I'd predicted serious injury. And of course now that prediction's coming to pass. And it's coming to pass in painful slow motion, like an out-of-body experience: there's me over there ... falling ... all the way down ... hitting the deck ... skis criss-crossing through the air ... arrowing back into my face ... blood and bits of teeth flying everywhere ...

Day one

How beautiful is Saalbach? Ah, very. Warm sun flits across the crisp snow. The Glemmtal Valley ahead. The Pinzgauer Grass mountains above. Below, dark-wood bars rammed full of beautiful people swilling foaming shafts of lager. With Jägermeister chasers. Saalbach: paradise.

But paradise is also a ski resort. And at a ski resort, you can bet your bottom euro that at some point someone will insist - in the name of "fun" - that you leave the bars and the beautiful people - and force you into a pair of skis. With the express intention of sending you skittering hysterically down the side of a mountain. Now, bar, beautiful people and sticky booze are concepts I can entertain, but heights and speed I'm not so fond of. And skiing looks pretty high and speedy from where I'm sitting. I don't want to do it. No.

But there's no way out: I've been enrolled in the Skischule. Henrick will be my instructor and he quickly crams me into a pair of skis. After a high-speed soft-shoe shuffle, the sort usually accompanied by xylophone trills in cartoons and silent movies, I fall onto my face. And I can't get up again. With saucer eyes, I offer my hand out to Henrick like a little boy who's just tripped over his shoelaces.

I'm a textbook example of dyspraxia alright, although after a while I sort of get the hang of it. Everyone in the class takes a while to get their balance, but after a few drills - walking around in circles, coming down a wee nursery ramp in a straight line and learning how to stop by doing the snow plough - we're all careering down the two-metre slope like Alberto Tomba in his prime.

Apart from Greg, that is. A handsome, strapping, six-foot-plus hunk, Greg looked to me every inch the natural-born skier. Until he put on a pair of skis. Greg is now spending most of the time sailing across the deck on his teeth, Emile Heskey on ice. If I'm textbook dyspraxic, Greg's the leather-bound ten-volume encyclopaedia. I'm really loving Greg: he's making me feel much, much better about myself.

But Henrick's a brilliant coach and he's teaching us so well, filling our apprehensive little heads with such self-confidence, that eventually even Greg manages to manoeuvre gingerly about while staying upright. So after lunch, up on to the mountain we go.

Whoosh! There goes that self-confidence. Henrick shoves four ski poles at regular intervals down what initially appears to be a black run (it's actually an incredibly gentle slope at the bottom of a blue run) and we're instructed to slalom down carefully, braking and turning using the trusty snow-plough shape. Again and again we twist, turn, fail to brake, career out of control, bounce our skulls across the floor. But eventually we get there. By the end of the afternoon we're all able to zig-zag down the mini-course with something approaching aplomb. The glow of achievement is so intoxicating, the entire class stays on the slopes for a while at the end of the day to glide about like ballet dancers. Apart from Greg, who loses control, speeds off at a right angle, and flattens a passing eight-year-old girl.

Day two

Going up a mountain on a T-Lift is a doddle. Two of you stand in your skis alongside each other, shove a piece of moving rope with a plastic T-shape behind your buttocks, and let the whole kit and caboodle drag you serenely up the hill. I'm sharing a lift with Greg and now we're getting cocky.

"This is one smooth ride alright."

"Yeah. You don't even really have to hold on, it just whisks you up."

"You could probably smoke a cigarette on the way."

"You could probably roll one as well."

"Yeah, with one hand, a cup of coffee and the morning paper in the other."

We leap off at the top of the lift. Then look back down. Eh, hold on, we're up quite high here. How the eff are we going to get back down without snapping our necks? We wait for the entire class to make it up the lift. We wait and we shake. Meanwhile a school of small children take off down the slope with haste. They're all wheeching down the mountain at the speed of sound, the precocious little brats. Is it so wrong to harbour an intense desire to crump a four-year-old child between the eyes with your ski pole? Is it really?

Actually, you can't help but admire them. They've no fear. I, however, am a nervous wreck. Once again, it's Henrick to the rescue: he leads us down the mountain expertly, making sure we zig-zag slowly using our new-found "skills". There's not even much in the way of spills, although Greg manages to up his taking-out-innocent-bystanders count by 300%.

But we're progressing quickly. Far too quickly for my liking, because now we're going up a proper chair lift to do our first blue run. And at the top of the chair lift, there's a T-Lift which takes another 10 minutes to drag us right to the top.

Finally we're at the top, and Jesus Christ but this really is a bit too far up for comfort. Henrick again leads us down, but there's one bit where he simply can't help us: a huge leg-breaking slope which you can only get down by tucking into the racing position. We weren't warned about this – which is just as well because if I'd known, I'd have bottled it. Now I've no choice: I've got to get back down. So it's a deep breath, a final prayer and ... actually, this feels OK! I'm shifting along, but it doesn't feel as dangerously fast as I thought it was going to beeeaaaAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGNNNGGGG. Er ... I wasn't expecting to suddenly pick up speed up like that. Still, I've made it down in one piece - and now I'm flattening out along a safe straight at what seems like a thousand miles per hour. How exhilarating is this?

Though I'll be honest: while I'm glad I've experienced it, I still don't have any head whatsoever for speed, so I'll not be doing it again. It's the easy slopes for me tomorrow alright.

Hearty evening repast

That evening, we're driven up a huge hill in a snow tractor to the Spielberghaus lodge for dinner and sticky booze. They feed us hearty wild-mushroom stew and make everyone neck all manner of appalling schnapps.

We toboggan back from the lodge. The track's a couple of miles long and you can pick up a fair old speed; it's great fun, providing you don't think about accidentally careering off the path and into the void. Halfway down, I realise the group has become totally straggled; there's not a sound bar the swish of my sled's runners. I'm in the middle of nowhere, utterly alone, in the dark, on the edge, out of control on a tray. If only I were any good at making intelligent existential analogies.

Day three

I should have known. The cable car was the clue. We're up high again, even though I'd promised myself to stay on the easy slopes. Now I'm heading down another blue run, and this one's much higher and much, much more dangerous than yesterday's. If you lose control down a couple of these passes, you're going over the edge and no mistake. Again Henrick guides us down with extreme patience, but suddenly yesterday's blue run comes back to haunt me: if that slope was unwise, this one I'm teetering at the top of now is suicidal.

I snowplough down the ramp for as long as I can, but then momentum takes over. I've no option but to make sure my skis are parallel, tuck myself into the racing position, and hope for the best. I career recklessly down the slope at the speed of light; so fast, in fact, that I'm sure I can feel my skis lift off the floor after they thrash across the bumpy surface. Suddenly I'm concerned: there's a sheer drop at the end of this section, I'll surely never stop in time. Oh Jesus. In a heady mix of endorphins and pure fear, I emit a lusty bellow – WWWOOOOOAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH – and a cheeky swear – and then ...

... and then I smoothly stop. With a really professional sideways flourish, sprays of powdered snow and all. Here, it appears I can actually ski.

Having said that, I decide that's all the speed for me. Half the class - including Greg, who's suddenly miles ahead of me now and looks every inch the natural-born skier - go up the blue run again for more speed-based fun, but I stay with the other half on the lower slopes, zig-zagging around like a shy child for the remaining couple of hours.

A couple of celebratory après-ski foaming shafts in the bar below, and we're off. Jubilation. "Ha! Three days on piste and I didn't break my legs," I boast. "Not one accident! If I can learn to ski without disaster, ANYONE CAN." I unlock by boots from their bindings, throw my skis and poles over my shoulder and strut jubilantly towards the hotel. I step off the snow for the very last time and onto terra firma - whereupon my foot gives way under me.

And it's happening in painfully slow motion. It's like an out-of-body experience: there's me over there ... falling ... all the way down... hitting the deck ... skis criss-crossing through the air ... arrowing back into my face ... blood and bits of teeth flying everywhere ...

Aw for Christ's sake. What a hopeless, clumsy oaf.

Way to go ...

Scott Murray travelled to Austria courtesy of Crystal Holidays who currently offer a week in the four-star Hotel Sonnleiten Saalbach (+43 6541 6402) from £445pp based on two sharing a room including return flights from Gatwick to Salzburg, transfers and seven nights' half-board accommodation (for departure on March 17 2007).

The learn to Ski Package costs £132 per adult and £107 per child (four and a half-12 years) including six days' equipment hire, tuition (five days adult/six days child). Lift pass not included as not required for 1st day. This should be purchased on advice of an instructor dependent on progression.

Ryanair operates two to four daily flights between London Stansted and Salzburg Airport between two and four times daily. The Saalbach-Hinterglemm resort is approximately one hour's transfer by road from Salzburg Airport. Prices start at £46.94rtn including taxes, fees and charges.

Scott took lessons at the Saalbach Skischule; +43 6541 8444.