From the First Time Seeing Snow to First Turns!
One minute you’ve never seen snow before, and the next you’re strapping into a pair of skis and taking your first few turns at a ski resort in Alberta, Canada. Life is full of adventures and epic opportunities.
That’s how Jaiminkumar Patel sees it, a first-timer and eager learner who moved to Canada from Western India ten years ago. Seeing how passionate people are about snow sports in Alberta and the vast amount of powder this Province gets each season, sparked excitement in Jaiminkumar about the possibilities of learning a brand new outdoor activity and becoming an avid powder-chaser himself.
Full of curiosity and the drive to have adventures all year round and not just summer, he began to seek out how he, along with his wife Kinjal, could go about learning to ski and what that process may look like.
Work colleagues suggested Pass Powderkeg as the perfect ski resort for beginners and they weren’t wrong! Jaiminkumar and Kinjal were able to book onto the resort’s ‘Learn to Turn’ program and begin their new adventure on the first day of 2022. After all, there’s no better way to start the year than playing around on the slopes!
‘What do I need to wear? What should I expect during my first lesson?’ These were all questions that Jaiminkumar had during an exciting and nervous lead up to day one of the program. Luckily, the Snow School team were full of guidance and pre-arrival advice, with Jaiminkumar also reaching to the power of Google to get prepped for his very first day. He also visited a local sport shop to familiarize himself with the equipment list and clothing required for the slopes – a great tip for other first-timers; come geared up with knowledge and ready to learn more.
After his first lesson of learning the basic techniques and understandings of skiing, Jaiminkumar realized how important it was to book a lesson and continue practicing on his own in-between. Amongst all the first day fun, a few challenges and hurdles came up as expected.
“I’ve never had that kind of experience in my life before,” he said.
“At the end of my lesson, my instructor mentioned that I keep practicing in-between our time together. I repeated my first lesson and was much better; I can stop, I can turn a little bit now too.”
According to Jaiminkumar, the reality of learning to ski isn’t always picking the sport up within a day of laps on the bunny hill and sending it on a blue run after a week, but listening carefully to your instructor, laughing at the falls along the way, and embracing doing something new outdoors during winter; enjoy the process.
Jaiminkumar and Kinjal were joined by two other women during their first lesson, and having now discovered a new hobby, Jaiminkumar’s advice to other beginners – as a man in his thirties – is to not let age get in the way.
And now that he has grasped the basics and acclimatized to the ski world, he finds himself, committed, determined, and dedicated to practicing his turns, speed control, and all the techniques learned from Snow School almost every day after work.
“I’m there all the time, and I love it!”, Jaiminkumar says with a smile.
“You will feel the difference in your life during the wintertime when you are a skier. Instead of sitting around watching the TV, you can go out and enjoy yourself and enjoy the beauty of winter,” he adds.
Amen to that.
