Your first ski lesson: what actually happens in the first 55 minutes

The first five minutes: equipment, not skiing

The first thing we do in a lesson is not skiing. It is checking that your boots are buckled the way they should be. It is dull, but it is the most common reason a first hour hurts: in a loose boot the foot works against nothing, and the calf pays for it within ten minutes.

A ski boot should sit tight. Not painfully, but tight — heel firmly back, toes may brush the front when you stand upright, and must not press when you crouch. If you are renting boots, tell the instructor straight away; the wrong size can still be swapped.

Minutes 5 to 15: walking and falling

Then you learn to walk. On the flat, with skis on, back and forth across the practice area. It looks silly, but it does one thing: your body works out that a ski is longer than a foot and cannot be moved like a shoe.

In the same stretch you learn to fall and get up. On purpose. It is the best spent five minutes of the whole hour, because after it a fall is no longer an event, just a nuisance. Someone who knows they will get up stops bracing — and that bracing is exactly what makes skiing hard.

Minutes 15 to 35: the snowplough and the first stop

Now you go downhill for the first time. Very gently, very briefly. You learn the snowplough — tips together, tails apart — and the one thing that matters: that you can stop. Until a person can stop they have no business on a slope, and once they can, the fear of the slope suddenly goes.

This is the point where most people smile for the first time. Not because they are skiing well, but because it has dawned on them that they are in control.

Minutes 35 to 55: first attempts at changing direction

The last third is where the snowplough starts learning to turn. You shift your weight onto one ski and the ski turns you. The first time it usually happens by accident, the second time a little on purpose.

Do not expect to link turns in your first hour. That takes roughly four hours on the slope, so three to four lessons. The first hour gives you what you need most: you can stop and you can get up.

What to bring

• Ski trousers and a jacket — waterproof above all, not thick. You move more in a first lesson than you expect.
• Gloves, not town mittens. Your fingers will be in the snow a lot.
• Goggles, or at least sunglasses. Snow is bright even under cloud.
• Thin socks, one pair. Two thick socks are the most common mistake — the foot has nowhere to go inside the boot and starts going numb.
• Nothing in your trouser pockets. Phone and keys in the jacket — they dig in when you fall.

What you do not need to bring

Not a helmet. You get one free with every course. And you do not need to buy your own skis — rented skis are better for a first season, because until you know what style suits you, you cannot know what skis to buy.

One thing nobody tells you

A first hour is physically harder than it looks. Not because it is strenuous, but because the body spends the whole time tensing in positions it does not know. If your thighs ache afterwards, that is normal and not a sign you are doing anything wrong.

That is why it makes sense to start with one hour rather than two. The double lesson is excellent on the second and third day, once the body knows what is being asked of it. With us 55 minutes costs 65 € / 90 € / 115 € depending on the number of people, and 110 minutes 95 € / 145 € / 195 € — you see the total for your group up front and nothing gets added later.