Mike Doyle Interview with Ray Allard, President and Chairman of the Board of the PSIA

Ran across this article about PSIA today. It describes PSIA really well. Here is just one of the questions from the interview:

"Do instructors have to spend a certain amount of time in each classification level before advancing?"

"Yes, there are certain requirements involving time between levels and number of hours taught, although very few move through the ranks as quickly as they theoretically could. Most will achieve Level I after a season or two, and those who are committed can usually reach Level II a couple years or more after that. Level III is more difficult, especially for a part-timer, and only a small percentage (15%+/-) ever achieve it."

Whew, only 15%! No wonder it's been hard. Plus I've heard unoffically that the Rocky Mountain Region has one of the highest standards of the nine regions in the U.S.

Good Info About Skiing

Because of the above article I discovered a bunch of great info about skiing, especially for beginners, at the About.com (http://skiing.about.com).  website. Mike Doyle seems to be the main writer. I added a link to it in my sidebar.

Matt Returns From Last Year

Matt and his family took a Family Private from me last year. They're from Texas and the elevation really took its toll on Matt and he had to bow out of the lesson early. Matt's wife Jennifer, two sons, Parker and Madison, and daughter Abby all went on to become pretty good skiers able to navigate all the green runs at Monarch. This year I saw the boys going up a chair lift that doesn't service any green runs, just blues and blacks, so I know they've ventured on to more difficult terrain. Now Matt wants to catch up to his family so he can enjoy the slopes with them, so he requested a lesson from me yesterday to try again. He told me that he tried to ski with his family last year after they finished the lesson and he felt better but had a really hard time at it.

We started the lesson on Snowflake as though it were a never-ever lesson. I usually do this if I'm not sure of the student's skill development, complete with the boot exercises and one ski traverses, platter turns, etc. If I find that they already have the aquired skills, I quickly go through to the next more challenging exercises. Matt did pretty well and so we were practicing gliding wedges in pretty short order. 

I soon discovered that Matt was trying to use a great deal of upper body movement to try to make his skis go where he wanted them to go. He was using his poles to push himself along rather than let is skis slide with gravity. If he started to get off balance he'd use his poles to try and keep himself up instead of stepping or moving his feet to regain his balance. He was actually reluctant to let his skis start sliding downhill, even on very gentle open terrain. I believe he had developed some muscle memory from last year trying to ski on his own with his family that had become more proficient than he. It sounds like they probably took him on terrain for which he was not ready. As a result, Matt was trying to use his poles and his torso to control his direction.

The best thing I could do for him was to take his poles away. This forced him to rely soley (pun intended) on his feet to move around. Almost immediately he started to become more successful moving around, doing platter turns even on a slight grade, sliding into the lift line, etc. Matt finally was learning to use his feet to navigate on his skis. However, whenever he started to gain even a little bit of speed or get the feeling that he was loosing control his whole body would twist away from gravity and his skis would loose the wedge. I had to keep coaching him to stand up and try to stay in the wedge. Terrain selection was particularly important so that I could get him to feel comfortable sliding and feeling in control. All of my suggestions were directed toward his feet and ankles, pressing down on one big toe, pressing the shin into the front of the boot all the while standing upright between the skis.

Overall Matt did really well. By the end of the lesson we had taken a bunch of rides up the lift, were making traverses, garlands, and turns across the gravity zone.  I really think that if he had taken another lesson last year before trying to ski on his own with his family he would be much further along in his development this year. I really hope he takes another lesson so we can really help his understanding and muscle memory.

I see this kind of thing often when someone tries to figure out how to ski on their own before they take a lesson thinking they will do better in the lesson if they get some practice first. What happens is they actually hinder themselves. I would say generally it's much better if they come to the lesson if they have never even put a ski on first.

Came Down With a Cold But Couldn't Stop

Man, for about the past week I've been fighting a wicked cold and fevor. I think I just wore myself out during the first week or so of skiing and lowered my resistance. Today I'm feeling much better. It's really hard to teach skiing when your head is all clogged up and your nose is running. The snow has been so great at Monarch that I just couldn't stop. If I wasn't teaching I was out skiing. I guess I should have known better to not over do it, but the powder was soooooo good!!!!! 

Anyway I think I'll be over it soon. I feel myself getting better. I think this is another reason to be fit when the season starts. Most people think they want to be fit so they will avoid injuries. But I think getting sick is another symptom of not being fit. I should have just taken it a little slower and not run myself down that way. 

Laura's Breakthrough

I've had Laura for a student for years. She's been in the Mountaineers program and I've had private lessons with her a number of times. One of the things that I was always trying to do was get her to flex her ankles. When I first met her a few years ago she had rear entry boots that were way too stiff for a person her size. She was probably like eleven years old. This is a typical problem I have found with smaller people, their boots are often too stiff to allow them to effectively flex in them. As a result I think they learn to ride the backs of their skis and thus not ski as well as they could if they could flex their ankles and stand on their feet. Eventually I got her dad to get her some front buckle boots, but I think Laura had the bad habit of leaning on the backs of her boots and riding the backs of her skis. Well today Laura came to the lesson with band new boots and skis that she is very proud of and that actually suit her very well. Plus she has grown quite a bit. She's now 14 and probably weighs somewhere close to a hundred pounds.

Since this was our first lesson of the season and her new focus is to become a ski instructor someday, I sort of tested her on some of the basic skills in our first runs. I wanted to see if she remembered the difference between skidded turns and carved turns. We played around with different turn shapes. We talked a little about directional movements. We watched other skiers and practiced a little bit of movement analysis. Her understanding of skiing has grown quite a bit over the past years. 

She still seemed to be a little in the back seat to me though. We talked about how the ankle flexes. We stood in one spot and looked at how our shins pushed up against the front of the boots when we close our ankles and how the backs of our calves pushes up agains the back of the boots when we stand up real straight and tall while opening our ankles. Then we skied some more. Then when I thought she understood what I meant by closing her ankles, I asked her to try to closing her inside ankle, or the uphill ankle, in the finish of her turns. Wow it was like magic. What I saw was a young lady making really strong turns, flexing in the bottom of the turns, and opening her ankle to allow the new turns to start. She was standing in much better balance on her skis moving confidently into each new turn (rather than being in the back seat). 

I think she knew how thrilled I was. I think this was a major change in her skiing that is going to set her up to become a truly hot expert skier. Of course there was lots more that we talked about, like how all the stuff we talked about was relative. Sometimes we flex our ankles with more intensity sometimes it's just nice and easy. Next time we meet we're probably going to focus on edging skills. Now that her flexing and extending has become so much better, enabling her to balance better on her edges.

Promised to Post Pictures

I intend to write more about these two lessons, but for now I'm just posting a couple of pictures and first names. I'll add more to this entry later. Right now I've got to get ready for work.

These guys are from Salida Middle School: Evan, Garret, Cody, Christian, Luke, Issac. They are 7th and 8th graders. The totally rip. I had to work to keep up with 'em. Thing they liked doing most was 360's, 180's and Grabs.

These guys and girl are from Custer County School in Westcliff, Colorado. They were with a group called the Snow Cats. From right to left here is Zoe, Griffin, Andy, and Ryan.

More later on how these lessons went.

Have a great day! Monarch has 5 inches of new and it's still snowing!

Blogging During Ski Season

This is going to be tough. Blogging during the ski season is going to require discipline. I've been having a great time at Monarch, skiing and teaching. My body is starting to get used to the routine of getting up early each day to catch the employee bus up to the mountain, getting ready for the day, meeting new people and skiing as much as possible. I actually had to not go skiing yesterday afternoon just to give my body a short recovery break. I can feel my winter fitness coming back quickly, but part of getting fit is giving your body time to recover from all the physical activity. That's partly why I have not had a chance to write as much as I've wanted to. Plus there are the other activities going on as well (read parties), Business After Hours party, Pinon Real Estate Group party, Warren Miller Movie party, and a couple others I can't remember the name of right now. Whew! I've been a busy boy. Hopefully as the routine settles in I'll have more writings here.

Old Monarch Map

I just finished scanning in this old Monarch map. There's no date on it, but my research suggests that it is probably from around 1963. The map mentions W.R. Berry as the ski area manager. From obituary information, I found, "BERRY, William Ray 1900 - 9 Jun 1964 (Marker; Cem. Rec: 13 Jun 1964, Sec. D, Blk 3, Lot 2, G4) (Salida Mail 9 Jun 1964) In 1951 he was an electric serviceman living at 223 E 7th St. In 1963 he was the manager of the Monarch Ski area." 

I received the map via postal mail from Cindy, Santa's Helper, at Santa's Workshop at the North Pole, Colorado. Many thanks, Cindy!

I also uploaded it to Skimap.org which claims to have the largest collection of ski area maps on the Internet. During the process I was told that my upload will have to be reviewed, before being posted. I also notice that they do not have our new 2008-09 version. I'll have to go back and post it as well. All I'll have to do is reference the URL to the map on the official Monarch site.

New Monarch Ski Guide

Mark Waird has started a new site called Monarch Ski Guide: The Unofficial Guide to Monarch Ski and Snowboard Area.  He has some very interesting information, much of which is already found on the official Monarch website, but there is sort of an informal feel and other information such as a link to old area maps and a link to history. The site's organization seems to be geared toward beginners thinking about coming to Monarch with lots of tips on how to make a visit the most successful and what to expect. I've asked him if he'd be willing to add instructor profiles. I'm really hoping he thinks about it. Seems like a pretty cool site that will probably do well in Google.

Article About Salida in NYTimes

An article appeared in the December 5th issue of the New York Times about our town of Salida. Here's a link to it www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/greathomesanddestinations/05havens.html. The title of the article is The Outdoors Life, With No Attitude. 

It mentions Monarch Mountain Ski Resort as one of the great things to do near Salida. People who come to Salida get infected with the friendliness here. So no worries about Salida turning into another Aspen.

Requests Are Huge!!!!

Requests are hugh for us as instructors. After a certain number of request private lesson hours we get a significant raise in pay. So when you come to Monarch and want to ski with me, no matter what your age,  please, please use the words "I request Rick please!" Or click Rick's Contact Form in the Links in the side bar! I'll help you any way I can to have a good trip at Monarch.

Lilly!! First Private Lesson of the Season

This is Lilly! This photo was taken by Image Makers. I pulled it offline from their website here. Lilly is becoming an awesome skier. Last year she was in the Mountaineers program. She thinks her instructor was either Brad or Susan. It was a pleasure skiing with her yesterday (Sunday). 

She said her goal was to get warmed up for the season since it was her first day. I thought it was a great goal. Our first runs were on Snowflake a couple of times where we talked about how our bodies are flexible and we tried to feel our ankles flexing in our boots. She said there wasn't much room to flex her ankle in her boot which made a lot of sense since the boots are hard plastic and when your littler it's harder to press the boots forward with your shin and ankles. But we tried making turns feeling the front of the boot on our shins during the turn and then feeling the back of the boot with back of our leg when we wanted to let the skis go and let them go down hill before we started our next turn out of the gravity zone. Lots of big words here, but Lilly is used to them after being in the Mountaineers program. Later in the lesson we added a little more steering with our inside ski to help us finish the turns and to ski more parallel. Oh yeah, we explored most of the open runs including Snowflake (three times), Rookie (twice), Little Joe (three times) Round About, Liberty, KC Cutoff, and Sleepy Hollow. I hope to ski with her more this season before she re-inlists in the

Mountaineers program.

Lilly's dad was surprised when I came out for the lesson. He said if he'd known I taught "kids" he would have requested me. Lilly is actually considered a Junior in our ski school. So, yes, I do teach kids from 7 to 99!

First Lesson of the Season

Monarch opened on Friday with an 18 inch base. I know that doesn't sound like much, but the coverage was pretty good. All the green runs were open and two blue runs.  The were no crowds to speak of, mostly locals enjoying opening day.

I had my first lesson of the year. I was proud to have it, the first lesson, on the first day. My guests were a young couple from Arkansas, Grady and Tiffany, that signed up for a 2 hour, level one, group lesson. Not being used to the whole ski area environment, the lesson included learning how to dress comfortably to stay warm and dry in the snow. Tiffany only had "booty" socks with her, so I took them over to the gift shop where we picked out a nice pair of knee high ski socks. Having the right socks on, in your ski boots, can make a hugh difference in comfort and enjoyment while skiing. It was very important to convince them to get the right socks if we were going to have a successful lesson. They kind of lucked out since our "group" lesson was just the two of them. Later on I don't think our ski school is going to allow groups of less than three or four. Anything less than three will have to be considered a private lesson.

Grady and Tiffany seemed to really enjoy themselves and the lesson. By the end of two hours we'd gone up the Tumbolina lift to midway and skied the whole of Snowflake three times. They were starting to make turns pretty well. We did a bunch of garlands by "lightening" the uphill ski. This seemed to work well with them especially since they seemed to have a tendency to want to lean uphill. By lightening up the uphill ski they were forced to balance on their downhill ski (inside edge of the downhill ski) and thus find that it enabled them to cross the hill and even start to make arcs going up the hill. 

No pictures this time because I forgot to bring my cell phone. Hopefully next time.

Joined Another Site

Joined yet another ski website. This is called SkiSensei. See it here. I'll add it to my list of ski blog/websites. It's a social networking site specifically for ski instructors. I'm hoping to maybe make some friends there. Perhaps they can come ski at Monarch and maybe I could get to ski in some other cool places like Utah and Canada.  The purpose of the site as stated is "Join skisensei and use the site to enhance the teaching experience." I found it in a Google Ad box on this blog.

Movement Analysis Videos Via YouTube

Here's an intersting concept. You send a YouTube link to a ski instructor via his or her blog and they post it with analysis and tips for improvement. I found this idea in practice on a blog called Free Ski 'YouTube' Video Analysis. The blog is by an Austrian ski instuctor named Carl Owen.

PSIA uses videos in their exams. Doing movement analysis while watching videos is one way to practice MA skills in addition to doing it live on the slopes. One thing nice about videos is that you can slow it down and play it over and over again. Slowing the video down and seeing it over and over allows you time to practice and hone your MA skills. On the other hand being able to slow down time is not like real life lessons and clinics on the mountain. 

Perhaps this might be a way to obtain videos of skiers to practice with and provide a service that could help generate business. Cool idea.

Ski Instructor Blogs

I'm starting to run across more ski instructor blogs. I added a new one today in my sidebar called Canadian Ski Quest. The blogger's name is Mark Impey. It looks like he is certified with CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructor's Association). What is interesting to me is reading the perspective of a Canadian snowsports instructor. I think I'll have to read carefully between the lines but I think he is training for what would be called a Trainer Accreditation in PSIA. I think CSIA calles it Course Conductor. Not sure what that is. I'll have to ask him and let you know.