10 Experts Who Teach : Bonsai to Quilting: Maybe Someone on Your Gift List Needs a Good Lesson

What can Santa pull from his bag this year to please those have-it-alls on your gift list? Do they really need still another mink-lined raincoat, backyard carrousel or set of matching camels?

Maybe the perfect present would be to smarten them up a bit: a lesson or lessons from a teacher highly regarded in his or her field.

Here’s a sampler of well-known teachers who offer lessons in Southern California (with one exception). Some accept beginning students; other require that pupils be past the tyro stage. Fees range from a few dollars for a single lesson to thousands for a series.

Some of these teachers can recommend other instructors who might be better suited to a student geographically or in terms of his or her level of experience. Other ways to find teachers include asking at businesses that specialize in a particular area and checking the Yellow Pages.

Bonsai. Khan Komai, 98 S. Lima St., Sierra Madre, (818) 355-4612.

Bonsai, the art of dwarfing trees and shrubs in shallow pots by pruning, “provides an artistic release while working with nature,” Komai says.

Formal displays and satsuki azaleas are specialties he lectures about throughout the United States and Australia. In addition, Komai has taught bonsai classes at the Los Angeles Arboretum and Cal Poly Pomona.

Eight lessons of two hours each for beginning through advanced students are available at Komai’s studio for $60.

Komai says a student needn’t be a Zen master but that he does look for pupils who enjoy a feeling of being at one with nature.

High-performance driving. Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, Sears Point Raceway, California 121 and California 37, Sonoma, Calif., (707) 938-4741.

A fleet of 72 cars, a skid pad the size of a football field and an accident simulator are part of what will justify the long trip to this school north of San Francisco.

The small classes include one-day advanced street driving, which teaches basic car control, evasive maneuvers and skid control ($325, driving your own car), and a four-day Grand Prix competition road-racing class (in a school car), which features 19 1/2 hours on a full track ($1,995). The latter class earns you a novice’s permit from International Motor Sports Assn. and fulfills half the requirements toward a Sports Car Club of America license. The full license allows you to race in SCCA events.

Three or four days’ training exclusively with Bondurant runs $1,200 per day.

Students must have a valid driver’s license and at least six months’ driving experience.

Rusty Wallace, 1987 Winston Western 500 winner, told a Times reporter last month: “I guess I owe a lot to Bob Bondurant. I went to his school up at Sears Point in 1984 and found out how little I knew about road racing.”

Fly fishing. Jerry Bliss, 8476 Hollister St., Ventura, Calif., (805) 642-4359.

Ever try to lure a rainbow trout or sockeye salmon from a river or stream and come up empty-handed? Bliss, 60, international director of the Federation of Fly Fishers, has been fishing since he was 7, and he says, “Presenting the fly is everything. But to present the fly, you have to be able to cast.”

The federation’s 1987 Man of the Year, Bliss recently taught classes on casting, stream reading and knot tying at Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and the Mulchatna River in Alaska.

He also teaches at Ventura College (Community Services, 4667 Telegraph Road, Ventura, (805) 654-6459). A $60 series of four Saturday lessons beginning Feb. 20 includes classroom instruction and practice casting, first on a lawn, then on water.

Fly Fishing Weekend: orientation Jan. 9 with field trip Jan. 16 and 17, $50. Individual instruction can be arranged for $20 an hour.

Chess. Matthew Beelby, Chess Computers and Games, 911 E. Walnut St., Pasadena, (818) 440-9210.

“A good chess player is anyone who loves the game, has an innate interest in thinking and an artistic taste for creating,” says Beelby.

A “life chess master” rated in the top 1% nationally by the U.S. Chess Federation, this former member of the board of directors of the Southern California Chess Federation has been playing tournament chess for more than 15 years and has won the San Gabriel Valley Chess Championship, in addition to winning the Isaac Kashdan Tribute Tournament for chess masters.

“As a teacher, I’m very conscious of my student’s strengths and weaknesses. . . . I look for students who control their emotions and who have a strong desire to win,” he says.

Private lessons for amateurs or more experienced players are about $25 per hour.

Quilting. Mary Ellen Hopkins, Crazy Ladies and Friends, 1606 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 828-3122. “You never know what abilities people have inside them. Some of my best students are working women who don’t have a degree in art,” says Hopkins. A lecturer at the National Art Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, and an international speaker, she has also written the textbooks “It’s OK if You Sit on My Quilt,” and “The Double Wedding Ring Book” on ring patterns. “I share secrets with my students,” she says, “and encourage them to loosen up and try anything.”

Classes at her shop are approximately $15 for a 2 1/2-hour session. Hopkins’ specialty is pieced blocks, and she stresses design, color and fabrics put together by machine.

Rock climbing. Bob Gaines’ Vertical Adventures, 511 S. Catalina Ave., No. 3, Redondo Beach, (213) 540-6517. A member of the American Mountain Guides Assn.,

Gaines has been rock climbing for 15 years. A former member of Yosemite’s Search and Rescue Team and veteran of seven El Capitan ascents, he has been a professional guide for more than six years.

“We expect students to be in good physical condition,” Gaines says. “Climbing with a guide cuts down on the risks and maximizes your capabilities.”

One-day classes start with basic climb and rappel instruction on low-angle, moderate rock up to 75 feet in height.

For students who already know ropes, equipment and basic climbing techniques, Gaines offers intermediate and advanced classes. He says he designs programs to meet a student’s goals.

Climbing instruction costs $125 per day and is offered year-round--the summer program at Idylwild from May to October and the winter program at Joshua Tree National Monument from November through April. Rock-climbing tours to Europe are also scheduled.

Cooking. Peter Roelant, Epicurean Cooking School, 8759 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 659-5990.

Trained under Fredy Girardet in Switzerland, Roelant says he takes the mystery out of gourmet cooking.

In three-hour, one-day classes that cost $50 a person, small groups learn preparing and presenting an appetizer, main course and dessert, plus how to purchase quality food.

One recent group sipped wine while preparing roasted-squab salad with peaches and raspberry dressing, filet of John Dory with hazelnut dressing and caramelized green apples and pears over almond croustillant.

Students often return for one-on-one lessons or second and third classes. The 28-year-old chef, a former Ma Cuisine cooking-school teacher, never repeats the same menu.

“My students don’t need to have previous training,” says the L’Orangerie chef, “but they have to be truly interested in food and cooking and must understand basic terminology.”

Golf. Jerry Barber, Griffith Park Golf Shop, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, (213) 664-2255.

The former captain of the Ryder Cup Team and four-time winner of the Southern California Open Championship does his teaching at the Griffith Park driving range.

“The player plays golf with the club. The game basically is between the club and the ball, not the player and the ball,” says Barber.

He keeps it simple: “To improve your game you must improve your grip and your position to the ball--most people stand too close.” Unlike most teachers, who stress body movement, this 1961 PGA Championship titleholder suggests “the body responds to the movement of the hands and club, not conversely.”

Barber looks for a good athlete who is willing to practice. His fee is $50 per hour.

Among other prominent Southland golfing instructors are Eric Monti, Hillcrest Country Club, 10000 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 553-8911, and Frank Morey, Wilshire Country Club, 301 N. Rossmore Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 934-1121. Harp. JoAnn Turovsky, Music Department, USC, University Park, Los Angeles, (213) 743-2527.

In addition to her USC class, which is for accomplished harpists, Turovsky teaches a class at Pomona College that accepts some beginners.

Turovsky performs with the Pasadena and Long Beach symphony orchestras and is a first-prize winner of the American Harp Society National Competition. She is an exponent of the Renie method.

Her USC classes require an audition to assess an applicant’s skills, including technical expertise. She accepts eight carefully selected students per class. If the eight chosen are not matriculated at USC, they may apply for limited-enrollment admission. An investment of $382 per unit for 15 one-hour-per-week lessons per semester rules out all but the most serious students. Spring semester begins Jan. 11. Individual instruction also available.

Private instruction for beginning to advanced harpists who want individual classes with Turovsky is also scheduled through the music department office at Pomona College, 340 N. College Ave., Thatcher Music Building, Claremont, (714) 621-8155. Fee: $40 per hour. Apply the week before the Jan. 18 semester starts.

Show riding instruction for hunters and jumpers. Rob Gage, Los Angeles Equestrian Center, 480 Riverside Drive, Burbank, (818) 841-5603 Gage will train “students with natural riding ability and dedication to work,” he says. The only West Coast rider to receive the AGA (American Grand Prix Assn.) United States Rider of the Year award, Gage feels strongly that students can’t take just a few lessons. They must commit to ride over a period of years. “Unlike pianos,” he says, “you can’t leave show horses standing around while you go on vacation. They still have to be trained and cared for while you’re away.”

Students must also be prepared for large expenses if they are show-riding. Monthly fees for basic training, excluding shows, run $300 to $500; boarding horses (many students have two or more) is extra. Costs on the show circuit for riders with multiple horses can run more than $2,500 per month.

Gage says several of his students hold high rankings in the California amateur jumpers division. Among the Southland’s numerous expert riding instructors are Jimmy Williams and Susan Hutchinson at the Flintridge Riding Club, 4625 Oak Grove Drive, Flintridge, (818) 952-7007, and Marsha Williams, at the San Pasqual Riding Stable, 221 San Pasqual Ave., South Pasadena, (213) 255-5822.