Ski School App – The Sunday Times

This is the article from The Sunday Times by Sean Newsom on the 30th January 2011. I never saw this myself as I believe it wasn’t in the international edition we get here (which is printed in Marseille). I know quite a lot of people here in Serre Chevalier were interested in reading it as the star of the Ski School App is our very own Darren Turner. Here it is…

The must-have ski app

Ski School App Sunday Times

It’s the next best thing to having your own instructor on the slopes: the ski app that is always by your side, ready to dispense wisdom

I’ve got a secret friend, and he lives in my pocket.

That’s the inside pocket of my ski jacket, in case you were starting to worry – which is where I keep my iPhone when I’m skiing. My friend’s name is Darren Turner, and, although I’ve never met him, he’s become my personal ski guru, ‘via his Ski School app (skischoolapp.com). (That’s him in the video).

Of the three big-league ski-tuition apps around – iSki and SkiTips are the others Turner’s is by far the best. He’s a ski instructor in Serre Chevalier, France, who has been teaching for 22 years, and in summer 2009 he had a brainwave.

“I’d been thinking that there was space for easy-to-understand fIlms about ski technique, he recalls. “I’d been playing around with the idea of DVDs and YouTube. Then I saw the Jamie Oliver cookery app and it clicked. I didn’t want to be on people’s computers, but on their phones.”

In January and March last winter, Turner’s team shot the footage, and in October 2010, they launched the Ski School app – a three-parter that purports to take you all the way through from your flrst day in a ski resort to early experimentation on moguls, powder and the chopped-up, lumpy stuff we call crud.

Each app – beginner, intermediate and advanced – is divided into three sections: an introduction, a series of exercises and “cue cards”, quick reminders about key skills. The apps are built around concise, well-shot films. Some say the overall length of each one is short, but I think that’s a strength: it makes it easier to keep track of where you are and come back to practise particular skills.

I’ve used Ski School twice so far, and my initial scepticism has evaporated. Okay, I still have doubts about the beginner app. Nobody should show up on their first ski holiday and try to teach themselves how to slide from a piece of video. Instead, Turner suggests using it as a primer before their holiday, or to supplement what they’re learning at a normal ski school.

The intermediate and advanced apps, however, look set to become essential parts of the skier’s armoury: digests of good skiing practice you can keep referring back to, year after year. It’s not just that the tips are good – the footage seems to lodge in your head after only a few viewings, and stays there while you ski.

Even better, your buddies can then take your phone and video you while you ski, so you can compare your technique with Turner’s. Video analysis is an integral part of many deluxe ski courses, and while this DIY version lacks the expert comments of a ski instructor standing next to you, it does seem to help. Bridging the gap between how Turner looks and how I look is a new obsession of mine.

I sincerely hope not. For a start, Turner wisely stops at the early stages of “advanced” skiing. Anyone who wants to master powder in the Alps needs to take avalanches into consideration, as well as the smoothness of their turns. A qualified guide, as well as tried-and-tested off-piste equipment, is essential for this.

So, is this the end of real ski schools? After all, the price of the apps (£3.99 each) is a lot lower than the £75-£155 youll spend on five days of group classes.

No preprogrammed video can replace a top-notch, real-life instructor, one who not only understands good technique, but adapts their programme to both the prevailing conditions on the mountain and the personalities of their clients. You can’t have one of those every day, though – and, for the rest of the time, I’m glad to have Darren Turner in my pocket.