Day 4 | lil rippers

Whistler Kids is starting a new snowboard program this year called: Lil Rippers.  Normally you have to be at least 7 years old to take a snowboard lesson.  Now, with the new program, 4-6 year olds can take a lesson.  It's not an easy to program to start because it's difficult to teach kids at this age.  First, they don't have the attention span to concentrate on the lesson you're teaching.  Second, some say they don't have the muscle development needed at that age for snowboarding.

Today was the first day of work and we had 18 snowboarders taking lessons.  Three of those 18 were in the Lil Rippers program and I was the golden instructor given the class.  Well, I wasn't really given the class, I was the one who stepped up to babysit when no one else wanted to.  And that's exactly what it was:  babysitting.  Well, not really, but kind of.

My class consisted of a really cool six year old girl, a very independent four year old boy, and a very whiny, cranky, crying, four year old girl (who was still in diapers by the way!).  The boy was awesome!  He had been snowboarding since last Christmas and could rip down the hill no problem.  The six year old girl was pretty good too with great balance on the snow.  But the other girl wanted nothing to do with snowboarding and basically stood around crying until I kidnapped a Mini's ski instructor to help me.  Luckily she took the girl for the whole day.  Once I didn't have her to worry about, it was pretty fun hanging around with the other two.  Most of the riders signed up for today were level ones so it really wasn't any different than teaching a level one class.  The perk is that the smaller kids need more breaks!  And we get to play on the new jungle gym!!  No too shabby!