Last Sunday, we rode the chairlift with a young man who had just Skied for 3 days and told us he had just skied down a black run. I realized where he went down and even though the difficult part of that trail was quite short, I could appreciate the value of his achievement on the basis of his short experience. 

A personal trainer and physical therapist, he said he was spatially gifted, and told us that he had learned how to ski by watching Youtube videos, memorizing them and translated what he observed into what might have been a surprisingly excellent execution. 

Skiing isn’t intuitive and since I believed the individual I was genuinely impressed. This said, I don’t think this lone achievement is likely to put all ski instructors out of a job. Sure, YouTube Learning isn’t for everyone and it takes time and sometimes luck to find the right tutorial whether it is for fixing a lawn mower, learning to knit or how to snowboard. 

This said, there are few people who have the stamina and discipline to self-learn, but it’s still amazing to realize what technology can do the help those ready to help themselves!