JW in NZ

Over the last five days, I've had two groups of kids. The guys in the mornings were pretty good; some christies, some parallel, little fear. The group in the afternoon a little more challenging in part to one of the kids being autistic.

On the second day of these lessons, I did a warm-up run on Lodge (the beginner chairlift) and foolishly spent just a fraction too long at the top; Emily (one of my supervisors) called me over and presented me with a new kid (his father, Russian, was present). I was told that he'd been skiing on Mystery (more advanced chairlift) before, so should be fine in my group. All ok with me, but I decided to do another run on Lodge to watch his skiing. It was immediately obvious to me that he really should never have been anywhere near the Mystery chairlift since, for one thing, he couldn't turn.

I stopped him and asked him once again if he'd been on Mystery and when he said yes, I asked how he'd made it down. In a snowplow, in a straight line behind his dad. Brilliant. I should explain that I've never come across anyone living in such a dream; he was all over the place. My first thought was that he'd been on Vodka all morning!

With the rest of my group asking me why on earth we had *russian kid* (probably shouldn't say his name) and me being just as (probably more) irritated by it as them, I quickly found another instructor with a beginner group. Mike. I made my apologies, and repeated them after our lessons. However by this point I had put this weird child to the back of my mind.

Happened to ski down Lodge the next day with my group (ex. russian kid) and arrived at the bottom of the chairlift just behind Mike's group. Since we both had an even number of kids in our groups we got on the same (2 person) chair. Three chairs behind this russian kid and another person from Mike's group. When we got three to four chair lengths from the base, I was enjoying watching a kid do multiple front flips underneath the lift - quite a spectacular fall; both skis & poles off - at which point Mike asked me very seriously, "has *russian kid* fallen off the chairlift?" to which I casually said "no, it's just some kid who's taken a pretty great fall!" He then repeated his question, more seriously and I looked up to *russian kid's* chair and their was definitely only one person sat on it!

There being two chairs between us, it wasn't immediately visible that *russian kid* was hanging by his arms off the chairlift. Mike shouted for the lift ot be stopped which happened pretty much instantaneously, along with two lifties rushing out beneath their chair. I certainly wouldn't have stood there - waiting to be greeted by a kid falling (at least 10m) with skis on. Worth mentioning that it was very busy and the lift queue was enormous. Within seconds this had the attention of everyone in it.

Mike got the other kid to raise the bar and demanded that *russian kid* pull himself up. I think he is nine, and am pretty sure that most nine year olds, especially with skis on, wouldn't be strong enough to do that, but thankfully this guy just about was. He was hanging for at least a minute though which honestly is a very long time. His return to his seat was followed by an enormous roar from the lift queue. And him never being allowed to ski again.

Turns out that he'd decided it would be fun to jump off of the chair. Don't think I've ever met someone so weird but will be sure to keep a very careful eye on anyone remotely similar! It was only Mike's fifth lesson, but he seems fine.

I've been told by lots of people now that I'm very patient, which is nice. I've also been called Crazy Jo, Josh, JJ and occasionally John. I don't understand either.

My kids in my afternoon classes presented me with a $20 Chapters (bookshop) voucher and a $15 Starbucks voucher on their last day which I thought was very sweet. I also got my first requested private lesson, which means that someone actually enjoyed one of my lessons!

Have just had a small staff party since all the christmas camps are finished (school starts tomorrow here). Lots of fellow instructors and I went for a ski/board together afterwards which was so much fun; there was at least 30cm of fresh snow (we now have a 3.8m base apparently). What a good day.