About Us

    Hi! My name is Jim Safianuk, your instructor for the course, Skills of the Expert Skier, owner of this site, and an avid downhill skier who over the past 20+ years has skied on almost every kind of terrain and snow condition imaginable. I am also a certified ski instructor and racing coach in Canada.

    When I'm not skiing, I work as a freelance writer and web developer out of my home in Newmarket, Ontario. I also co-organize an inline skating club in the summer months. I like to keep in skiing shape throughout the year so I don't have to spend a lot of time and effort ramping up each fall.

    I want to thank you for venturing onto this page. Your patience in reading about me is greatly appreciated. I just thought it would be best to introduce myself so you know something about my background, why I wrote the training course, and the goals I hope to achieve with the course and site.

Filling a Void

    I decided to write and publish the training course, Skills of the Expert Skier, because I wanted to fill a void that I feel exists in recreational skiing. There are coaches at the local, regional, and national levels who train adults to become slalom racers, mogul experts, and aerialists with an eye towards World Cup competitions. There are instructors at ski resorts, camps, and clubs who teach adults to be good parallel skiers on groomed trails. But what happens to the skiers who aspire to become experts on moguls, in trees, and down steeps? Who can they turn to for guidance?

    A lot of skiers plateau out at an intermediate or advanced level, become bored and give up entirely, or turn to snow boarding only to frequent the same runs. No wonder the number of alpine skiers is dropping each year. There are a lot of skiers out there who are left unfulfilled, season after season, since they have never experienced the sensation of all-terrain skiing at an expert level. By avoiding the expert zones, they have been deprived of up to 50% of the runs, depending on the resort, year after year. Why is this happening?

    Fear of injury, anxiety about the unknown, not wanting to look bad in front of fellow skiers, a lack of confidence, not enough knowledge, not in good enough shape, or an improper mind set may all be contributing factors. Perhaps! But these are the same excuses that novice skiers make when they first start out and eventually they learn to overcome most or all of them as they progress in skiing. There has to be something else.

    I am convinced that the single biggest factor is that these skiers know they need help, but can't find anyone to turn to for guidance, weekend to weekend, and year after year. But this is not there fault. A void exists. That's why I wrote Skills of the Expert Skier.

Enter the All-Terrain Instructor

    My goal with the course is to help these skiers enjoy the sport to the fullest and take their skiing to the next level. I want them to learn to ski whatever terrain they encounter in the descent of the mountain with confidence and skill so they can feel the adrenaline rush that comes after a clean run through an un-groomed mogul field. No skier should be deprived of that feeling for too long.

    The objective of the Members-only area of the web site, which I've dubbed the All Terrain Ski Club, is to build a community of like-minded people who aspire to become expert skiers. Our ski lessons, which are web-based, required a place for students and instructors to interact on a regular basis. The online ski club provides the virtual classroom we need for ongoing communications.

Pictures from the Past

    I included the section, Pictures from the Past, to put a face to the person behind the pen. By the way, that's me in the red jacket and black pants. These pictures were taken from my photo album and scanned into my pc so there is some loss in clarity. I now have a digital camera so any pictures I take for the upcoming lessons should be much better.