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Published: February 20th 2008
Instructor practice
Tim practices teaching a basic beginner turn with Josh as his reluctant student. Makes a change from dropping off cliffs."What do you mean this isn't a holiday?"
Mmm. A month in now, and things are getting a little more serious.
Over the past few weeks it's all been about improving our riding - feeling comfortable down pretty much any terrain, because in order to be instructors we naturally need to be a certain standard to teach. And now, it's less about the jumps and carving, and concentrating more about the teaching side of things. Most of this week has been full on preparation for our Level 2 instructor exam, which is next Thursday 21st. It's all about practicing our demonstration riding, exaggerating each movement to make it clearer for learners to follow etc etc. After riding for so long now it's tricky trying to remember what the hell I'm doing, and how I do it, and then make it clear enough for others to do the same.
We've been given our instructor manuals, so at least we can study the various stages at home. I've never really had a problem with 'public speaking' - talking to a group of people about a particular subject, so it's not the teaching side I'm worried about. It's more remembering the order
Another powder day
We skip lunch when we hear that Snake Ridge has been "made safe". We jump everything, with the assurance of a nice soft landing. of the stages, what's in each stage, what we're doing, why we're doing it etc. So as I write this I'm surrounded by bits of paper, note books, DVD's and my manual, trying desperately to find an easy way to remember it all before next Thursday!
On a slightly more relaxed side we had our private lessons last Friday. We got to spend time with one of the five instructors and concentrate on one particular aspect of our riding. Some people wanted to practice their jumps, and others simply wanted to go over the level 1 stuff. I decided that I'd had enough of "studying" and I chose to spend an hour and a half of doing "ground tricks" - basically going down a slope, spinning and sliding on the nose and tail of the board. Instantly, even the most mellow of slopes are now a lot more fun, and so to celebrate my newly found tricks, I dragged my fellow students to the pub. Now, there are some that would say that a pub in a snowboard clothing shop is a bad idea. But not me. After copious amounts of beer I decided that a lime green goose
Avalanche training
Despite losing his teeth after being taken over a cliff by an avalanche, Ryan stills heads into volatile areas to make it safe for us to ride. down snowboard jacket was just what I needed to liven the slopes up, and a beers later I was dancing to drum n' bass in full fllourescent splendor. And I'm sure I've seen some orange snowboard pants somewhere... (Liz - I'm begging you not to put that video on YouTube...)
Anyway, back to the serious stuff. Saturday was an 8 o'clock start for stage 2 of the AST course (Avalanche Safety Training). Shovels, probes and tranceivers were strapped to our back packs and we headed off with Ryan into the mountains. Fernie has the highest amount of avalanches in North America, relative to the size of the mountain, and it still baffles me why the hell they built the resort on such a volatile mountain in the first place. We dug snow pits to examine the weak layers in the snow pack, we studied the mountain to see where the next slide would probably occur (I counted 4 potential avalanches in waiting), and we finished with a mock rescue. But the really shocking part of the day was the return run home when Ryan told us of all the recent slides he'd been involved in, and how many people
Sunset session
Afer a long days lessons we let rip in the backyard park. First Lawrence showing how they role in Holland... he either rescued that day or didn't get to in time. It's all very sobering. And I can't help thinking about that time I got lost in Chile. Cheery eh? Anyway, the good news is we're up to date with the AST now, so if anything happens we're all prepared!
Right, It's been another lazy Sunday of eating bagels at the local internet cafe and practicing jumps in our backyard park, so time for me to hit the sack and prepare for Level 1 next week. And hopefully, next time I send a blog, I'll be a fully qualified level 1 instructor!
Lapster.
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