PSIA-AASI

11.14.2011

The Dream Lesson

If you could teach anyone in the world how to ski or snowboard, who would it be? And why? Would it be Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt? Or the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team? Or would it be a bunch of nine-year-olds who have never been on snow before?

And even more than that, what would you teach in your “dream lesson?” Would you show Justin Bieber how to ride the halfpipe? Or would you take Gandhi into the backcountry, and help him find his own private powder stash in the trees?

I would love to hear about your dream lesson, and want to present a mix of them in an upcoming article for 32 Degrees. If you’ve got a dream lesson that comes to mind—or feel as if you’ve actually already taught a dream lesson—type a couple paragraphs about it and send it over to . . . and be sure and tell me who you would like to teach, what you would teach him or her, and why.

I used to think I had taught my dream lesson when I was assigned a week-long private at Jackson Hole with a couple of brothers whose father was the oil minister for Jordan’s capital city of Amman. Especially because they would ski with me in the morning, pay for me to hit the slopes by myself in the afternoon, and every evening take me out for dinner to restaurants I could never afford on my own.

It was a magical week. They were wonderful people. But I don’t feel like I can refer to it as a dream lesson because I’m not really sure what I taught them. Or exactly what I shared with them that would bring them back to the mountains for more.

Any dream lesson, certainly has to include actual teaching—some kind of on-snow epiphany, equal transference of stoke, technique, or tactics where the student takes what the instructor is instructing and turns it into something all their own. Whether it’s skill, knowledge, or culture, it is that part of the sport or the mountains that now belongs to them alone.

And if that on-snow epiphany just happens to include a Navy Seal, or Elvis, or an underprivileged five-year-old from some sunny Southern state, well that’s exactly what I (and the editors of 32 Degrees) would like to know. We can’t wait to read and publish some of your answers. Looking forward to the response.

— Peter Kray