First ski clinic at Avoriaz ski school

At about this time, some fifty years ago, I had just began working at the Avoriaz ski school and Edmond Denis, its director, had taken the entire ski school to review some critical teaching materials.

I remember that we were working around the late Foillis chairlift, In those days, there was a whole collection of side-slipping Christies that we needed to master, before culminating to the French Technique’s holy grail, also know as “Christiana Léger”, a fine, perfect turn using a slight up and down unweighting and circular projection of the upper body, skis perfectly parallel and close together.

The all deal was executed at the lowest speed and the utmost grace possible. Edmond was part of a French expedition that had premiere the south face of the Aconcagua in Chile, back in 1954 and had lost his toes from frostbite during this ascent.

He was telling us that the secret of all Christies was found in feeling a longitudinal and forward pressure on the big toe. He no longer had any and must have felt his phantom toes!

I liked what I heard, was then a sponge, thirsty for knowledge about skiing and thought Edmond Denis, who was pretty much anti-conformist, spoke smoothly and sounded like the greatest guy I’d ever met.

Four years later, he would leave the ski school and become an inspector checking on the quality of ski instruction delivery, a cool gig for a cool dude...