Choosing a Lesson: The XC Ski Your Best Program

The XC Ski Your Best Program is an award level program developed within CANSI for people to track and improve their skiing skills. Your membership card has a "XC Ski Your Best" section on it, which is your skills card. The Director of the Day will strive to group people into lessons according to the level they fall into (which you can specify when booking your Day Trip). These levels are Intro, Bronze, Silver and Gold, and apply to classic or skate lessons. If you don’t know what level you are, don’t worry. An instructor will give you an assessment and help you decide what lesson to take. After the lesson, your instructor may check off one of the boxes on the skills card if you have achieved the necessary skills for that manoeuver.

Getting the Most Out of Your Lessons

The Ski Your Best Program helps you set achievable goals to improve your skiing skills. This in turn means you will get more out of your ski lessons. In addition, as you progress you should be able to direct more of your own learning yourself by choosing the maneuvers (eg, diagonal stride or 1-skate) and skills you want to work on. For example, you may want to request the last two maneuvers that you need to complete a level on your card. Just ask your instructor at the beginning of a lesson what you would like them to cover in the class.

As with other sports, improvements in technique come with lots of practice. Practice drills and put what you learn in your lessons to good use on the trails (there’s a reason the lessons are in the morning!). It can take many kilometers of skiing before a new skill can be mastered or until you are skiing more efficiently.

If you have any feedback on XC Ski Your Best, email it to xcskischool@highparkskiclub.com (type "XC Ski Your Best" in the subject line).

The XC Ski Your Best criteria for each level are available at  www.xcskitips.com