Helping people enjoy the sport I love
When your coaching helps someone enjoy skiing more, conquer their fears or achieve things on the snow they didn’t think they could do it is a pretty good thing.
Access to some of the best ski teachers in the country
You can learn from great skiers at your mountain, in your region and even the PSIA national team.
Great teachers for your friends and family
My boyfriend doesn’t ski ( I love him anyway). I found him a great skier, with a good eye for movement analysis who knows how to coach him. My boyfriend said that he learned more in 30 minutes with his coach than a whole day of following me around, I’m going to let that go.
Developing skills I need to rip
When I started as a ski instructor I was a upper body rotating, foot picking up, z-turner and now I love to play in the trees, steeps, bumps, powder, crud and more.
“Networking”
The Divas love to network in the bar apre ski or on the chairlift. We will be out in force at ProJam in December.
Amazing friends
At my first recruiting event our director said that some of his best friends are people he met through skiing. Some of my best friends (note: not skiing friends, best friends) are people I’ve met through ski teaching. I’m very lucky to have them.
Time with Mom
This only applies if you have a mom who is a ski instructor and a lot of fun.
Great deals on ski gear
Need I say more
Great deals on skiing
Seriously, what else is there to say
Great deals on training
At our mountain there is free training almost every day by some great teachers and skiers including the ones that post here. You can also go to reasonably priced regional and national events if you are looking for more.
Diva Ski Tips
written by Kerry and Debbie
The Diva and D2 have many years of experience teaching in the corral in the Children’s Learning Center and have often trained instructors on how to teach beginner kids in that environment.
In order to help others learn the magic of teaching in the corral, we’d like to share some of our tidbits of wisdom. Welcome to the world of teaching kids!
DO: Count early and often. Children are slippery little buggers. Make sure you know how many you have at the start of the lesson, AND which ones you have. Learn their names, memorize their jacket/pant ensemble, do whatever it takes. Parents get upset when you hand back the wrong child. Or no child at all.
DO: Wear your skis. You are a ski instructor, not a boot instructor. Yes we all know it’s harder to climb up the hill with skis on. But get over it; you are a ski instructor. Be in shape enough that you can skate up the hill throughout the two hours. Consider it your professional responsibility. Hey, it might even help you burn off the beers you drank last night in the Tavern.
DO: Be a participant in the teaching process. Even if you are rookie, you can actively join your fellow instructor in teaching the kids. Model what they should be doing, crawl on the ground to help the kids put skis on, join in the games and exercises, and coach kids as appropriate in the activity.
DO: Complete demos on a regular basis. Children are visual learners. Show them what the picture looks like, over and over again.
DON’T: Ride the magic carpet with the children. It looks lazy, it takes too long, and like we said above, it is your professional responsibility to teach the children how to ski. Including skating up the hill.
DO: Coach! You are not there just to catch dive-bombing children. This is what the juniors are for. However, the better your coaching is, the less dive-bombing children you will have. The juniors will appreciate this.
DO: Coach all of your children. This is not a private lesson for your favorite kid, no matter how cute he or she looks in their little sunglasses. Remember to pay equal attention to all of the children in your class lesson.
DON’T: Stand around chatting with the juniors or other instructors. You can chat at the next line-up or during snack time.
DO: Help your fellow instructors. We all have been the last one left in the corral with 2 or 3 kids who just can’t turn yet. If you are in the corral with just such an instructor, help them out. Continue the coaching progression that the instructor has started with those children, and don’t neglect your own class, but work as a team to help all of the kids learn to turn.
DON’T: Yell. Positive feedback is super important with kids, they need to know what they are doing correctly. Also, yelling is disruptive to your fellow instructors (who might have a hangover) and never forget that there are usually parents standing along the fence to watch their kids learn how to ski. Make sure they don’t have a lasting impression of red-faced meanies standing over their kids.
DO: Take children out of the corral and up the chairlift as soon as they are ready. This means turning in both directions on demand. Turning by accident does not graduate a child from the corral. Make sure you tell your fellow instructors what 2 to 3 children you are taking up the chairlift. (Do not just take 1 child—this is a waste of resources)
Corollary: If you are constantly sent up the chairlift with children by veteran instructors, this means you are ineffective in the corral. Read this blog again and ask a Diva for clarification. Work on your coaching and stop flirting so much.
DON’T: Take your yellows (kids not yet turning) straight to the magic carpet, unless it is a spring day above 60 degrees where the snow is like mush or there is enough wind to blow over a house of sticks. Skiing is about turning, not children dive-bombing at the juniors when sent from the top of the carpet. Go over the basics of balance and steering on the walking mats prior to hitting the magic carpet. Remember these kids were not successful at learning last time, and they probably had plenty of dive-bombing practice. Impart your turning knowledge on them, and maybe a light bulb will go on.
DO: Provide a summary of the lesson to every parent at the end. These people paid big bucks to have you coach their kids for several hours (and we all know you don’t get the big bucks so whine somewhere else about that) and need to see their money was well spent. Whether it is report cards for the camp kids or a verbal chat with the package kids’ parents, give the parents a clear understanding of what happened that day, what they can do while skiing with the kids, and what level the kids are next time.
DO: Remember to remove nametags. Parents know the names of their children; they should not need a primer. You should be environmentally conscious and recycle the plastic cover. Oil is expensive. Not yet as expensive as a 4-hour camp though this may change based on current events.
DO: Make the lesson fun! We are all ski instructors because we love the sport. We want these kids to love sliding on the snow, and beg their parents to return. Impart your love of skiing to these kids. So keep kids smiling, having fun, and laughing. This means you have to do all of this too! Come teach a lesson with us, we’re a lot of fun! (see a video of us in the corral at the link below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjUBDGSxcks
Diva Ski Tips
My apologies to the non-eastern instructors out there.
I dug these sample score cards up on the PSIA-E Web site. The score cards give you a little checklist to use in your exam prep. There are four points available in each module. Currently, you need 10 points out of 16 to pass. It all seems really fair and straight forward to me.
Creative Teaching
Power of Transfer – Teaching Styles and Learning Modes
Technical Validity of the Teaching Concept
Group Handling Skills (Able to make age specific modifications)
Communication Skills – Group Involvement, Personal Attention/Skiing Skills – Demos
Movement Assessment
Observations and Descriptions
Potential Solutions/ Prescriptions
Cause & Effect Relationship
Effective Feedback
Teaching Movement and Skills
ATS Understanding
Communication Skills/Terminology/Skiing Skills-Demos
Use of Teaching Styles and Learning Modes
Does the leader and the group see it, do it and understand it?
Teaching Children and Youth
Class Management
Understanding of children’s “ages and stages”
Use of activities and games
Student/Parent/ Instructor Partnership
Diva Ski Tips
Depending on the child’s level of development they may move as a unit or be able to move their legs independent from their upper body.
Practice getting small and tall while standing still. See if the kids can stay centered as they move.
Skiing bumps is like riding a roller coaster. You want to go up and down without getting out of control or tossed around.
Let’s start with the warm-up coaster (no kiddie coasters please). Find some gentle bumps and traverse. Get small as you get to the top and get tall on the way down.
Next it’s time for a big coaster, so let’s go over 2-3 bumps and then turn on the top of the next bumps. Don’t forget to say whee?
Get ready, it’s eXtreme coaster time. Turn on top of every bump. Look for bigger bumps to go over. When you go on bigger bumps get small and tall in slow motion.
Diva Ski Tips
