ski pauli * ski instruction & coaching
Pavel Bouska * Sunshine * Colorado
for private lesson reservations with Pavel at the Eldora Mountain Resort
call 303-440-8700 or email lessons@skipauli.com
Pavel Bouska, a PSIA Certified Ski Instructor
for private ski lesson reservations at the Eldora Mountain Resort west of Boulder, Colorado
call 303-440-8700 or email me at lessons@skipauli.com
Motivation: I love skiing and I want to share my experience and passion with others. It was never easier to start. Modern shaped skis, well-fitted high-tech ski boots1) and customized teaching techniques make it possible for first-timers to ski confidently on their first day and for advanced skiers to improve their skills above the performance ceilings they've been hitting for years.
History: My father Slava Bouska was a cyclist, motorcycle trials competitor, ice hockey player, and till his forties a member of the Czechoslovak national field hockey team. A friend took him skiing to the Giant Mountains when he was 28---just freshly beaten up from the last ice hockey game---and he knew on his first beautiful morning in the mountains what he wanted to do next. That year he gave up the ice hockey league to free up his weekends and instead headed with his skiing buddies for the mountains whenever and however he could, most often bouncing on the beds of surplus military trucks. He made his name around the various mountain huts and before long he became one of the first post-war certified ski instructors. When I turned 2 he carried me in a backpack across the Giant Mountains and I also made my first steps on skis somewhere. Some years later I must have heard from him for the first time about professor Stefan Kruckenhauser and his “wedeln”, the new Austrian downhill skiing technique that replaced the previously fashionable and as I understood quite spectacular French shoulder rotation system2). We started spending hours working on my skiing while my father explained the mechanics of each movement. He often emphasized that the new Austrian technique he was teaching me was based on professor Kruckenhauser’s observations and his photographs of talented racers who found a way to ski faster and more efficiently by defying the official ski school doctrine of the time. Way later I realized how much this distinction between real world observations and artful theories mattered to my father3). My ski lessons were not just about skiing. He could not tell me yet but he knew we were living in a country overrun by a mad and contrived communist dogma. It was a hard time for raising children and consciously or not, he was preparing me to recognize the reality. In time I started to understand it and the mountains became our private retreat and sanctuary where only those things mattered that really worked4).
Places: We lived in
People: Some of the best people I know I met in the mountains. I enjoy slope time with fellow instructors or skiers who can teach me something new. As an instructor, I thrive on working with people who want to learn and improve their skiing, although I've had success even with students who only came to the mountain because their boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses or parents insisted. Skiing is fun and I believe that learning skiing can be fun as well. It is still a demanding physical activity---especially for a beginner---but I do not consider my teaching efforts a complete success if my students don't finish their lessons with smiles on their faces. The pragmatic nature of the American Teaching System provides a good foundation for an easygoing, productive and satisfying day on the slopes.
Names: Why Ski Pauli? Well, I had to call the website something. The whole thing is about skiing and it made me think of
How: Email me if you want to ask about my teaching schedule or any other subject. Call the ski school desk in Eldora at 303-440-8700 to make a ski lesson appointment.
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1) Don't forget to get your boots properly fitted---you'll be standing in them all day. If you live in Front Range you should make an appointment with Larry Houchen at Larry's Boot Fitting in Boulder.
2) Shortly before my birth my mother Marie, a field hockey player herself, learned skiing according to the French rotational method and was not too happy about switching to the new and contrarian Austrian technique when she was told that so much they made her previously do was wrong. She thought that the ski instructors should just make up their mind and in time, family demands and other interests started turning her away from skiing. She was a great sports clothing designer, though, and she made sure that my father, my sister Marcela and I were always well outfitted for the mountains.
3) While my father was teaching me the "Kruckenhauser method" he was already changing it based on what he found to be working better. He probably would have driven the "ski professor" crazy but as a result he was teaching me a remarkably modern style. I've recently found some old photographs of him trying out different techniques during his first few years of skiing and I will post them as soon I have them scanned.
4) Our idea of "what worked" was simple: a thing is either important and relevant or it grabs our hearts and makes us laugh or cry. In fact, I think there is never a good reason to do or say anything else.
5) My friend and mentor Dr. Ernst Denert invited me to a high country ski tour in the Ötztal Alps in 1987 that I believe he remembers as well as I do. When on the second day we finally broke out of the dense clouds during our ascent over the glacier and looked back, we saw that we had just walked straight across a narrow snow bridge spanning a deep crevasse. Looking at the deliberate switchbacks of our skin tracks deep below us, one could have thought that we knew about the bridge and meant to cross it. We never saw it in the dense fog. Humbled but happy we reached the divide at Tisenjoch near the Austrian-Italian border and untied our connecting rope. Ernst reminded me years later that we crossed over the same spot at Tisenjoch where 2 German mountaineers in 1991 found the well preserved frozen remains of Ötzi, the Neolithic hunter. Ernst and I probably stood just a few feet over the body of our bold ancestor. During our descent later on the other side I suddenly had a strange sensation that my skis stopped and I was standing still in a field of churning snow. I looked sideways at Ernst and we realized that we had triggered a knee-deep snow slide and were skiing down with it. Despite our light randonnée skis and heavy backpacks we somehow managed to keep our balance and speed in the rolling snow and we skied out of it as it slowed down. Unlike Ötzi some 5,000 years before us, we were destined to make it back to the valleys below.