Portrait: Claire, instructor in Val d’Isère for fifteen winters

Every winter, more than two hundred instructors wear the OxySki jacket across our sixteen resorts. Behind every lesson there is a person, a path and a very personal way of teaching. Today, meet Claire, instructor in Val d’Isère.

Who is she?

Claire grew up in La Daille, at the foot of the slopes. Daughter of a piste patroller, she clicked into her first skis aged four and spent her Wednesdays with the ski club. “I can’t remember a winter without snow under my feet,” she smiles.

The path

After a science baccalaureate and two seasons as a ski tech in a rental shop, she passed the Eurotest and then the French state diploma in alpine skiing in 2011. She joined the school that same year, back when it was still called Oxygène, drawn by the small groups and the international clientele: “Teaching in English, sometimes in Dutch, forces you to get to the point.”

Her way of teaching

Claire doesn’t believe in the hard-knocks school of skiing. Her recipe: one clear goal per session, lots of play with children, and the right to make mistakes for everyone.

“You progress when you enjoy yourself. A child laughing in the snow garden will ski for life; a child who was forced will quit at twelve.”

And today?

For three seasons now, Claire has also been training the school’s new instructors in children’s teaching. Her favourite terrain remains the Face de Bellevarde on a spring morning, “when the snow is still firm and there’s nobody about.”

Meet her

Claire teaches children’s group lessons and private lessons in Val d’Isère all winter. Book your lesson on the resort page — and if you ask for a particular instructor, the booking team will do their best.

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