Is Everyone on the Same Page?
BY RACHAEL MILNER

 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR CRYSTAL MTN. SKI & SNOWBOARD SCHOOL, ALPINE DCL JET NW TEAM
 

The unexpectedly early and snowy start to last year’s season was a blast for everyone. I have never seen such excitement and enthusiasm surround opening day as I did on Nov 4th last year at Crystal! Needless to say, I was selling tickets inside Kids Club, so I could only revel in the excitement of others and watch as they ran out the door to claim their first face shots of the season.

By December 4th we were still going crazy! More snow, more people and more business than we could deal with. We were calling staff in early, putting out some big classes and doing everything we could think of to staff our daily lessons. Something had to give, and that my dear friends was STAFF TRAINING DAY. To be more exact, the teaching day of our part-time staff training. You know that old equation, “the better the snow, the more challenging it is to get your staff to participate in training that involves being in or near the base area”? My suspicions started as I stood alone in a room that should have been filled with instructors pouring over their policies and procedures manuals. By the time the groups did arrive indoors (covered in snow!), I was convinced that it wasn’t the “terrain selection for your first timers” that had kept them out late, but a very different “terrain selection” clinic they had been on. Was it the smiling or laughing that finally gave it away? Or perhaps the whispered references to North Back or Powder Bowl? Or more convincing yet, the way none of the training staff would catch my eye.

Bottom line, we had a happy excited staff (with sore legs!), but ……this year more than ever, I was convinced we didn’t have enough time to spend on a technical focus on the teaching side of things, specifically building skills and developing progressions. With such a large part-time staff teaching multiweek lessons, the challenge for us now was how do we follow up on that training to get and keep our instructors on the same page as we go through the season?

Here is what we came up with; we would send a weekly email out to the instructors, giving them a skill focus and some exercises they could use or adapt to build on that skill. Each week the focus would develop from the week before. I know it isn’t rocket science, but it really worked! Week 1 - team building, rules of the road, moving the group around, getting to know each other Week 2 - for/ aft balance, stance, developing feelings under the foot, age specific tasks Week 3 - steering and turn shape Week 4 - more turn shape and some situational skiing Week 5 - lateral balance Week 6 - see the example below:

Welcome to week six!!!

Can you believe it’s week six already? Hopefully your groups are all sorted out and the students are where they need to be. Thank you all for your help last week in getting the new students organized into lessons, for the most part it went very smoothly.

This week the movement focus is edging. At the lower levels, the correct amount of edging gives the student a bit of “grip” on the snow. This helps the students feel more control and gives them more confidence. As we move up the levels, an edged ski or board creates a platform for the students to balance over, encouraging them to move over the outside ski and to start to release and steer the inside ski. At the upper levels, a carved ski allows us to fully utilize ski design and performance.

Your challenge this week is to show your students HOW to edge their ski or snowboard and then to develop an awareness of WHEN to do this in the turn. Lower level students will grip and balance towards the end of the turn and higher level students will start to feel their edges earlier in the turn, above the fall line.

Firstly, it is important that the students understand that like all the other skills, edging happens progressively and subtly. You may have students that are too edged already. This means they will be “hooked up” and unable to steer the ski or board and finish off their turns. It’s a great idea to revisit turn shape and steering to encourage your students to keep balanced over their skis and to keep their skis steering through the whole turn (to finish their turns off). As you do this, ask your students to feel the instep of their outside ski.

HOW –

· Stationary. Have your students stand across the hill and use their lower leg to tip their ski on edge. Upper level students can practice this with both legs. Use cues like roll onto the big toe or lift the little toe up or feel the cuff of the boot on the uphill side.

· Now have your students flatten the skis and see if they can side slip down the hill. Make sure you choose somewhere SAFE where you can be seen from above. Little kids will have trouble sliding with the ski, so if you see one ski flatten that is enough. Roll the ski to an edge to stop the side slip.

· In a traverse, have your students start on an edge, roll flat and slip down the hill and then engage the edges again. SAFETY POINT! Have your students look up hill before they set off. Under 7 yrs, skip this exercise.

· Now have your students move their “nose over the outside toes” to encourage them to balance over the platform (edge) they have created. Remember to practice all this traversing stuff on BOTH sides!

· Now add this to the turns: STEER AND TIP. As your students steer their skis through the turn, have them slowly roll their skis onto an edge. Only have them tip up as much as they need to feel their skis grip.

Keep the focus on movements with the lower legs to encourage efficiency of movement and to discourage too much moving towards the inside of the turn with the hip.

SNOWBOARDERS - can use the same set of exercises, with a focus of rolling onto the toe edge and lifting the toes up to balance on the heel edge. Practice this pretending to have a bucket of water balanced on your head!

This weekend you may still have some make up lessons coming into multiweek. These students need to be ticketed and Willie, Paul, Floyd and Mike will have those tickets.

You may have students who were not here last weekend, especially on Sunday. If they have paid for a multi-week ticket they can pick it up at guest services.

Week 7 - flexion/extension Week 8 - fun, fun, fun and explore as much new terrain as you can!

So, you can see from the example of week 6 that the idea wasn’t just to tell the instructors exactly what to do. It was designed to give each week a focus and to share some ideas for tasks and exercises to develop that focus. New instructors could use the examples we gave them and more experienced instructors could take a few of the examples and develop them to fit their own teaching style.

What I really enjoyed about the whole project was the way it encouraged our instructors to talk and share ideas with one another. It proved to be a really successful way to keep consistency through out the groups and to help our instructors keep a clear technical focus as they moved through the levels with their multi-week classes.

I would encourage any training director to come up with their own weekly email and even make it a training focus for their own trainers. See if it also helps you to get everyone on the same page. Good luck!