that even with the insane prices I still made a third of my income from tips on top of those prices.It's more tempting here in the land of blue jeans and sack lunches to do under the table because tips are an occasional surprise rather than a probability.

[Bobby Buggs]

Everyone keeps saying "getting Caught” I don’t see how this happens. How many people ride together and stop to discuss technique, it happens all the time, are those people in jeopardy of being "black Listed" How does anyone know if they are getting paid of not. I went last night with 2 of my employees to help them learn, beginners in soft boots, Was I getting paid?? No but if I was no one would have had a clue.

Like I said you’re not standing at the ski school door "Poaching" clients from the resort. That would be a problem.

There is nothing wrong with what you want to do. I can’t believe people want to bring up the irrelevance of the land lease issues; it has nothing to do with this. In fact I never even considered it.

If Joel teaches someone to carve and they like it wont they be back to BUY another ticket and ride again, now the resort makes more $$????

[willywhit]

it's the corporate mentality in the ski biz. Years ago I was renting some gear to teach a never ever to ski at Sunday River. The guy practically insisted that I have a lift ticket before renting the gear.I made the mistake of saying we'd probably walk up the bunny hill until the newbie got her "ski legs" and not waste time flailing and crashing on the J bar. Maybe get a half day ticket, we'll see.

I do understand the liability issues, theft of services, etc etc.

It's just sad that we have to be paranoid that someone would seriously shake you down about private freelance instruction. I understand if it's blatant. Put up some flyers on the wall next to ski school. "Learn for Less" maybe

" Boycott Corporate $ki $chools "

I'd like to hear from Lowell on this one.

fire away.....the only lessons I ever paid for were guitar lessons when I was 12, actually my mom paid, for awhile, then I just taught myself

[carvedog]

In the interest of full disclosure I have been teaching for 14 years, 13 here in Sun Valley. Until this year I hadn't worn soft boots in five or six years. I teach lots of carving lessons. Almost every shop in the valley as well the ski school sends me hard boot lessons. I have also gone through the AASI/PSIA routines being a division clinician leader as well as an Examiner in the Northern Intermountain div.

Everyone seems to be pointing the finger at the big, bad, ski school. Stick it to the man. And bringing up the public lands issue as if the company created the issue.

Several things here:

Public lands: On public land ( as most are) doing work for hire or operating a commercial operation such as teaching, guiding, photography, paragliding, backcountry skiing, yurt operations, heliskiing etc is a highly regulated by the gov't ( Forest Service mostly). If the ski area doesn't do what they can they can actually be in violation of certain parts of their lease to operate on public land. If they allow freelancers to blatantly operate and use the lifts in their pursuit of a commercial enterprise (instruction of carving for instance).

Of course the ski schools don't want to loose revenue to poachers either and I am not pretending that is not part of their motivation.

Workmans comp: I think our human resources guy ( an ex ski patroller who contracted Hepatitis B or C while on the job so is no longer able to ski patrol - oooh evil ski company) said we had five major injuries last year in our ski school. 3 knees and two shoulders. Total cost of surgeries, PT and payouts for lost wages was close to $500K. That number did include the non surgical emergency room visits etc for several other sprains, xrays etc.

I actually tore my acl five years ago and was totally covered. I think the actual problem was an old acl repair that finally failed while I was on slope giving a clinic. Didn't matter I was totally covered.

Clinics: At the beginning of the year for our rehire clinics we had 7 ski instructors two snowboard instructors giving two different weekends of two day clinics for six hours each day. Thats nine times four times six = 216 hours at an average or $20 an hour. There is almost $4500 right there and that is just to try keep the rehires up to speed on what is going on.

New hires add another 4 ski instructor and 2 SB for a week at six hours per

6x6x7x20. There is another $5K.

And if you don't think this training is necesary you're wrong. When I was running these clinics every year I would have someone that I thought knew how to teach tell me how well the arm swinging to start the turn thing worked to get beginners going. WTF?????

Besides the liabilty issue if a personal injury lawyer got ahold of the company and found out that the ski co didn't have a training program in place.

Locals clinics: Most ski companies offer locals and kids programsat deep discounts for the non-peak times of the ski schools. Sun Valley does and so does Aspen apparently. I know the Big Fish Resort in Whitefish did.

This means that for three Saturdays in a row for a three hour lesson each day a group of locals five or six at most ( I usually put together my own group) can go ride and get instruction for $120 here in SV. For kids they do 7 3-hour sessions on weekends for $150 for K-6. That is about $7 an hour or about a $1 an hour less than what we pay for babysitting. Yeah screw that evil ski company.

Private lessons: I have heard the $450 to $550 per day and how outrageous that is. Sure it sounds like it. But for that $550 per day you can have up to five people and go all day with one of the top (should be ) instructors in the country. So if JoelP was in the ski school he could put together a group of five, they would pay $110 each for the day for carving instruction at one of the best mountains in the country, by someone who would be covered by the school ( work comp ), for some great terrain at a killer hill. If in Sun Valley we could get on the lifts a half hour before open to the public and get a couple rippin runs on the hero groom before the frenzy starts. Here you only need to book a three hour to get the early up.

This year the evil ski co, is doing $23 lift tickets to any returning student home from college who lived in the county at one time. Bastards anyway.

Employees: If any on you have ever had to manage or still do, employees are one of the biggest pain in the asses to manage ever. Then add in powder, sliding, egos of skiers/riders and you have a recipe for some supreme challenges. This is not an easy job at all. I think SV has four or five full time staff to try to keep track of schedules, payroll, assignments etc. They tried to get me into the supervisor track years ago and I wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing but headaches trying to keep track of people like me, who only want to show up when I want, to teach only carving lessons and never have to teach on a powder day.

For the record: I have never taken a lesson out that was not booked by Sun Valley. I have taught and given many tips to carvers and soft booters alike for free. I love to teach. When you give someone the tip that makes a difference for them and they get it, the resulting smile is worth a bunch. I have received many types of thank yous as a result of this and I don't pimp them for it either. If you are teaching for the "gift" that may come at the end then you will probably be disappointed.

Anyone who shows up here at any time, I will go out with you for no charge and no gift expected just to show you around the mountain and see the best spots to lay trenches. If you want some tips great, if you just want to ride that is fine too. If you want to get into a full on in depth instruction and get on the lift at 8:30 then we need to book a lesson.

[carvedog]

it's the corporate mentality in the ski biz. Years ago I was renting some gear to teach a never ever to ski at Sunday River. The guy practically insisted that I have a lift ticket before renting the gear.I made the mistake of saying we'd probably walk up the bunny hill until the newbie got her "ski legs" and not waste time flailing and crashing on the J bar. Maybe get a half day ticket, we'll see.

Big Mountain in MT, didn't even require a lift ticket for their beginner lift when I was there. SV doesn't need a tix if you are first time never ever with an instructor and anyone can ride the Magic carpet things that they now have in a couple of different places. Can't speak to the other areas.

[Steve Prokopiw]

As I have been saying,I don't teach under the table for several reasons,but am tempted for several others.Carvedog nails it for me on why there are enough reasons to keep me honest.Also, we have come by our education through alot of hard work,studying,testing, and real world experience.There are many people on this site that are professionals in one sector or another.I wonder what kind of discourse we would have on the legitimacy of the medical profession,public and private school systems or computer programing biz for example.There are probably even a few lawyers on the site.Now there's something worth poaching.

[JoelP]

Carvedog has hit the nail on the head as to why I haven't done this. There's a lot of good going on with Ski School here but at the same time we do not have the same programs SV does. I can not be a teacher of Ski School and only be given carving lessons. They'll not allow me to just show up for that 1 or 2 students once in awhile. I still need to show up everyday and get in line with the others and see who needs lessons that day. I think that's fair for everyone else but I can't afford to live here doing that. I would need 20+ years of dues before that could MAYBE happen. Also there isn't to my knowledge the ability to get 5 people together to get the private for carving here. The demand isn't that big yet and may never be.

I wish I had your situation as it sounds really good to me. I'm not putting it down, I'm jealous of it but it can't happen here. I'm also not trying to raise this poaching subject as a job, either part time or full time because I need a so called real job here to live here :( I origianlly wanted feedback from the once or twice a year requests that I get. Then the only reason I would even think of the compensation is that if I go out for a day teaching a newbie or a low level person I would like to spend the day with them, that cost me a lot since I have to pay for my lift pass. I'm not a full time every mtn season pass holder, I can't afford that here. So my time is somewhat precious to me and as much as I would love to help someone for the majority of the day it cost me personally, not only financially but in the few days I have to myself. This year I can only really get out 1 day a week unless I take a day off from my real job.

I hope SV has shops that even supply carving gear, that would be awesome for reference purposes but again here no shop has gear to demo and no employee will therefore send references, there's no education here.

Personally I do not want to take away from either the SkiCo or instructors. Everything has it's positives and negatives. But I can't even reference an instructor here for carving and I've been around here for a long time. You would think by now I would know one. Then if I did.....unfortunately I would only be able to suggest a private at $500+ and....no...there isn't a way to group up because there is no system here to do that for carving purposes.

I too will take anyone along with me for a day of carving, showing them around and NOT expect anything in return, but that's not a day of teaching, that's a day of lets go rip, have a blast and throw in some tips here and there. I've been doing that for years now :lol:

JoelP

[bobdea]

Big Mountain in MT, didn't even require a lift ticket for their beginner lift when I was there. SV doesn't need a tix if you are first time never ever with an instructor and anyone can ride the Magic carpet things that they now have in a couple of different places. Can't speak to the other areas.

I'd actually like to see those policies in writing, often the not enforced is misconcieved as okay. With ski school people I have seen things like this happen at two ASC resorts. What happens is that when the **** hits the fan and lawyers get involved that no ticket on the bunny hill that you thought was fine is now the reason you're getting canned because little Julie broke her leg without a ticket while she was in a lesson and her dad happens to be a personal injury lawyer.

It sounds far fetched but I've seen things like that happen and I've had to put my sig on a number of legal documents.

[spaamport]

Carvedog has a lot of good points about the affordability of regular lessons and the reality of how the mountains have to be tight about their leases, but I think what we're talking about here is the comparability of PRIVATE 1on1 lessons to freelance 1on1 coaching.

I'm not an instructor, but I've volunteered to assist in Snowboard instruction for Burton's CHILL program before, but I also used to coach tennis and sailing and from an attention point of view, there is a world of difference between being in a group setting and having a personal teacher/tudor/coach all to yourself. No one is spending $8 an hour for private lessons. I don't care if you're a veteran senior citizen who is attending Montana State and lives at the foot of Big Sky. No one gets private lessons that cheap, so to compare the cost of a freelance private coaching to a mountain-based group lesson is missing the point.

Personally, I think there's a couple other distinctions to make. Advanced coaching for someone who already knows how to snowboard and needs to take the next step vs. beginner lessons. Personally, I can understand ski areas being upset at freelancers teaching newbies under the radar. That has liability written all over it. Now, if the freelancer is certified in the same manner as the staff instructors from a free market point of view, there should be no problem. My concern would be that the beginner was being taught bad habits or incorrectly by the freelancer more than the business of the lessons themselves being competed for. I'm all for competition and if you are providing a service that is better quality or better priced than the mountain's, hey, that's the free market. But the point is also that unless there is a "special needs" issue, beginners don't really need private lessons, and with that in mind I think Carvedog is right that from a cost point of view, there probably isn't an advantage to going private as a beginner.

So what we're really talking about is competing for 1 on 1 advanced lessons. I'm not sure how it works with other silimar things like golf or tennis where like if you belong to a club let's say, you HAVE to use the coaching that they have on staff or you go somewhere else. I don't think that's how it is. I mean, do all Olympic athlete's have to go to a place where their coach is an employee in order to train? I don't think so. I've never heard of a golf course being upset that a player goes and plays with their private coach with them instead of the staff pro. Maybe some uber private courses roll like that, but I would find it hard to believe that something as personal as a coaching/athlete relationship would be interfered with by a "you have to use our guy or you can't do that here" attitude.

So basically what we're saying is that even if you are an Olympian, or a pro, your coach can't come on the mountain with you unless he's an employee, and the repercussions are getting banned from a mountain?

That can't be right, that's retarded.

Maybe that's why they have to train at "Olympic training facilities" because private places won't let them use their personal coaches on the premises. But that would be idiotic, so that's can't be it.

[carvedog]

I'd actually like to see those policies in writing, often the not enforced is misconcieved as okay. With ski school people I have seen things like this happen at two ASC resorts. What happens is that when the **** hits the fan and lawyers get involved that no ticket on the bunny hill that you thought was fine is now the reason you're getting canned because little Julie broke her leg without a ticket while she was in a lesson and her dad happens to be a personal injury lawyer.

It sounds far fetched but I've seen things like that happen and I've had to put my sig on a number of legal documents.

Just to clarify. I think you did need to get a chair 6? only lift ticket, that was at no charge that clarified liability on the back of the ticket. Maybe DrD or Westcarven can verify if they still do that. Sv has a ski free with instructor never ever ticket for that first day group lesson or private.

JoelP I wish you could work with the school there about carve specialist program especially since all the new guys seem to be only interested in the park. Sometimes when I want lessons here I put on my ski school coat and go lay some trenches in some obvious places and I have people come up to me.

They changed the way they do bonus request so I take what comes and I don't really troll the way I used to. One of my best clients is a skier who hired me for some friends of hers based on my trenching. She also hires for me early ups a few times a year on powder days. They sure looked at me funny with 4 skiers and one snowboard going up the lift with me on powder days.

I did pay some dues in the early days for sure. Making things work taking whatever lesson. I still hate the ski school weekly meeting where all they talk about is skier crap that has nothing to do with me. Now I just don't show up and they know I have a retail store to deal with, so they don't give me any grief.

There is some other political stuff going in ski school that I refuse to participate in. And never, ever bad mouth another instructor or any ski or snowboard shop.

I hear instructors everywhere bad mouth the mtn, the mtn ski shop, the food and it's just stupid. Negative begets negative.

As I said I love to teach and that has taken me farther than an old, fat hardbooter should have.