About Amy Wardman

I love skiing, I love the mountains and I’ve always loved working with people. It didn’t take a rocket scientist (or a career advisor!) to work out that pursuing a career as a Ski Instructor could be suitable path to take. So, after graduating from the University of Manchester, that’s exactly what I did…

After my first season working for Ski Olympic in Courchevel, I spent the following two winters training in the Three Valleys in France towards my Ski Instructor qualifications. During these two years I achieved my ISIA (or BASI level 3) qualification. This means I have not only passed the internationally accredited ISIA standard for the technical aspect of skiing, but also the Level 3 standard in Teaching, Mountain Safety and Levels 1 and 2 as a Development Coach. All at the reasonable price of no summer for 3 years!

Along the way I’ve tried to gain as much experience teaching as possible and had the pleasure of spending two years in an endless winter; teaching in Italy whilst training in France during the Northern Hemisphere winters, and teaching at Cardrona Alpine Resort, New Zealand, for the Southern Hemisphere winters.

I worked for New Generation Ski and Snowboard School in the Swiss resort of Verbier for two years whilst training for my final BASI qualification, the BASI Level 4 or ISTD. Training towards this involves more steeps, more bumps, more off-piste, more navigation and even a bit of ropework (?!) During these two seasons I achieved my Level 4 (ISTD) Teaching module and my European Mountain Safety module. All that remains for my final qualification are the Level 4 Technical module and the notorious Eurotest (arguably one of the biggest hurdles of the level 4 involving a giant slalom race on a long pair of skis in your most aerodynamic Lycra!). In an attempt to clear these final two hurdles I decided to focus on training and moved to the skiing Mecca that is the Espace Killy, where I now reside in Tignes.

I hope that this blog will provide an insight into the real world of a Ski Instructor: life in the mountains; the ups and the downs of training and the people that make teaching skiing so worthwhile. But perhaps most importantly, this is a final attempt to prove to my friends back home that ski instructing is in fact a proper job!

Amy Wardman

BASI Level 3 (ISIA) Ski Instructor

Development Coach Level 2

Telemark Level 1