Parting moments in Japan

 With just over a week until I flew out I headed down to Rusutsu. I like skiing Rusutsu as it's not particularly steep and has nice well spaced trees to ski through. I'd booked three nights in the village of Rusutsu in a tiny hostel, and another 2 nights in a pod hotel in Kutchan.

When I contacted Aki, a friend at Niseko, to let her know I was coming down, she asked if I was joining the Rookies training. News to me I checked it out, emailed Dean, and before I knew it I'd signed up for a 3 day course of training with Josh.

Over the years I've done heaps of training with Rookie Academy, but recently haven't had the chance to do more than the in house training offered by Cardrona. Not that I have any complaints about the free training  or my trainers, but this year I was determined to try and find more time to work on improving my own skiing by booking some weeks with Rookies. So this little 3 day course was just what I needed.

I knew half of the people in our group already, a mix of skiers working towards level 3 or trainers certification. I voiced my concern that at a couple of months shy of 60, whether passing a level 3 exam was even an achievable goal for me. I'm extremely thankful that Josh took that on board, and rather than make my focus exam related, we reframed my goals into achievable tasks that would move me closer towards becoming the sort of skier who could achieve that level.

Changing the focus was really helpful, because training towards a level 3 exam is really life consuming, and I've been struggling over the last few years to see any improvement in my technique. Watching younger skiers progress quicker than me was really feeding my self doubt, so reframing my goals allowed me to relax and just work on one thing at a time, mainly turn shape and better lateral balance on the left leg, which has been my achilles heel for so long.

I hadn't skied West Hill before, and was surprised to find seriously steep, albeit short, runs that really tested one's technique. The snow was fantastically grippy without being icy, so you could really trust it and push the boundaries a bit. We also got to watch the top Japanese skiers, who were there training for the technical skiing championships being held the following week.

Over 3 days we worked on medium radius, short turns, and bump skiing, or more accurately skiing those very scary ziplines that take no prisoners. Josh broke it down into achievable steps, and whilst the others were all successfully crushing them by the end of three days, I was at least now giving them a go. My previous approach had been to avoid them like the plague!! I consider that progress...

With lots of video taken, and appropriate feedback, I made some big improvements over those three days, but most importantly I felt better about my skiing and my ability to progress. I talked to Dean about goals for training this NZ winter, and he suggested perhaps looking at other options for sitting my level 3 rather than NZSIA, which is the most technically rigorous. The oldest person to pass a NZSIA level 3 exam was my mate Paul at 52, and he only just scraped through on his fifth or sixth attempt. But in the end, the real goal is me becoming a better skier, and is doing another exam actually necessary??

Whilst at Rusutsu the others, who all worked at Niseko, moaned about how bad Niseko had become. Too crowded, tracked out by 10am on a powder day, scoured faces by the recent winds etc etc. I had bought a 25 hour pass for Rusutsu, and even after skiing the day before the course, I still had at least 6 hours left to use up.

I drove to my Kutchan accommodation after the course, but Aki herself was planning to attend some training at Rusutsu the next day. So, instead of skiing at Niseko, I drove back to Rusutsu, where I was not only able to catch up with Aki, but also spent the morning skiing with another Cardrona colleague and his family. In the afternoon I headed over to East Mountain, where the new snow that morning had softened up the off piste and I got a whole lot of tree runs in as well.

With my time in Japan rapidly coming to an end I drove back to Asari, dropped off the hire car, then packed and cleaned the house before taking the train to the airport for the flight back to Australia.

I'd managed to get a business class flight, via Taipei, from Sapporo to Sydney, enjoying some very tasty food and fully flat bed for the overnight segment through to Sydney. Unfortunately my ski bag didn't make the connection in Taipei, so I boarded the bus down to Canberra minus a good chunk of my luggage. Which was a bit of a problem, because I only had 2 days before heading off on my next trip!

That's next!!!

But here's a few pictures from the annual Sapporo Snow Festival. Not quite as big or grand as previous years, but still pretty impressive.

The Cult of Club Med

For many years the company I work for has subcontracted to Kiroro Academy, the ski school at Kiroro Ski Resort, providing English speaking instructors. Kiroro had traditionally not offered to sponsor ski instructors, so most of their western staff were newly qualified instructors on working holiday visas. Since early 2020 the immigration rules changed, and it's now really easy to sponsor overseas instructors, but Kiroro still had only a handful of English speaking instructors on its payroll, meaning there was still a place for us to help over the busy Christmas/New Year period.

Once work dropped off, it was precipitous. Not even the Kiroro full time staff were getting much work, and they were on a salary. We went on standby, but then just went free skiing for the day. There was no suggestion that things would improve until Chinese New Year in February.

The reason for this drop-off in work is geographical. Kiroro is situated inland from Otaru, requiring a hairy drive over mountain passes to get there. It has 2 hotels and a private apartment block as the only forms of onsite accommodation. In 2022 Club Med took over one of the hotels, in 2023 they took over the other one.

Club Med provides an exclusive, all inclusive package, which includes group lessons. This means that there is very little custom coming Kiroro Academy's way compared to before Club Med moved in. Those staying up at The Peak can wander through and discover there is an alternative ski school option, but those staying further down the road at The Grand never really discover this.

We had noticed that the group lesson sizes were huge, almost always more than 10 in each group. My own experience as both a customer and a provider, is that group sizes that large aren't good value for money, as there's often a lot of waiting around. But since they were paying for group lessons as part of the all inclusive package, I guess most guests didn't mind. 

Our boss was approached by Club Med to provide help, as one of the reasons for the large groups was a lack of instructors. Not only had a number left, but the company had struggled to obtain the working visas necessary for instructors to begin work.

Working for Club Med saved our bacon. Without them the youngsters would have had to leave to find alternative work. I was in two minds about working for them, but decided to give it a go.

We would rock up each morning having been given a particular level to teach for the day. Usually it was first timers, or beginners still learning to wedge turn. We never got more advanced students, though they did try to move us up with the groups we were promoting if we were rostered for a number of days in a row. And I learnt early on that keeping the group sizes large was a deliberate ploy to encourage clients to book ridiculously expensive private lessons.

We had had a few Club Med clients from The Peak book private lessons at Kiroro Academy, which was already an expensive option, but ridiculously cheap compared with the prices they were charging at Club Med. And since the Club Med instructors were on a salary, they saw absolutely none of that money. Actually they got paid 0.01 percent of it or something ridiculous!!

Club Med instructors were also expected to entertain guests in the evening, after spending all day out on the mountain. Luckily we didn't need to do that.

We still got a bit of work through Winkel, and were booked up by Academy over Chinese New Year, but Club Med work kept us busy when there was no work elsewhere. After a few weeks we were all a bit sick of doing beginner lessons, and being based at The Grand we didn't get much of a chance to go free skiing either as it was a bit further to go to get to the ski lifts before work or at lunchtime.

I pulled the plug mid February, deciding to go for a week of free skiing before I headed off back to Australia. Most of the others also began planning to leave. We were making some money, but weren't really enjoying the work.

The implications for next year are worrying. The opportunity to supplement our income at Club Med is unlikely to be repeated, as they will likely have their visa approvals working more smoothly next year. Kiroro Academy has been working hard promoting itself around the hotels and tourist spots in Otaru, and it's also possible that more people may start coming there as an alternative to Niseko and Rusutsu, which were both reported to be unacceptably crowded this year.

Less work won't bother me, as I don't come to Japan to make money, but it will affect those people recruited who do expect more work. I guess we will need to manage those expectations during the recruitment process.

With a week or so to go I hired a car again to drive down to Rusutsu and Niseko, both to ski and catch up with friends.

More on that next....