Instructor Training course – Week 2, Day 1

  Having spent most of yesterday practising plough parallel turns, I spent most of this morning doing the same.  Which is fine because I need the practise and I think I probably made some progress although further improvement is still required.

  In the afternoon we had a crack at the moguls on Bosses - a black run that never seems to get pisted so the bumps were pretty nasty; elongated and quite icy in places.  About the best that can be said is that I reached the bottom without falling - it was hardly a controlled performance let alone stylish.

  Tomorrow I’ve got to give a ‘fun’ 10-minute lesson to a group of 8-year olds who can ski parallel-ish and like nothing more than racing all over the mountain on red runs.  Well actually they won’t really be 8 years old; it will be the rest of my BASI group pretending to be 8 (shouldn’t be so difficult for some of them !).

  So I need the lesson to be fun but before that I need to ensure their safety so I’ll have to contain their speed (without removing the fun) and then since it’s a lesson I’ll have to incorporate some learning (without making it boring).  Time to create a lesson plan…

Day Off

  I spent my ‘day off’ practising hard practising hard - 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon.  After which further practise seemed likely to be counter-productive so I went to the top of the Saulire lift for a blast all the way back to the chalet.

  I think I’ve made some progress – we’ll see if Dave notices any improvement tomorrow.

Instructor Training course - End of week 1

  We spent most of the day giving short (10 minute) lessons to each other and then reviewing the effectiveness of the instruction.  I’d been asked to do a session to improve rhythm and ease when skiing plough parallel turns.

  ‘Flow’ is the probably the most difficult of the 5 Fundamental Elements to explain in terms of how to achieve it although it’s components are not so hard to recognise; it has 3 parts: balancing the forces of the curve and terrain, co-ordination and rhythm, fluency and ease.

  Of these fluency and ease is probably the most nebulous.  So I decided to see what would happen if I gave the lesson without telling the group what we were specifically working on.  Instead I asked them to just relax and free ski a run using plough parallel turns matching in the fall line and think about what they felt their bodies doing.

  Then I tried to relax their bodies more with a breathing and muscle tensing exercise before I led them down the same run in a snake using a narrow corridor to force them to make quick turns and thereby make their movements quicker and hopefully more fluid.

  Unfortunately their comments were only that the slope wasn’t steep enough.  So we tried again on a steeper slope but I think their minds were on lunch more than my lesson so we packed it in and went for lunch.

  So the group didn’t do a lot of learning but I did - they wanted to have a single clear objective.  So that’s what I’ll use for the rest of this course, although I won’t abandon the idea of getting people to try and feel what their bodies are doing - I’ll just have to find a better approach in future and perhaps use it with a more receptive group.

  After the evening lecture (which was mercifully short) we had one-to-one sessions with Dave in which he graded us using the same scale that will be used for the final assessment in just under a week’s time.

  On a scale of 1 to 6, we need to score 5 on all elements of the Central Theme and on Piste Performance (essentially skiing at higher speeds).  Currently I’m scoring 3’s and 4’s so there’s some work to do there as well on Bumps, Steeps, Variables and Freestyle.

  What’s needed is practice; the question is whether there’s enough time left to reach the required standard.

An eventful day

  The original start date of the BASI Instructor Training course was doubled-booked on the same week as the last ESF week.  In the event the ESF only needed the first 2 days of their last week so the start of the BASI course was delayed by 2 days.  The upshot of this is that despite the fact it’s the weekend we’re still skiing with our BASI trainer.

  This morning we were focussing on carved turns and all was going well until one of the more immature members of our party decides to shower everyone in snow.  We’d had this kind of behaviour at the start of the course but after a big barny on the slope it had disappeared.

  The juvenile in question had been getting on my tits for some time and on this occasion I lost my rag and gave him an impromptu lesson in Anglo-Saxon.  I should have decked him but that’s not considered appropriate behaviour in front of a BASI trainer (but I reserve the right to do so in the future at a time of my choosing).

  In the afternoon Dave decided that we should work on something ‘Beyond the Central Theme’ and of the ‘Five Strands’ he picked Steeps and Variables.

  So we skied down the Grand Couloir in Courcheval, which was pretty challenging as it’s both very steep and rather variable too.  Towards the bottom it’s only moderately steep but then it’s also quite mogulled so in fact we did 3 of the 5 strands in one run.

  Then we skied off to find some more variable conditions, which we less challenging so rather more fun.  Before we finished though Dave decided he wanted to video us doing short turns – as if our legs we tired enough already.

  Now I’ve just got to read the manual and prepare a lesson on ‘fluency and ease’ in mid-matching plough parallel turns for tomorrow.

Instructor Training course – Day 3

  Today we all gave a 10-minute lesson to the rest of the class, going through all the elements of the Central Theme from Plough Turn to Parallel Turn.  With the feedback from Dave after each session, catching lifts, and having the occasional run to keep us entertained this actually took most of the day.

  I feel my lesson went quite well although unsurprisingly there were aspects that I could (and will have to) improve by next week if I’m to pass the BASI assessment.

  We also did some work on improving our demonstration of a basic parallel turn.  While we may not need to be able to do these perfectly in our recreational skiing we do need to be able to do perfect demonstrations so our pupils can see the right way to do it, even if they won’t be able to do it particularly well themselves they need to have the right image in their minds.

  Right now I think getting my demonstrations absolutely spot on is my biggest challenge although that’s not to say I don’t have a lot to learn about actually teaching and learning the theory that goes behind the teaching.

  It’s hard work but oddly I’m still enjoying it !?!

Instructor Training course – Day 2

  Having revised all the Fundamental Elements yesterday, today we went through all the parts of the Central Theme.  All we need to do now is cover all the strands Beyond the Central Theme and we’re done !

  Well, not quite… What we need is to have a in-depth understanding of the Fundamental Elements and the Central Theme and how they relate, be able to explain to our pupils what they need to do, practise until we can perform all the demonstrations perfectly, acquire a ‘toolbox’ of exercises to use in lessons, learn about class management, learn about mountain safety, learn about how people learn…

   So there’s still a way to go.

Instructor Training course – Day 1

  Quite an intensive day:  We skied with our BASI trainer, Dave Morris, from 9:30 till 12:30; had an hour off for lunch (which is only just enough time to get back to the chalet, make and eat lunch, and get back to the meeting point); then skied with Dave again from 1:30 to 3:30; back to the chalet to pick up the BASI manuals then down to the conference centre for a workshop from 4:15 to 5:15 and finally back to the chalet for a French lesson from 5:30 to 6:30.

  On top of that we’re expected to do an hour’s reading of the BASI manual in the evening.

   No wonder I’m knackered !

Test Technique

  I usually find it difficult to get to sleep here because of the amount of noise the inconsiderates generate, often into the early hours, but last night everyone (except me) was in bed by 10pm.  The downside was that I was woken at 5am by the sounds of doors slamming and chairs scraping – the rest of the crew getting ready for their 6am departure for Les Menuires.

  It was still snowing this morning when I set off for Les Menuires, not that I was going to race in the Test Technique – I wasn’t going to risk jeopardising the Instructor Training course by straining my calves again, especially since I stood no realistic chance of achieving the required time to qualify as for a Stagiare job.

  In fact I had quite a bit of trouble even getting to Les Menuires because the lifts from Méribel that access that valley weren’t running and when I did get a lift up I could only ski down to St Martin de Belleville and then the lift I needed from there didn’t open till 10am due to the snow conditions.

  Anyway I eventually made it to the stade in Les Menuires, although I missed most people’s first run.  I expected the second runs to take place pretty much immediately but I had to wait an hour and so did everybody else so any warm up they had done was totally wasted.

  Unfortunately no-one achieved a qualifying time so everybody was somewhat depressed at lunch and opted to take the minibus rather than ski back; except me that is because there wasn’t room in the minibus.

  I was slightly concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get back if the weather had deteriorated and the top lifts had been closed but although it was still snowing and the wind was still driving the snow horizontally and most of the mountain was covered in fog the lifts were open so I got back OK.

  In fact it was more practice in variable conditions with bad visibility for an added challenge… and I still need more practice !

Focus

  I decided that my rather lacklustre attitude yesterday was due to the fact that I didn’t have any focus and I was just skiing round, recreational stylie.  So before I went skiing today I reviewed my assessment from the Trainee Instructor course which is graded using the same criteria as the Instructor Training course.  The areas I need to focus on are control of rotation, edge control and pressure control (all components of steering) and, more generally, skiing in variable conditions.  I then found some exercises that would help with each of the steering elements and decided to focus on these today.

  As it happens it snowed a little last night although it was too warm for any decent powder anywhere near resort level I thought there might be some powder higher up and lower down the icy and mogulled off-piste would be nicely disguised… perfectly variable.

  By the time I headed out around eleven the temperature was dropping and it was snowing again.  I certainly found my variable conditions and it was a blast even if my style is rather inelegant it’s all good practice.  I spent some time on the piste as well practising ‘pedalling’ (for pressure control), braquage (for control of rotation) and metronome knees (for edge control).

  Result: A much more enjoyable day’s skiing.

Marking time

  Read some of the BASI manual this morning and when I’d had enough of that I listened to some of the French course I brought with me.  I eventually went skiing around eleven with the intention of practising some of the BASI stuff we’ll be doing next week.

  Trouble was I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm so messed about trying to ski on one ski (not entirely unsuccessfully I might add).  Anyway I eventually got bored of skiing and went back to the chalet… to do my weekly wash !

  At the moment it seems like I’m marking time, waiting for the Instructor Training course to start.