YOUR SPACE #SNOWPROS
HUMBLING DISCOVERY: THE UNKNOWN EFFECTS WE HAVE ON STUDENTS By Chuck Dominick
ou give a great lesson, you get a compliment. You go to the locker room feeling confi dent in what a truly great ski instructor you are. Maybe you share your day with your fellow instructors or have a beer with friends and talk
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about your success. After all, it’s about time people started recognizing what a good instructor you are. Then you go to a clinic and learn something you never even thought about. T is happens a few more times and you begin to wonder about your instructing. Finally, it hits you. Maybe during your
third or fourth season of teaching you think, “If I was so ‘great’ then, but I’m so much better now, maybe I’m not so good after all. T e more I teach it seems the less I know. At this rate, I have a long way to go before I am good, never mind great.” T at’s how it happened for me. I went
from a cocky young instructor to an old journeyman. I have fi nally found my niche; I teach the age and ability group that I am comfortable with. I don’t have all the answers but I try to follow some kind of protocol that keeps every one of my students learning and safe. Every day that my students ski they do
it to have fun; I never forget that. T ey don’t think I’m all that smart and they certainly don’t want to hang around and listen to me expand on my decades of knowledge. I make lots of mistakes and sometimes my students call me on them. And then sometimes you have a really humbling experience. If you’re lucky you will recognize it as it’s happening. Mine was a simple remark from a student. I was standing on the deck at the local area where I was teaching groups every weekend. One of my students walked up to me and said, “T ank you for helping Martha.” I
8 | 32 DEGREES • WINTER 2016
ran Martha’s skiing through my head and didn’t have a clue what he was talking
my ability to get people to overcome life’s obstacles. I just happened to be in the right place. I have no idea what I did and couldn’t repeat it if I knew. But all these years later, I have never forgotten how good it felt. It was a fantastic feeling to know that while I was doing a job I loved, I managed to help somebody along the way. T at happened about 35 years ago and it took me a long time to grasp the impact. Many times when we are teaching we are aff ecting people in ways that we don’t know; good and bad. It could have been any instructor who had that group and helped Martha. I didn’t do anything special. But I also could have just as easily blown it and maybe she would have never come back for a second class. We are instructors – pure and simple.
The impact you have on students might surprise – and inspire – you.
about. Martha was not a great skier and didn’t seem to be improving. He explained to me that Martha had lost her husband several months previous and had become a recluse. But since she started skiing again she couldn’t wait to get to her Saturday morning lesson. He was giving me credit for helping Martha get her life back. If I knew that was expected of me at the beginning of the season, I never would have been up to the task. It wasn’t my knowledge or great people skills that made this happen. It wasn’t
People come to us to learn how to ski and snowboard. T ey expect no more, no less. But sometimes we touch a nerve. Maybe we wake an emotion. Or we might just stir a spirit. We probably aren’t as good as we think we are, but opportunities to be great come to us every day. T e greatest lesson in all this was to myself. I learned that what we do can aff ect a whole lot more than a person’s ability to slide on snow.
Chuck Dominick is a Level III alpine instructor at Hunter Mountain, NY. A part- time instructor, he now has the opportunity to enjoy skiing with his entire family, including his wife, children, and grandchildren. Email:
chuckdominick@icloud.com
Have you had any
initially unknown eff ects on students, revealed after the lesson? Share your
story on The Community through this link:
tiny.cc/6fjq5x.
SHERRI HARKIN
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