So this season I finally got the opportunity to work as an instructor in the mountains. It felt so good to be instructing again as I love snowboarding and love getting people as stoked on it as I am!! It took a lot of perseverance but Bernhard my boss seemingly get's over 500 applications a year and I was the only new hire this season so the rookie!! I just wanted the opportunity to prove myself and that I did, from the beginning to the end and Bernhard complemented me on my riding and instructing and was impressed with the work I did, which really meant a lot hearing that. Although as he said himself I just need to believe in myself more as I'm always thinking people are better than me but really I should not be thinking that way. End of season he also gave me a wrist band for snow bombing for my hard work and motivation continuing through from beginning to end of season, I was surprised to get it being the newbie but also stoked that I had made a good impression like that on my first season here :)
I loved working for the snowboard school with a rad crew of people who I got along well with and would have liked to ride with them more but hopefully next winter I will shred with them more. The local riders from around here are all real talented riders growing up in the perfect environment to nurture such a way of life and talent. Skateboarding in the summer at the mtown bowl and snowboarding in the winter, with Hintertux the glacier just a 30 min drive away which is open all year round!! There were 5 Austrians (locals), 8 dutch, 1 kiwi, 1 Scottish and 1 english (but lives in Mayrhofen now) who worked for the snowboard school. I never knew there were so much dutch that came to Austria for the winter season but I lived with a lot of them so heard dutch spoken more than german which didn't help too much with me getting better at my german!!
We had instructor training every Tuesday morning but that consisted of going for 1 run and then going for a coffee, although the days that we did actually ride more was a fun way to start the day shame we didn't do it more!!
This season I taught mainly private lessons but nearer the end of the season I got more group lessons was good getting the variety, also I had a good variety in who I was teaching from beginners to intermediates to more advanced riders who could already ride good but wanted to push their riding further, also I got a lot of freestyle lessons too which was awesome and not just first timers but ones who were already shredding the park so got to help them get new tricks in the lil park and the main park :)
We had a night where we stayed up in a hut up the mountain, was good fun!! A quarter pipe was built next to the hut and we sessioned that for a while, I was getting some methods out of it, I love that trick they feel so good when you get them right!! Jasper had taking his camera so him and Anne got some sick shots that will hopefully get off them sometime soon!! :)
Bernhard has invited me to come back and work next winter and I will, I have also decided to stay in Mayrhofen for the summer. I tried applying for work in the Southern hemisphere, NZ, Australia and Argentina but no luck. So it was either go home or stay here and I think staying here will be way better for my training for my snowboarding. I have acquired a skateboard so will learn to skate the bowl, swim, run, hopefully do some climbing, go to the trampolines in Aschau and practice some aerial manoeuvres haha!! And I can still snowboard in Tux so perfect place to be!! I have a place to stay I just need to try find work, which will be hard since I don't speak good german but that is a reason for staying here too so I can improve on it.
This is artwork I did of all the instructors, all hand drawn in illustrator :)
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