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TL;DR: Not much. If you have a good time with your instructor, try and tip.I will speak as a part-time employee who teaches for fun, I make $2-3K/season. Full time instructors treat themselves like a business and can make 10-20x that depending on how industrious and accomplished they are. (shameless plug: that is why we built ShredBetter to make that slog a bit easier for instructors and guests).The great full time instructors treat themselves like a serious business -- they have their own version of CRM and are constantly networking. They might be hard to book since they will often have full request for days on end.Here is the breakdown of how instructors make their money on snow (many also hold down other jobs at bars, restaurants, or other businesses to make ends meet).Hourly rate is your base rate. It depend on your certifications and credentials and if you are part-time and full time. For me, as a level III (highest cert) part time instructor I think I make ~$13/hr.You only get paid the hours you are teaching. So when you see instructors at a "lineup" they are not getting paid. Or when a guest cancels a lesson, they are not getting paid. With the exception of a few states due to labor laws, when you don't teach, you don't get paid."The Request" -- At most resorts, this is the highest bonus payout -- The Quan. When you call or say you want to ride with Mike Ma, then there is usually a bonus rate of ~$10-40/hr depending on your certification, experience and the # of people in your private group.Tips - This is a tricky subject since it is expensive to get a private lesson, but you can see the disparity. You may pay $100+/hr for a lesson with me, but I may be making $13/hr. So if you have a good lesson, a rule of thumb is 10-20%, like a restaurant.But yet, it's not all about money ... Honestly, whatever you give would be very welcome. I treat tips as an acknowledgement that I did a kick ass job, in monetary or non-monetary form. My favorite story, I will never forget taught a college kid who scraped together everything he had for a private lesson and his story was my tip. I expected nothing more.As I tell people in staff training, "If you are here for the money, you messed up." Money is important, but being an instructor is a hard way to make an easy living.

The Ekalavya story is very interesting when deconstructed from different perspectives.It is a treasure trove of support for the victim ideology of the neo-marxists.Drona acharya = exemplar of the cis-gender, exploitative, oppressive, racist patriarchyArjuna = cis-heterosexual, white privileged capitalist, exemplar of toxic masculinity (Arjuna actually means “white”!)Ekalavya = alienated victim of caste/class/racial discrimination and oppressionThe by-standing princes who did not protest = racists, fascists, non-allies, micro-aggressors, class-enemies, and perpetrators of systemic racism and discrimination.Solution? Start the revolution, tear down the patriarchy, defund the warriors, burn public property and steal stuff and virtue signal while about it.Now let’s do a DHARMA DECONSTRUCTION.Drona Acharya was a martial arts teacher who had a contractual arrangement to teach and coach the Royal Team. He had made a personal commitment to Arjuna to make him the olympic winner of gold. His Dharma was total dedication to his promise, no matter what the personal consequences of his commitment. His word was immutable (like Rama the other cis-heterosexual, privileged capitalist who chose to go to the forest for 14 years rather than break his promise.)Arjuna was a royal prince who’s Dharma was the protection of the country and the citizens, and as a dyed in the wool capitalist had a commitment to foster and ensure free-trade and open markets so that the country and citizens could prosper and flourish.Ekalavya was the outsider - the aboriginal with grand aspirations to learn archery from the greatest of all coaches of the time - Drona Acharya. Indeed a noble and praiseworthy aspiration but sadly Drona was not in a position to accept him. Its like a lad from the slums approaching the Indian Cricket team coach and requesting private lessons - even though showing great talent and potential.Being rejected, Ekalavya did not immediately claim discrimination and resort to self-dissolution and wallow in victimhood. He still respected Drona Acharya and decided that he would make him his “Spiritual coach” - he made an image of him and worshipped him in absence everyday. This gave him the most important quality a student can have - self-discipline - without which success is not possible. Every day he applied himself to practice, practice, practice - with a focused and concentrated mind, viewing himself not as a victim but as the hero he aspired to be. Self-pride, self-esteem and a sense of heroism were his outstanding characteristics. And he indeed became the best archer the world has known - famous to this day for his feat of shutting up a barking dog with a bunch of arrows while not killing it.He can be likened to runner Zola Budd who trained bear-foot and alone and broke the world-record in the 5000 meters.Arjuna was the hapless victim - he had his pride injured but gained insight into his own inadequacy. He was no snow-flake and persevered in his art and did become the greatest archer of his time.Dronacharya, being put on the stop, experienced severe DHARMA-SANKAṬ - an ethical quandary - how to resolve this matter? He was indirectly responsible for the exceptional skill of Ekalavya - by being his “role-model” and “spiritual” coach. He had two outstanding athlete proteges - both with different demands of him. What could he do? So he resolved the matter by requesting “guru-dakshina” - remuneration - of the right thumb of Ekalavya - knowing full well that the loss of his thumb would not impair his skill at all, and would be only a cosmetic and not a major inconvenience.So indeed Ekalavya is the unsung hero of the Mahabharata and the paragon of studentship for all, and a role-model for all those of the depressed classes - to strive to raise themselves by their own self-discipline and self-effort and never to succumb to the incapacitating identification of victimhood. Victimhood is the most pernicious and debilitating of all forms of self-identity or labelling of others.Ekalavya ki jai!

Yes. We give private lessons to any student who requests one. Sometimes new students start with private lessons so they don’t feel out of place when they join classes.We’ve also given private lessons to students from another system, Taekwondo to be exact. At the time they did not know I was graded in traditional Taekwon Do and knew all the forms from the system they studied.Special attention is sometimes needed and I am happy to help.