the powder room

Hurrah, I am now an official, bona-fide ski instructor! Woohoo. So I only just scraped through on my riding, but a pass is a pass. Out tonight celebrating with everyone (who all passed!).
We had just about every type of weather over the last few days, chucking it down with rain, blowing a gale and then heavy snow and wind on the last day. Poor Gavin and Brian had to stand around outside in freezing and horrible conditions.
My skiing was pretty sketchy for most of the week, but something came together at the end and I started to feel that I was skiing like I was in Winter Park, which was a relief.
Anyway, job done – one step closer to ISIA certification!

So I started my NZSIA Level 1 Alpine Ski exam tonight with an indoor session. Everyone seems pretty cool and Gavin, our examiner, is a really nice guy. I’m feeling quite relaxed about this exam although I know my skiing is a little borderline. I’ve been working on it as much as I can, but work has been getting in the way a bit!
It feels a little odd to be doing another exam and very different from my previous ones. Partly because I’ve done it before and partly because it’s not had such an intense build up of training and analysis. I feel a little under-prepared compared to how I felt before my CSI exam, but confident in my teaching and technical knowledge (I should hope so given that I taught skiing for a season!).
The exam is over 4 days:
Day 1 – Progression from first timer to advanced wedge turns
Day 2 – Applying the progression to kids
Day 3 – Wedge demo assessment and freeriding assessment
Day 4 – Teaching assessment

You can’t really fail in the first 2 days, which is a relief. They basically are a course, which gives us time to work on our freeskiing and technical knowledge.