Chicks on Sticks
2009/10 Ski Season
Academics are taking a second look at new research showing that boys demand, and get, teachers’ attention more than girls in grade school through grad school. But remove the boys from the classroom, and girls are more likely to participate in discussions, to achieve more and to hold themselves in higher self-esteem, the studies show.
The concept also has proven effective in ski schools. The trend toward all-women ski classes is snowballing in the ski industry.
Chicks on Sticks, Babes on Boards, Thelma & Louise on Skis- call them what you may-participants of these clinics know a good thing when they ski it.
All-women classes remove the pressure to ski like men. Women learn at their own pace, in their own way. Dancing with the mountain rather than attacking it becomes a unified goal. Men like to Rambo down the mountain while women take it slower, concentrating more on technique. With everyone sharing the same objectives and strategies, the class becomes an ideal learning environment. It breeds success.
Former Telluride Ski School Director Annie Vareille Savath said all-women classes work because most women are not as confident about their athletic ability as men. “In coed classes, women tend to ski defensively, and lose quality,” Vareille Savath said. “But competition on the same level pushes them to be better and builds confidence.
“In Women’s Week, we show women how to accomplish goals, how to recognize and deal with fears and to coordinate mind and body,” Vareille Savath said. “What they learn skiing, they carry throughout their lives. It’s better than psychotherapy.”
Women-only programs owe much of their success to the quality of instruction. Ski schools select the cr
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