Today is the first day of business for Skicology.
Working with skiers is something I’ve been doing for 10 years now, that started with my brother introducing me to a ski instructor who was interested in NLP and would it help with teaching skiers. Well, that winter I ran a weekly masterclass for ski instructors teaching them some coaching skills and the outcome was they did get better results with the clients (and the parents of their younger clients!). And I didn’t ski, having only recently taken up snowboarding!
Over the past 10 years, it’s gone on to:
- working with ski instructors pass their exams and Eurotest (100% pass rate)
- running residential workshops helping beginners get to intermediate level in about 3-4 days
- helping clients on the point of giving up skiing, rediscover their love of skiing again
- just experiencing more of those great days on the slopes, whatever the conditions
And it’s been a bit of a learning curve. I was terrified prior to delivering my first workshop with 10 trainee Ski Instructors – I didn’t ski at the time! And my thinking was what could I do to improve their skiing when they’re pretty much the top of their game? Well I settled in to delivering a 1½hr workshop that seemed to go OK. And when I saw their trainer 2 days later, he said: I don’t know what you did with my guys but the day after the workshop they were skiing world class! And the Director of the local ski school who’d ask me to deliver the workshop said afterwards: I’ve had this problem with my skiing for 17 years, and it’s now gone! Wow! I thought, there’s something in this, beyond the traditional technical side of skiing. Or enabling all the technical stuff you know to be deployed when they get out of the way of themselves, as these instructors discovered.
10 years of amazing results, and skiers having a better experience of their skiing, at whatever level, from world class instructor to absolute beginner. I’ve moved on from NLP and teach an understanding of how we create our experience in the moment that for most people it feels like coming home. More an uncovering of something already within each and every one of us. And no techniques, processes, strategies to learn. Working with how you operate, naturally.
And yet this morning at 3.36am I got my reminder of how human I am. That despite what I teach and my level of understanding of how we create our experience in the moment, I too have those moments when I start to believe my own thinking. With the website still to be finalised, and banner stand that hasn’t materialised, an ebook not yet complete. And a few days earlier that was true, and I was OK about it. But not at 3.36 am this morning! Nothing had changed in my circumstances, just my experience. So my experience couldn’t be coming from something as inanimate as a banner stand, or a website! Nope, it was me, buying in to my own thinking as if it was real. Plus my girlfriend reminded me again at 8.30am, pointing out I was grumpy, and couldn’t I at least be happy speaking to her! (I was a bit short on the phone!). I learn a lot from her!
It’s those human moments when we often have the greatest opportunity for learning, but it usually doesn’t feel that way!
So after 10 years, Skicology is born. With the World’s First skicologist in attendance (me). Uniquely, most of our work is on Skype, so you can benefit from Skicology anywhere in the world, at any time, 365 days a year.
Come along to the Ski and Snowboard Show at Earls Court 2 in London and say hi and find out more about Skicology and how we give you a mental foundation for a lifetime of great skiing experiences. We’re here until 6pm Sunday 2nd November.
PS – the ebook is near completion and you can only get a copy from the link on the back of business card, available at the ski show
