The Powder Instructor – Part 1: First Run

Ravi had been taught to avoid failing at things, and the ski slope in Niseko was determined to cure him.

He fell on the bunny hill. He fell off the chairlift. He fell into a snowdrift with a noise like a piano dropping, and lay there, staring up at a vast pale sky, wondering why he'd decided this was a holiday.

"Again," said a voice above him.

A man in a red jacket and goggles loomed into view. He was thirty-four, lean, brown-eyed, with windburnt cheeks and the easy grin of a person who had lived on mountains all his life. "Kenji," he said. "Your instructor. You are doing wonderfully."

"I've fallen six times."

"Seven. You are improving."

Ravi laughed, in spite of himself, and let Kenji haul him upright. He was thirty-one, a London banker, bad at relaxing, with a sprained ego and a rental jacket in alarming yellow. His friends had gone to the onsen. He'd stayed to prove something.

"Weight forward," said Kenji. "Knees soft. Look where you want to go."

"I want to go home."

"Look at the trees."

He looked at the trees. He pushed off. For eight glorious seconds, he skied, down the gentle slope, wind in his face, snow whispering under his skis. Then he fell again, laughing.

"Yes!" shouted Kenji. "Yes! That was a ski!"

They worked all week. In the afternoons, Kenji took him up the mountain to a deserted run, taught him to carve gentle turns through light powder. In the evenings, they drank hot sake and ate bowls of ramen at a tiny steaming counter. Ravi told him about the bank, the loneliness, the fear of getting things wrong.

"Can I ask you something?" said Kenji.

"Yes."

"Why do you hate falling?"

"Because I never learned how to get up."

Kenji studied him. "You do it very well," he said. "You just don't notice."

"Green?" said Ravi, shyly, using his friends' joke.

"Green," said Kenji, slowly. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fresh Tracks.