August and I'm Waiting for Snow

I'm starting to get anxious about this coming season. I've been riding my bicycle quite a bit. One of the main things I think about as I ride is that it is going to get me in shape for this coming winter. As an aspiring soon to be level 3 instructor being in shape is important. I think it was in the last PSIA Rocky Mountain Instructor to Instructor newsletter, Bergy from Winter Park, who is a highly respected examiner in our region, said that athleticism is vital to high end skiing. I've only got two manuvers to pass, medium radius carved turns and pivot side slips, to become accredited in the manuvers.

I ran into another instructor this summer that didn't pass level 2 in the Spring. He was angry with PSIA and was saying all kinds of stuff about how the organization is stupid and unfair and how he should have passed. I didn't know what to say at the time, but later I remembered how Bob Barnes told a group of us at an indoor clinic about how he didn't pass some certification exam he had tried. If Barnes can fail an exam and continue on to write books and be the outstanding examiner that he is, I don't feel so bad about not passing the Level III exam the first time through.

The exams are tough, and they should be. When you pass them, you know you deserved to. I don't know if it's getting harder, I sometimes hear full-cert instructors say that if they had to do it again they are afraid they wouldn't pass. As a matter of fact the instructor that I mentioned above had already attained Level II quite a while back, but he didn't pass this time through. I think it might of had something to do with taking it for granted. I think he didn't prepare well enough because inside he felt like it would be no big deal.