Star pupil in Sammy Ski School, attacked by a chairlift

Arms forward - as if you're carrying a tray

This has been a day of mixed fortunes. On the plus side, my skiing was good; in fact I was the star pupil in Sammy Ski School (also the only pupil, of course). On the down side, I was swiped by a chairlift and knocked over, but that was the only fall of the day.

This was a long day skiing (for me), but a much better day; I was working hard on getting my body position right and it was paying off as the day was a lot easier on my legs. We started with the familiar trip up Cachette chairlift, then skied all the way down Belvedere past Arcs 1800, onto Liaison Grizzly which takes you almost into Vallandry and up the Grizzly lift.

We came down Grive and then up the 2300 lift a couple of times. This cuts across a large bowl which has a red one side and blue in the bowl. Below the lift there's a red and a blue. It was a good place to practise turns and I was doing pretty well.

At one side of the bowl there's a speed trap. You can ski into a roped off slope, through a little gate and then straight down past a radar gun, brake hard and check your speed at the bottom. I was keen to have a go. It didn't start well; I had to side-slide down the slope, but I found myself facing the wrong way into the gate and had to take my skis off, turn round and go through. Fortunately no-one was behind me! I flashed through the trap at 38k/h, just about managed a tight skid turn to the left to check my speed and join Lucy, who had been watching the whole thing with interest.

Looking down the speed trap.

Sam came through at 47k/h, so I'll need to work on my tuck and my stopping skills (to say nothing of my gate negotiation technique). After this excitement, we went up 2300 again with the intention of skiing down to the cafe on the side of the piste. I was on the right of the chair and I was a bit slow getting going. I'd have been fine skiing to the right, but I was going left and the chair was going right. There was only ever going to be one winner and I was dumped in the snow!

After lunch we ran down Foret to meet Maitaz and go down into 1800. At the end, Maitez crosses a red and you can either take a couple of turns on the red or side-slide across. Last time, I opted to side slide, but there was a girl frozen with fear in my way and two men (one her boyfriend, possibly) telling her to move, to turn ... Sam said he would have left her and Lucy recalled Sam's mantra when she got stuck: "what do you want me to do, call mountain rescue?"

I waited for her for a while, thinking about making a turn around her, but one of the men was in the way, sitting on his snowboard. In the end I went for it and managed to ski around her and him. This time, I just executed a couple of turns and crossed quite comfortably. I kept some speed going because I knew it flattened out in 1800 before the Chantelle lift, which is the one we wanted.

Practising turns in the bowl  at 2300

After Chantelle, it was the long, slow Gollet back to 1600. In places, this is so slow you can hardly keep moving, but half-way along, there's a really steep section, which holds little fear for me now. Even the last steep run down into 1600 was completed comfortably. The lifts in 1600 all have steep sections immediately in front of them. For learners, it's not the ideal place.

This was a great day for me, I felt as if I'd made a breakthrough with my skiing and I still had some life in my legs. Lucy thought I should have finished on Renard.