daysailer1

I'm curious. What are your division's riding tasks for Cert 2? I'm assuming they are similar. I'm in the Rocky Mountain Div. which covers Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Texas, Southern Wyoming. This is our list.


POSSIBLE LEVEL 2 AND 3 RIDING TASKS

SKIDDED TURNS (SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG)
DYNAMIC SKIDDED TURNS (SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG)
CARVED TURNS (SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG)
DYNAMIC CARVED TURNS (SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG)
TREES
STEEPS
CRUD
POWDER (IF ANY)
SWITCH SKIDDED TURNS
SWITCH CARVED TURNS
TOE TO TOE
HEEL TO HEEL
BUMPS (SHORT, MEDIUM, LONG)
SWITCH BUMPS
FLAT GROUND 180’S, 360’S
FLAT GROUND 180’S, 360’S IN BUMPS
FRONT SIDE 180's
BACK SIDE 180's
HOP TURNS
LONG TURNS TO SHORT TURNS (funnel turns)
SHORT TURNS TO LONG TURNS (funnel turns)
CROSS UNDER TURNS
CROSSOVER TURNS
HALF PIPE RIDING
50/50 BOARD OR RAILSLIDES
TABLE TOPS
RACE COURSE

Simply^Ride

Damn I would not come close to clearing that list. I think Snow wants to get his level 2 cert, but not sure on that.

daysailer1

Snowolf is working on obtaining his Cert 2 in the AASI-PNW Division and I'm working on mine in the Rocky Mtn Div. I'm trying to get together an active study group. I've just about got everything ticked off on this list. I need some polish on a few items. We have to demo these tasks flawlessly before our examiners or we fail the Riding Day Exam. I need to also work on the Movement Analysis Exam, and Teaching Exam. I figure participating in forum discussions can help in these areas.

Simply^Ride

So what are the benefits of having a cert 2??? What is the investment?

daysailer1

Investment so far:

costs to get Cert Level 1 - probably around $300.00;


Costs so far to get Cert Level 2

01/07/2008 Snowboard Cert 2 Prep Clinic: Movement Analysis day fee $70.00
01/08/2008 Snowboard Level 2 Prep Clinic: Riding day fee $70.00
01/09/2008 Snowboard Cert 2 Prep Clinic: Instruction day fee $70.00
01/08/2008 Snowboard Written Exam Level 2 fee $20.00

Training books, DVD's, etc. ~ $ 150.00

unpaid training time - clinics, shadowing classes, book study time; gas, hotel fee - hundred's of $$

costs still to incur:
Riding Day exam fee $ 140.00
Movement Analysis Day exam fee $ 140.00
Teaching Day exam fee $ 140.00
more hotel fees

Benefits:
-Our riding, teaching, MA improves
-A modest salary increase
-promotion potential
-Higher seniority - results in getting higher level classes which are generally smaller than the never-evers
-get a class before lower cert's at lineup
-assigned more coveted classes
-better chance to be assigned to private lessons which are higher paying and these clients tend to tip much better, it's hard to get tips from the lower levels (tips are earned and we try hard to give guests what they want)
-Most high end resorts only hire instructors with a minimum of a Cert 2
-Cert 2 is much more respected than Cert 1
-it's a prerequiste for Cert 3
-other intangibles

Bones

Just a thanks to instructors who really are into teaching.

I realize the job has some benefits, but let's face it: nobody instructs for the money. I put a lot of time and effort into my riding, but that's selfish as I am the one who gets the benefit. I think it's very cool that people put this level of time and personal $$ into being a better teacher.

Snowolf

Yeah, when it`s a pow day and your friends are heading to the upper bowls and you are teaching never evers on the bunny hill, you had better be doing it for the right reason. Too often you see the "kid with a board" doing this for a free pass and they duck out of lineup, bail on classes and when they do teach, it is pretty pathetic.

As instructors who have our hearts into this and do it for the passion of sharing this sport and truly enjoying being a part of another human being`s happiness, these people piss us off. For us, it may be "just another first time group lesson" but for that customer, it may be a truly life changing event. We hold the power to make that special day something that does transform their lives into something special or we can piss it away and see someone go home frustrated, disappointed and missing out on such a wonderfully sport. The good instructors seldom even look at the paycheck for doing it. Myself, I often say "I can`t believe they actually pay me to do this".

My favorite classes are the visually impaired groups that come to Meadows. I had this 7 year old girl who was totally blind and was learning to snowboard. I worked with her for 3 nights and she was such an inspiration to me. Her life`s dream was to snowboard and she thought dream was shattered due to the loss of her eyesight, The local blind school in Portland has contracted with Meadows to work with these people and it truly is one of those life changing moments for these people. By the end of the third night, she was able to ride on her own without my physical assistance. I would ride next to her and give her voice commands to navigate her down the hill. To see such joy on her face was the most rewarding thing I think I have ever experienced in my life. I could`nt have paid Meadows enough to buy such a rewarding experience, let alone get paid for doing it.

I so love seeing a student a few months later tearing it up on the hill; riding better than I do myself. It gives me a sense of pride knowing that I was the guy who was there to see him/her link their first turn; you can`t put a price tag on that.

Daysailer, I will grab the task sheet, but most of our riding tasks are similar. We have a list of required tasks and then there are several optional tasks that the examiner will throw at you. The PNW really focuses on Dynamic skidded and carved turns both regular and switch. I have everything down pretty well this season and I took the level 2 mock exam at Meadows and passed everything with a good margin so Chris said I was more than ready. I am going to focus on the teaching part as well as MA. The written test is pretty straight forward and right out of the manual basically. The teaching part I think is the toughest when the examiners grill you on teaching a task. My big one to work on is MA...I need to really focus on that! I got an opportunity in the level 2 prep clinics to really work on it and I then found myself using what I learned in my classes and I immediately noticed the difference in how much more effective I became when dealing with advanced riders and identifying the subtle bad habits they were doing that was causing them problems in progression. It also helped my own riding out a lot. I found myself having trouble at something and the thought "oh shit, I`m doing THAT again" came up and I corrected an old ingrained bad habit and suddenly I could ride again.

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daysailer1

They try not to even hire these types at Winter Park. They may last two weekends, ruin customer satisfaction, and are a lost investment on time. WP tries to only hire people at the Cert 2 level or equivalent but will make exceptions if you come with a good recommendation and several seasons of prior teaching experience. Last year of all the Intrawest resorts in NA, ours was rated the top school in customer satisfaction. We did slip to #3 this season - Copper and Whistler beat us this year. Sometimes a few make it through the hiring process. Of my new hire class of around 8 people, I think I am the only one left. That's due to a variety of reasons.

Colorado does have a unique market. Season passes are fairly cheap here so people don't go for the free pass route as often. The destination resorts have considerable number of full-timers and they do need to make a decent paycheck. They still use part-timers for high season times. That said, even as a part-timer I need to get certain costs covered. It takes me two hours to drive to WP in good weather and due to I-70 traffic I'm leaving my house at 5:15 AM. I need the training benefits too. At my last hill getting $7.00 - $ 8.00/hr wasn't covering gas money and essentially no training. I'm quite satisfied with things at WP.

Never-ever classes can be some of the most rewarding. Being able to see people go from zero to linking turns is incredibly rewarding. I had an Australian surfer dude who went from zero to linking turns on gentle blues in 1.5 hours. It peeved his girlfriend somewhat and she was no slouch either.

It's fun to convert skiers too. I've turned quite a few onto it. You can play with the adults too! If you have a couple in the group and the wife picks it up quicker than the husband, it's interesting to see/hear the response when you tell the husband (within the wife's earshot) "she's making you look bad". The wife loves you and the husband gets more motivated.

The riding tasks are really more something that has to be done between you and the trainer. They can spot the flaws and tell you how to get there. I was just curious if you guys had the same stuff. I've always had poor leg strength and I could stand to lose 40lb. I'm planning on going into next season with more leg strength. In RM you have to have the solid basics but they believe in "riding versatility". Some tasks are optional but do expect you to be able to do them all. If Chris says you are ready, you are ready. I know I'm not. I focused on riding tasks this season.

The written test was straight out of the books. The new AASI Snowboard Guide, Core Concepts, MA handbook, some was out of the Vail Snowboard Handbook.

From now on I'm focusing more on MA and Teaching. I experienced the Teaching segment panic. The clinician basically said something like "teach (insert board performance concept here) in the context of (a specified riding task)". You have to do the whole stationary, simple, complex, freeride with appropriate teaching concepts along the way. With limited teaching time at that level in January, my mind conveniently went blank. I'm working on that.

I've got to work harder on the MA too. I need to get to the stage where within three turns you can detect the flaws and how to correct. Notice the New Zealand terms? Our trainers are NZ'rs and they use a different terminology. The NZ system seems to be much more rigorous than the AASI. I need a more efficient way to take notes on the indoors film part of the exam. People had a sheet of paper a divided into four quadrants. One for each board performance.

I hear you on the bad habits. I rode with a set for many years. Only when I started teaching did I realize how inefficiently I rode. They creep up on me too. Some wonder if I will ever be able to break a few. I sometimes find myself reverting in big moguls and using upper body rotation for turn initiation. How embarrasing.

__________________
Atomic Cold Smoke 157
Burton Triads
Salomon Dialogues

Snowolf

In a lot of our clinics, we take a video camera then critique back in the lounge. Sometimes it`s fun to see what others are seeing in your riding; sometimes its not so fun...
My big one was on toeside turns, I got into the bad habit of leaning my upper body over the toe edge instead of shifting my hips and arching my back. Once an examiner pointed that out and I started riding correctly, my toeside turns were much more efficient. On groomers, this was`nt a problem, but on the steeps, my toeside turns were ugly looking. One small change like that made all the difference.

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daysailer1

Yeah, we did it too this season. It's painful sometimes getting your riding picked apart. It took me a few years to learn to not take things so personal and accept criticism. If I hadn't gotten beyond that, I don't think I would still be teaching. It did teach me to always remember what it's like to be on the receiving end of teaching. Always stress what people are doing right and then build upon that. Always watch how you say something because you can thoughtlessly destroy someone's confidence and their vacation.


Yeah, me too. Inclination vs. angulation thing. Women also have a little extra challenge on this with our hips. Bart (a NZ trainer) calls it a "chick thing". He sees all chicks doing this. I'm going to have to get him to cover this again. He had me doing all this weird stuff in front of all the guys in the locker room on my very first day ever last season. I was pretty intimidated by all the full-time pro's present. Not many notes taken during that.

Ritchie W., another NZ trainer, showed us this great trick this season that works on toe-side and heel-side. I was using this on a 2nd year instructor two weekends ago. I posted this on EpicSki this past Feb. I break these up into two pieces and then put them together once they have mastered both. This works fantastically when you are teaching switch too. It really smoothed out my switch riding.

On your heel to toe turns:
Before you start to turn/turn initiation, reach for the middle of the nose of your board with your front hand with your stacked stance (don't actually lean or grab towards the nose; or bend towards your nose) and keep it there through the init/control/finish phases of your turn.

On the toe to heel turns:
Before you start to turn/turn initiation, reach down like you are going to grab the back binding heel cup with your back hand. Don’t actually grab it, just gradually flex down equally with both knees and equal pressure on both feet. Keep that stacked stance. This smooths things out and gets the alignments right.

One other benefit - if the person is uncomfortable with the terrain or is a little intimidated, this gets their mind off of this. You have given them a task with things to think about. They aren't so focused on the terrain and actually flex ye olde knees and ankles.

Yes, this did violate the new task old terrain, new terrain old task progression the other weekend. It did work! She went down her first black diamond run (that was right next to double black terrain).

__________________
Atomic Cold Smoke 157
Burton Triads
Salomon Dialogues