Prospective skiers tell Pamela Duncanthat getting a few lessons in beforehand is the best preparation for the slopes
JOSH IRONS (19) and his younger brother Tommy (11) have never been skiing on snow before but have been taking lessons in the Ski Centre in Sandyford ahead of a family holiday to Les Deux Alpes, France.
JOSH:"We found this place online. We've been planning to do this for a while and we thought there's no time like now so we decided to come and try it out and we liked it so much we're back here again. It's a lot harder than the pros make it look. It's extremely tough on the legs but it's like playing sports, you have to get the leg muscles built up."
TOMMY:"It's really, really fun. The best part is getting the feeling that you're finally able to do it."
DENISE COLEMANfrom Enniskerry has been skiing a couple of times but decided to try the Ski Centre slope, an indoor moving travelator, ahead of an annual family ski trip in December.
“We’re going to Austria, a place called Kaprun in December,” she says. “We always go to the same resort because it’s perfect for children – it’s really small and everything is within five minutes’ walk and it’s a glacier so there’s guaranteed snow. You can even ski in the summer.
“When you go skiing you have to acclimatise yourself, get back into that way of thinking. I know slightly different factors apply here but at least you would be prepared.”
PHILIP THOMPSONfrom Dundrum has been skiing a number of times but is picking up ski lessons in the Sandyford Ski Centre for practice and to correct bad habits he's picked up.
“Our next trip is to Austria in December to Vorderlanersbach in the Tux valley,” he says “and we wanted to get a few lessons to get the right technique going again and to get the right muscles worked up.
“The one or two lessons I’ve got abroad have been excellent but the problem is when you’re in a group it’s very hard for the instructor to get the time to concentrate on you.
“A lot of the time the instructor will go down the hill and you’ll do what the instructor does, so he’s not looking at you, whereas here there’s someone standing looking at you constantly and every single move you make. Here you can see exactly what your instructor is trying to tell you because you’re skiing in front of a mirror.”
TIM RYANfrom Wicklow is trying out snowboarding at the Ski Centre in Sandyford before he heads to France.
“I don’t want to waste a holiday,” he says. “I want to try it out before I go, so I’m doing a few weeks here so I will spend more time upright. It’s really so that I’ll get more out of the holiday when I go. Snowboarding is very different – it’s more about controlling your body movement. You don’t have two individual skis that you can control; you’re stuck on a rigid board so you need to get your technique a lot better.
“I’ll probably go to France some time in the new year. I spent two years skiing in Val d’Isère and two in Chamonix.”
JUDI McARDLEand her family originally came to the outdoor slope in the Ski Club of Ireland in Kilternan with her son Harry who took eight weeks of skiing lessons before a family ski trip to Les Arcs in France.
“You go for such a short period of time, say a week, and you lose a lot of time if you put the kids into ski school over there, whereas when they hit the snow they were skiing, doing jumps – they’d put you to shame.
“We came back (to Kilternan) once after they’d skied and we thought we’d come up today and we’ll probably come up every week now until we go next time.
“Kids are always going to like skiing, and if you start them at this age they have no fear. It’s like riding a bike, they’ll always have it. It’s a great family holiday: it’s one they will always come to. My sister has kids who are in their 20s now but this is one family holiday they’ll always come together for because they have so much fun.”
OLYMPIA CHOLUJ, who is from Poland and lives in Clondalkin, has been skiing each year for the past five with her ski instructor boyfriend. She was trying out the Kilternan slope for the first time.
“We’ve been skiing in France and Austria,” she says, “and this year we’re going to Bormio in Italy. We go every year.
“When you ski you can relax and forget about the world and, when you are full of work and stress, you can forget about it, forget about everything else. I hear music when I ski. It’s also good for exercise and for fitness, and good for the muscles in your legs.
“I think it’s slower than normal skiing but it’s good practice before going skiing, as we are in December, so this is good practice.”
MÁIRÉAD CONROYfrom Camolin in Co Wexford has never been skiing but, having promised herself 25 years ago that she would give it a go, she came to Kilternan to try it out.
“With the snow we had last year it just seemed like a lot of fun to be out in the snow,” she says. “We were just sliding around and I thought it would be fun to learn how to ski and this is so handy, it’s just an hour away so I thought, why not try it?
“If I learn how to ski here and I end up never going anywhere else except here that’ll do me. I’m not very ambitious. I’ll be happy if I can spend some Saturdays going up and down the hill. Now, if I get to Austria or some place like that, it’ll be a bonus but I don’t mind. As long as I’m sliding down a hill I don’t care.
“I often looked at this place and I said to myself ‘I’ll come here some time’ and, just like that, 25 years have gone by and it’s frightening. So I said ‘I’m not going to put off anything else’ and I said ‘whatever I want to do I’m going to do it’.”