Educating Adventures (EA)
EA Ski & Snowboard were formed by a small group of passionate skiers
and snowboarders from around the world whose main aim was to help keen riders
enter the snowsports industry as successful and capable instructors.
Ski & Snowboard Training began in 2006 when two ski instructors in
the USA noticed how difficult it was to break into snowsports instruction. They
decided to fix this problem by setting up a course combining instructor
training, which focused on making it easy for people to become instructors,
with a guaranteed job offer to teach in the same season.
The concept of the Instructor Internship was born and has changed the
nature of the industry ever since. Over the years EA has built partnerships
with the top resorts around the world and now offer ski instructor internship
courses with 26 Ski Schools in over 5 Countries. Added to that no other company
can match EA’s global resort networks spanning Canada, USA, Japan, New Zealand
and Switzerland. This means more open doors for interns and trainees.
I opted for the Saas-Fee program. EA is one of the most expensive course
providers and Saas-Fee has one of the lowest success rates not to mention the
worst accommodation. The accommodation is shared apartments, sleeping in bunk
beds above a noisy bar open until 02:00am. I measured the noise level one
night: 77 decibels going up to 100 + decibels when there was a live band using
the drum kit. How you can be expected to sleep through that noise level I have
no idea. I quickly moved out. There is the massive advantage that on the
Saas-Fee program you train with the Swiss Ski School and work for them as an
instructor during peak weeks. I had approached EA previously. When my BASI
Alpine Level 1 was cancelled at short notice I had contacted EA about the
Saas-Fee program but couldn’t get my UK life put on hold in time so had pulled
out. This time, I had been planning my Saas-Fee internship since April and had
everything in place to be able to join the program in November. You don’t say
no twice, this would be my last chance.
The program starts with an orientation night in Geneva. Despite the fact
that I was already in Saas-Fee it was made clear to me by EA that it was an
important part of the program and that I would be expected to attend. Why I
couldn’t have met the group in Saas-Fee I don’t understand. Instead I was
expected to travel 3 ½ hours across to Geneva for a night in a hotel. They even
charged me an extra £215 for the privilege !
There are three main ways of skiing; the right way, the wrong way and
the BASI way. I was about to encounter a fourth; the Swiss way. Whilst most
internships use coaches who are either BASI Level 4 ISTD or a BASI Trainer /
Examiner this isn’t the case with EA. They use someone from the Swiss Ski
School. Although that person is assessed by BASI Training Manager Roy Henderson
it does mean you don’t get the same standard of BASI coaching as on other
internship programs leading to a lower pass rate.
I would discover several other ‘interesting’ things about the program
set-up. You pay for both BASI Alpine Level 1 and BASI Alpine Level 2 exams at
the start of the program and are enrolled on both courses at the time of
booking. Book through BASI and you can’t book onto the Alpine Level 2 until you
have fully and successfully completed all of the Alpine Level 1 plus a further
35 hours of snowsport shadowing. This doesn’t apply when you book on the EA
Internship. As long as you are likely to be at a good enough standard by the
BASI Alpine Level 2 you will gain a pass for Level 1 even if you’re not
at the technical criteria and the pre-requisites for BASI Alpine Level 2 don’t
apply. Then there was the price difference for the Level 2. Book through BASI
and you pay £670. EA charge you £785 for the Level 2. With 10 people booked on
the Level 2 it was a tidy profit made by EA.
Out of the 10 booked on the Alpine Level 2, less than half would pass. At one point it looked like I might be the only one eligible for the level 2; I was the only one with the pre-requisites (not that you needed them). Then, 10 days before the BASI Alpine Level 2 I sustained a serious injury whilst skiing with the ski school.
As with any internship program you do there are advantages and
disadvantages to whatever you choose. EA was no exception and there were far
fewer advantages than disadvantages.
For me, there were three main advantages. For a long time I have wanted
to spend the winter in Switzerland and the EA program gave me this opportunity.
The Saas-Fee program also comes with a guaranteed job offer with the Swiss Ski
School and since the BASI Alpine Level 2 wasn’t until March I would get the on
snow time I needed in order to improve. I signed up.
The disadvantages to the program became clear very quickly. EA insist
you book travel and insurance through STA Travel. Despite repeated attempts to
contact them via phone and email I couldn’t speak to anyone about flights and
insurance. Booking a flight should have been easy but it proved impossible and
with me due elsewhere in Switzerland with BASI before going to Saas-Fee I
booked travel myself. Finally, weeks before I was due to fly out STA eventually
got in contact.
Booking the travel insurance EA required was just as difficult. When you
read the policy document it didn’t give enough cover for long enough and I met
nearly every one of the exemption criteria. Again no-one got back to me and I
ended up having to sort out my own insurance.
It quickly transpired that the accommodation details we had been sent
made the accommodation look far better than it actually was. Pictures of
spacious double rooms turned out to be rooms with bunk beds. When the group
arrived there was no working washing machine or dryer and on one occasion we
spent three days with blocked drains. Also the accommodation was above a
‘Café’. I knew Saas-Fee and I knew the accommodation was in fact above
somewhere noisy, rowdy and open till 2am with live music several, if not, most
nights a week. No way would I be staying in the group accommodation. I would
use it until I found something else and then move out.
The training handbook EA send out before the program turned out to be
almost as inaccurate as the description of the accommodation. In the program
handbook you get given the training schedule plus a whole load of useful information
such as where to get your mail sent. In reality, the program manager in resort
doesn’t see this handbook and therefore you find the training schedule is
actually very different. As for other information, such as where you get your
mail sent to, that was also wrong.
We had been assured that we had weekends free and were encouraged to
have second jobs. When you get to resort you find that no, you have training
some weekends; either Ski School formation or ad-hoc sessions at short notice
to make up for what has been lost due to poor weather.
Then there was communication. The program manager would only communicate
with the group using Whatsapp. If you didn’t have Whatspp you didn’t get the
messages for the group. If you are unable to make the start of training due to
other commitments there is no attempt made to communicate with you where the
groups location is and whether or not the coach looks at his phone is very much
dependent up on who he thinks might be trying to contact him. On one occasion I
missed training completely. I had asked the coach to inform me of where the
group were heading so that I could join them. I sent the message between 11:00
and 11:30 knowing the coach would be able to pick it up at lunch time; this he
did. However, there was no attempt made to tell me where the group were heading
despite knowing I was joining them. The end result was that I missed that days
training. I was furious. The discussion that followed highlighted everything
that was wrong with the training program. Our coach certainly didn’t feel he
needed to bother helping people locate the training group and I didn’t even get
so much as ‘sorry you didn’t get to us’; what I got was very different.
When the resort closed early due to Covid-19 both BASI and EA sent out emails
advising us to leave as soon as possible. Despite EA’s email stating STA would
be in contact to discuss travel arrangements there was, once again, no contact
from STA and once more I found myself having to make my own arrangements. As
for assistance from the program manager, he wasn’t even in resort.
At least no-one was thrown off the program for skinny dipping.
To Fracture or Not to Fracture ? - That is the Question
Wednesday night was ski school show night and torchlit descent. The
weather had been appalling all day. Strong gusting winds had shut the entire ski
area down for the day. It was half-term too. The decision was made that the ski
school show and torchlit descent would go ahead as planned but with a modified
route. Instead of doing the descent down Spielboden we would do a descent down
Staffelwald. Conditions were dreadful. As we stood at the top of the slope
waiting to set off it was clear our torches were not going to stay lit; they
just kept blowing out in the wind. We were told to ski with no gap between us,
our skis touching those of the person in front. This close proximity to the
skier in front was to prove disastrous. We set off in two lines, buffeted by
the wind and weather. By halfway down most of the torches had blown out in the
wind. Then, almost at the bottom, I was clipped by the person behind.
I had no chance of recovering it and slammed hard to the ground onto a
patch of ice. The pain in my left hip and right knee was instant. I was in
trouble, big trouble. My fellow instructors shouted to me asking if I was
alright. It was clear I wasn’t. I waved them on ‘ keep going’ I shouted to
them. We were right at the bottom in full view of the crowd. One broke from the
line and came to my aid. I couldn’t put any weight through my right knee and my
left hip was incredibly painful. I’d smacked to the ground bang on my femur.
All I had to do was cross the bridge and I’d be back at the ski school meeting
point on Kalbermatten. By the time I reached Kalbermatten I couldn’t put any
weight through my left leg either and was in absolute agony. Had we been on
Spielboden I would never have made it back without piste rescue. Once back at
the ski school meeting point I was carried across to the locker room, dropped
my kit off, then carried up to the road where a passing taxi was flagged down
and helped into my apartment.
Trying to get comfortable in bed was almost impossible. Any contact to
my left hip caused an unbelievable amount of pain. The only way I could get
comfortable was to sleep on my back, knees bent up and together so there was
nothing touching my femur.
In the morning I phoned the medical centre. Walking the short distance
around the corner took me half an hour. Every few steps I would have to stop
because of the pain. I knew one of the staff there. She took one look at me and
I was straight through to xray. I had all the clinical sings of either a
fractured hip or a fractured femur. Getting me comfortable enough for xray was
tricky. At least I didn’t need to tell them where my injury was. There was a
clear, distinct, red impact mark on my femur from when I’d hit the ice. A
series of xrays were taken. I could tell there was something. A lot of
discussion was taking place. More people arrived to look at my xrays. The first
xray had given the suggestion that there might be an anomaly to my hip, but was
it a fracture ? After much review and discussion I was told I had severe
contusion to my hip, signed off work for the week and issued with crutches. I’d
been the only one in the group with the level 2 pre-requisites and now there
was a very real possibility I was out of the program.
Those of you who know me will know I’m stubborn. There was no way I was
pulling out of the Alpine Level 2. Moving around the village on crutches was
made easier by it being towards the end of February as there was no snow on the
village streets. Sitting in my apartment was ok for short spells but I still
couldn’t have anything touching my femur. Even when using crutches I couldn’t
put any weight through my left leg. I had asked the ski school for the
injury protocol and had been passed to EA. When I asked EA for the injury
protocol it became clear there wasn’t one. A huge amount of confusion ensued
and no-one gave me any information on the correct procedures to follow. The
whole situation quickly turned into utter mess.
Unable to train due to mis-understandings by everyone about the
procedures required and when I could ski again I enlisted the help of some of
my BASI trainer / examiner friends. A week after my accident and armed with
notes from my ‘useful’ friends I put the skis back on. I was still needing crutches
on an evening or if I went any distance in the village but at least I was back
skiing.
When I returned back to the UK I had repeat imaging done of my hip. It
had been 6 months since my accident and it had taken 5 months for me to be pain
free. The very first image that was taken showed what looked suspiciously like
a fracture to the head of my femur. However, subsequent images failed to show
the anomaly. Whether or not it was a fracture that the radiographer saw, I have
been left with permanent weakness to my left hip which still gives me problems
to this day.
Alpine Level 2
It’s rare I complete a BASI course without injury. On my BASI Alpine
Level 1, somehow, I took a chunk out of my finger courtesy of a ski boot clip
and was left dripping blood everywhere. On my BASI Alpine Level 1 resit there
was a double whammy when I tore open my right knee and my right hand.
If you are a BASI trainer / examiner reading this and see me down as
participating on a course you are delivering, run, run the opposite way !
Our trainer / examiner for the BASI Alpine Level 2 was Hannah Bryans.
When I’d skied with Hannah in Zermatt prior to going to Saas-Fee she had
dropped a heavy hint that it would be her delivering the level 2, and it was.
Having sustained a massive hip injury in the lead up to the course which
had left me on crutches the week before I optimistically hoped that I had
thwarted my injury jinx. I hadn’t. Whilst walking across a slippery terrace at
lunchtime I slipped and landed heavily on my left side. It left me unable to
ski the Central Theme and Hannah couldn’t assess me on anything that afternoon
as, once again, I wasn’t putting weight through my left leg. There would be
more injury to come.
Anyone who has done BASI Alpine Level 2 will know at some point you do
synchro skiing. I’d been grouped with three others. There are various ways of doing synchro skiing but to keep it simple numbers 1 & 3 were synchro together
and numbers 2 & 4 were off-set together. What could possibly go wrong ?
Hannah watched from behind on a snow ledge below Morenia Restaurant. We pushed
off, I went to make the first turn, and that’s the last thing I remember about
our synchro.
The next thing I am aware of is trying to sit up in the snow, all dazed,
feeling as if I’ve just woken up and wondering why the slope, mountains and sky
are all spinning. More puzzling still was that I wasn’t wearing skis. Someone
had placed them neatly beside me. Hannah wasn’t wearing her skis either.
Instead she was knelt in the snow on one knee looking at me. With us were two
of the other synchro group. My synchro group were nowhere to be seen. I still
have no idea what happened and there is a definite memory gap.
Clearly concerned for my well-being I was sent down from Morenia in the
gondola escorted by one of the group and sat out the rest of the afternoon.
With no-one in the tea-rooms with me where I was sat I had to check-in with our
trainer / examiner every 15 minutes to stop her worrying about me. At one point
I moved outside and sat watching from a distance. At least that way the group
could see I was alright.
At the end of the two week course, despite my hip pain, I managed to
pass the teaching criteria and variables but needed a technical resit for short
turns and long turns. I wasn’t surprised. It’s quite difficult to ski when you
can only put weight fully on one side. Really, I should never have done the
course but I’m too stubborn.
Out of the ski instructor internship programs I have spent time with,
the EA program in Saas-Fee is by far the worst. Would I recommend it to someone
? Absolutely not. Would I recommend EA ? No. Go to Zermatt with PDS instead.
Gallery : https://nhs-nurse-to-ski-instructor.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
Next:
Take Two Part – One : A shocking Experience
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