TA Selection Study Guide

Those of you going for Rocky Mountain Trainer's Accred, I've compiled a study guide from all the places that I've found requirements and materials.

This, by the way, is what you need AFTER you complete the requirements for Application, which can be found here. 

OBTAIN:
Letters of reccomendation (no more than 2)
Letter of recommendation from your Ski School Director

READ:

• Core Concepts
• Alpine Technical Manual
• Bob Barnes' Complete Encyclopedia of Skiing
• Ron LeMaster's Ultimate Skiing (for physics concepts)
• Warren Witherall's Ski Technique: Learn and Improve (Chapter on Bootfitting is excellent)

STUDY AND KNOW: (many of these things are found in the books above, if they are not, I've included links to what I could find online.)

• Stepping Stones 
• ATS: A great description from the Nordic system is here.
• GCT: (Grids are available at here, the full workbook can be copied from someone who has an original copy from the Winter Park materials)
• CAP: interactive web presentation on PSIA here.  A more complete description can be found in this PDF from Children Specialist 2.
• Learning Styles
• Teaching Styles
• Maslow's Hierarchy
• The MA Model, applied to levels 1, 2, 3
• Basic Ski Physics
• Ski Design
• Basic Boot Set Up and Alignment
• The Skills Concept
• Bio mechanics of Skiing (ie: 4 types of rotary mechanisms)
• Kolb's Experiential Learning
• The Multiple Intelligences
• Bloom's Taxonomy
• Facilitating Guests Needs and Developing Goal Statements
• the IDPs for Movement Analysis, Skiing Standards, and Teaching
• Training by Objective Handout

WATCH: (DVDs, Internet)

• Movement Analysis
• Teaching Theory
• ITC Training
• Tech Foundations and Presentations
• Skiing Standards for Rocky Mountain PSIA

REVIEW:

• Clinic Outline and notes from Performance Skiing 401
• Clinic Outline and notes from Technical Foundations and Presentations 401
• The Alpine Trainer Selection Process
• Scoring for Trainer Selection

PRACTICE:
MA in exam Format:

From Schanzy and Rick V.

1. Pick 2 skills: Primary and Secondary
2. Talk about Primary through all 3 phases of the turn using DIRT for SKI performance
    Talk about Primary through all 3 phases of the turn using DIRT for BODY performance
3. Talk about Primary through phases of the turn using DIRT for SKI performance
    Talk about Primary through all 3 phases of the turn using DIRT for BODY performance
    Talk about Secondary through all 3 phases of the turn using DIRT for SKI performance
    Talk about Secondary through all 3 phases of the turn using DIRT for BODY performance
4. How do the skills enhance or hinder each other? (Relate back to the primary)
5. Relate to the ideal, creating prescription for change. GOAL. What is the result?
    Make sure you address BOTH skills and how coaching one effects the other.

6. Reduce to a Level 2 MA - Primary ski and body performance from one phase to another
7. Reduce to Level 1 MA - Snapshot of the Primary Skill for ski and body in 1 phase.

From John Wiltchen:

Level 1: Pick 1 skill and give a snapshot in one phase of what the ski and body are doing
Level 2: Add movement. What are the skis and body doing from one phase to another? Use DIRT.
Level 3: Pick a second skill. How does it enhance or detract from the primary in all three phases of the turn. Use DIRT.  (Comparative words, quantifiers)
Rx For Change: Compare to the ideal. There is NO teaching in Rx for change, this is a mechanical analysis only. ie: If this skier wanted to make a more ideal parallel turn, he would need to move forward in the ski to pressure the ski more in the center of the ski, allowing him to rotate both feet at a consistent rate through the entire turn.

PRACTICE:
Clinic Presentations

Download all 9 possible clinic outlines under Alpine Education Course Outlines
Complete Clinic Outline Form to reduce each one of these topics to a 15 minute presentation. (Review Tech Foundations and Presentations handouts and notes for help doing this)

• All Mountain Performance
• Performance Bumps
• Teaching Contemporary Skiing
• Extreme Mountain Performance
• Precision Skiing 301
• Teaching Beginner Bumps
• MA 201 on snow
• MA 301 on snow
• Jumping Improvement

COMPLETE:

• Proficiency Log
• NASTAR Gold or Platinum and attach
• Clinic Application
• Trainer Accred Application

SKIING PERFORMANCE VERIFICATION (Proficiency Log)

• Carved Uphill Arc (both directions)
• Wedge Turn
• Wedge Christie
• Sideslip in Fall Line or Guided Arc
• Linked Hockey Slides or Hockey Stops
• Basic Parallel
• Switch Basic Parallel
• Entry Level Bumps
• Linked Railroad Track Turns
• Medium Radius Carved Turns
• Linked Pivot Slips
• Performance Short Radius Turns
• Bumps
• Variable Terrain and Snow Conditions
• Half Pipe / Natural Transition Skiing

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Signatures from Ski School Director: This candidate is:

• learning to be a ski school trainer
• is a role model and a mentor at the home area
• contributes positively and is accepted by ski school staff

Additional signature from SS Director: Directors letter of recommendation

TA TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS
Signed off by a current home ski school trainer.

• Practice MA from video
• Practice MA on snow
• Teach MA clinic for Level 1 or 2 instructors at home area
• Create indoor clinic with technical content and materials
• Do MA on your own skiing from video
• Practice describing skiing in accurate, concise format
• Pinpoint cause and effect relationships in high level skiing
• Teach MA clinic for Level 1 or 2

TA CLINIC LEADING DEVELOPMENT
Signed off by a current ski school trainer, and a peer

• Lead a clinic at home area and have a trainer evaluate
• Attend a clinic and gain ideas on presentation skills
• Have a peer attend your clinic and provide feedback
• Create written lesson plans for developing clinic content
• Assess the needs of your home ski school and create clinics
• Create a series of 1 hour clinics in a progression
• Create a clinic in your weakest topic area
• Create a clinic evaluation form that will give you feedback
• Have someone video your indoor or on snow clinic

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN:

• Determine Goals for Personal Development
• Develop a plan and Time Line to Achieve Goals

TA SKIING EXTRA CREDIT
Verified by home ski school trainer

• Attend PSIA National Academy
• NASTAR verification (Gold or Platinum) : ATTACH RESULTS
• Ski fun half-day with another Ed Staff Member
• Peer Coach Ed Staff member during ski day

RAT- Rocky Mountain Assessment Trials... here we go!

As you read this, you might want to hit PLAY.



Oh, my god, its becoming reality. Look what I am working on now:

2011 PSIA-RM TRIALS APPLICATION
Welcome to the PSIA-RM Assessment Trials (RATs). As a Division, we are creating this 3-day event to better prepare you for your process at the National Education Team Tryouts. An important part of the National Process is the Application that you turn in to the Selectors ahead of the event. This Application gives Selectors an opportunity to better know you and understand your goals and ambitions.

The selection process, while intense, can be rewarding. As Maverick says, "You never ever ever leave your wing-man."

Its time. It is finally time to begin filling out the paperwork and sending it in. I have such mixed feelings about this. First, it got here seemingly suddenly, as do many things once ski season starts. Bam! Its Christmas, see you in two weeks... work every day, try to keep food in and clothes clean... BAM! Christmas is over, fill your calendar with clients if you can and get your butt out there training because BAM its time for exams in February!

Wow. Here we are five years in to a six year process. First of all, I'm quite stoked to be able just to write that sentence. I think part of me was pretty sure I'd be shaken off my tree way before this by one thing or another.

I do know that my skiing and teaching and technical understanding is improving every day. I think my teaching and technical understanding are still far ahead of my skiing, and while I got several nice compliments from the TREW crew the other day on my skiing (blush), I got some video taken yesterday that made me want to crawl under the chair in Bernie's office and cry. Then I noticed my client saying "But it feels so much better than that! I can't believe it looks like that!"

I remembered Katie Ertl (nee Fry) last year sitting in the Movement Analysis watching her skiing from the year before get torn apart by a group of 40 trainers with a big smile on her face. She squirmed a bit, she was embarrassed a bit, she laughed, she taught us how to take it. Its never as good, as clean, as "correct" as we want it to be.

So my job here is to take my feedback from Andrew, Joanie, Johnathan, Scotty, Kurt, Trish and Weems and get out there and ski it until it sticks. I made some major changes in my skiing in the beginning of the year. When I looked at the video, I'd kept some of them and been lazy enough to let others go.

There is not time in life for lazy, let alone in the pursuit of a goal which has a definitive time line which is looming! If a change is made, it is my job to keep it. To have the discipline to hold it in my skiing as it tries to squirm its way out and default patterns, easier and somewhat efficient, present themselves as attractive options.

Train on, see you at Tryouts!

Itchy to ski

Can I just say that I love skiing? And that the last week I had, at the end of the season, was amazing. My skis feel on my feet like I never imagined skiing could feel. I keep thinking to myself, "Oh! This is why everyone is so stoked, this IS amazing!" and then the next week, it feels even better, makes even more sense.

I felt this year like I had the freedom and permission and encouragement to just explore skiing. I was encouraged by my team leader to pursue filling out my Trainer's Accreditation Passport for Ski Co, and I met with Rick Vetromile to discuss whether this was a good move or not. Was it appropriate for me to even begin to walk down this path?

Rick thought so. We had a good meeting, and the idea was that the passport could serve as a road map of sorts. How much of it got filled out was not really the point. But working on the things on the passport would serve as a diagnostic tool to tell me where I was in my skiing.

I was gratified and humbled at his willingness to let me participate in this process, and his encouragement of me to head down that road. Over the course of the season, he had a sharp eye on me, always telling it like it was. I'd see him looking and ski up. "No symmetry" he'd say, and then turn to Trish, a dynamic and accomplished instructor at Aspen Mountain. "What do you think?"

She'd look right at me. "Nope." and something like: you do something weird with your hip, you twist it in, its sloppy. You need to stop doing that. To. The. Point.

Rick would watch me take this criticism, checking to see how I felt about having my skiing filleted right there on the slope for all to hear.

Quite honestly, I love it. I loved it then and I still do. Until my turns feel perfect, and they never will, because they cant, I can only get better with a combination of honest feedback and hard work.

Right. Quit doing that weird thing with my hip. Ok.

I smiled at Rick and thanked he and Trish and went off to figure out what that weird thing came from.

I spent a lot of hours doing "that thing" that tends to make people say that PSIA is a bunch of fun-suckers, and I should "just stop thinking and ski!"

But my friend Kurt says it well. I always remember it this way: There is a difference between not thinking, and clear thinking. That feeling, when you are in the zone? That feeling that elite level athletes describe when everything gels and they are just KILLING it? They describe the sensation of having very very focused thought, of only needing to see the snow in front of them and feel their feet. They may describe it as not thinking, but research into this concept of "The Zone" is showing that these athletes are using very focused thought.

Meditation is the act of focusing on only one thing. When I'm skiing in the zone, I'm meditating, and its the most freeing, exhilarating experience I've ever had.

In order to feel that sensation, because the movement patterns of skiing haven't been with me since I was three, I need to get out there and break down why things are happening, deconstruct my skiing and look at the pieces, and beliefs I have about how to turn the ski in the snow. How to engage the ski, how to move with it, and so on.

I spent hours and hours on the groomer after this "weird hip" comment, which was echoed by other trainers, doing a side-slip to fall line to a stop drill, focusing on just the initiation of the turn.

What were my beliefs about what my body had to do in order to ask the ski to begin to turn? Was I STILL doing too much? (short answer: of course, you were, Kate, that's what you DO!)

I thought back to the argument three years ago that Rick Vetromile and Megan Harvey were having in an early morning clinic that I was tagging along on. Can you travel along the length of the ski before you cross the platform in order to begin your turn?

I remember standing in the dumping snow, in the powder, and not really understanding the technical aspects and concepts swirling around me, but Rick being patient enough to show me what he meant. He and Megan went on and skied it and talked about it, and I spent the rest of the powder day on the green groomer trying to get the sensation of moving along my ski before going inside.

It was an interesting experiment, and essentially what it did was slow down my lateral movement, make my turn more patient, give me an earlier edge angle, get me to the outside ski quicker, by virtue of moving to it rather than off it and having to over angulate to get back on it. At the time, I had no idea that this is what was happening, I just knew that something in the INTENTION of moving the length of the ski was changing the top of my turn, my feet were understanding something that my brain could not yet, and I was excited.

Later in the season, I was talking with Jonathan Ballou and he asked me if I was going to sit the TA exam, (the PSIA Trainers Accred is a different ball of wax than the TA Passport for the Ski Co.), and I asked him if he really thought I should. It was worth it to walk down that path and see what I learned, regardless.

The season was SO full of dedicated study, that I ended up shifting of the PSIA TA as a priority, thinking I might sit the exam at the end of the season if it seemed appropriate. I got a few chances to ski with Ballou, who has an incredible depth of knowledge and a great eye, and I realized how very far I had to go to make the Trainer level.

At the beginning of the season this year, I was not skiing at the Rocky Mountain standard for Level 3. I wrote about it a little bit, when I realized it with my first client of the year, a man who liked to do 22 minute laps on the gondola. (Yes, its an 18 minute ride, give or take.) Early season, going straight, trying to keep up, feeling like I was going to die, just so so so very glad that I didn't pass my 3 the year before, because I would never have been able to keep this guy in my sights, let alone keep up or give him any tips.

Near the end of the season, Jonathan asked me again, "Are you going to sit the TA exam?" I looked at him square, hoping for an honest answer.

"What do you think, Jonathan? Do I ski at that level? Is it a reasonable thing to do? Or should I wait?"

The consensus was, it was worth taking.

There was one small problem. I hadn't bothered with the prerequisites, I'd been so busy teaching and fitting in training. I thought about checking to see if I could sit the exam anyway, and I made some inquiries into it, and in the long run, both Jonathan and I agreed that it didn't need to happen this year. It was absolutely the right decision. I'm not in a hurry, I didn't need the exam as a diagnostic for where I am in my skiing, I feel like I have a good idea of where I am and how far I have to go. Taking the exam would have been rushing something that deserves more respect; training not just to get my feet there, but showing up with my mind and intention in the right place, thinking of it as a job interview.

This season, for me, was more about meeting the people in this extraordinary ski area, as many of them as I could, at all four mountains, and hearing their stories, and trying to learn where I fit, what I could offer, and who could I learn from? It was about getting out there as much as possible and feeling my feet and listening to the locker room chatter, and turning left and right in all the snow conditions, behind all kinds of people, in front of others, and often alone.

There were a couple of days when Cindy Lou took me out and tried to change my bump skiing. I was extending off the top of the bump, my body unwilling to understand how to control speed while retracting over the obstacle. She worked determinedly with me for three days.

Kurt took a look at it. It was still kind of a mess. The concept was there, but it was frustratingly inconsistent. "Do you know how to make a retraction turn on groomed terrain, Kate?" he asked. Sure I did, I thought!

I demonstrated. He looked at me, with a look that said something like: are you kidding? Until you know how to do one on groomed terrain, I'd suggest that you don't try to do one in the bumps. Good skiers make thousands and thousands of practice turns on lower angle terrain before they take that skill into terrain.

He was right. I burned at the idea of being seen as over eager, ambitious, green, I wanted to be taken seriously as a student. I wanted my trainers to see that I'm not purposely trying to skip steps.

I went out and spent a week doing nothing but retraction turns behind my clients, in all terrain. I did over 8000 of them. Yes, I counted.

Then, Cindy and I went back into the bumps. And NOW we can begin. Everything was different. There was some sort of muscle memory there to build on.

This is why I'm glad that we decided not to go for TA, this is why I didn't push, going to Passport Verification days to get my items signed off. Because it wasn't about getting the signature, it was about learning as much as I could.

The one passport verification day I did go to, I failed my Wedge Christies. I spent the next opportunity I had, six days in Telluride, doing wedge Christies all day every day behind my 4 1/2 year old clients who ski on groomed green terrain.

In the in between times, I got to shake off the cobwebs and ski ski ski with my training group, by myself, catching runs with people who were willing to let me pester them, just ripping around and seeing what my feet felt like NOW.

It wasn't until the very very very end of the season that those sensations I was having piecemeal, and the study I'd been doing on the various skills and the various movements suddenly began to gel into something that feels like the very beginning of understanding.

At Snowbird, I put on a pair of Crush's, early rise, fat and turny, and had the time of my life. I felt confident for the first time, just in that I basically understood where I wanted to be on the ski. Not that I was chasing it down, but that I wanted to move with it, tip and tail curling around my foot as my foot worked in the snow. This was a new idea for me, a new sensation.

I haven't been able to sleep for the last two nights because all I want to do is turn. This part of the season, for me, this is the "Just ski don't think" part. This is where I ski ski ski and feel feel feel all that's going on under and around me, from the burning thighs of the climb, to the numb fingers from taking off skins, to the lump in my belly that is PB and J, to the freedom and exhilaration of steep corn, to the disbelief that we are going to do it again, to the absolute quixotic joy of tromping back to the car through the reeds and the mud, sunburned, and sitting down on the tailgate, pulling tape off my blisters and opening a PBR, laughing with my friends in the sunshine, can you BELIEVE we just did that?

Well, they always can, this is common place for them. But for me, its a gift that I can't believe I get to open over and over and over. And its all those guys who let me pepper them with questions who lay the foundation for me to do it.

Trainer Passport Journey Begins!

One of my goals is to become a trainer for the ski school at Aspen. To this point, I've been training this year refining my understanding and movements. In order to become a trainer, you have to pass your current Level 3 cert (they look at your skiing again to make sure you are skiing at a contemporary Level 3 level), and complete the Trainer Passport, which includes the following:

Professional Development:
Interview with your Coordinator, Lead Trainer and Team Leader
List of Accreditations (Including Freestyle, Children's, Coaching etc)

Teaching Ability:
Current Level 3
Organize and lead a small group indoor movement analysis video session, formatted with the current GCT model. 4-7 people.

Technical Understanding:
Completed assessment with boot alignment pro (or checkup on current alignment)
on snow movement analysis of another trainer skiing
attend a physics/biomechanics lecture

Skiing Skills
Verifiers can sign any number of maneuvers - must have 2 signatures when one verifier has signed more than 3 maneuvers.

Short radius leapers
dynamic medium radius turns
wedge christi
linked pivot slips
short radius performance turns
open stance parallel turns (in the bumps)
railroad side cut turn
Fall Line Bump Run (double black)
Crud/ powder run (double black)

I was not really expecting to get any signatures on my passport until the end of the season, and then maybe just one or two. I met with Rick Vetromile, our Lead Trainer at Aspen Mountain to ask him if it was appropraite for me to go down this path, if he could see me as a member of the trainer pool, and he was very enthusiastic that I get started. With that encouragement, I went to the Race Clinic that he held, and have been working hard ever since our first Demo Team training day on getting short turns down.

Being in the brushes, and stubbies and skiing with some true legends from ski racing for two days really changed my understanding of what I was doing and how to get to that outside ski early early early. I was pretty beat up by the end of the clinic, but I was beginning to bend the ski in a way that I never have!

With this new understanding, I went out to our verifier day and was lucky enough to have Mike Haas as my clinic leader. Right off the bat, he re certified my Level 3, and signed off my bumps and railroad track turns as skiing at the trainer level. I was BLOWN AWAY!

We had a big talk in the large group before we went up about Aspen's standards for trainers and how high they are, and how stringently the Verifiers keep to those standards.

My short turns were STILL not quite there, and I could feel it. By the end of the day, I was touching it, the turn was shaping high up, but I was still getting kicked into the back seat with the skis squirting at the end of every turn. It was making me crazy. I am getting obsessed with short turns and how to take the movement patterns that have changed SO significantly in my skiing exist in such a compressed timeline.

Mike asked me to allow my hip to come through, apparently I've worked so hard at keeping my pelvis open to the hill that now I'm all locked up. Mike asked me to advance my outside foot through the turn. I couldn't believe it.

I'm getting the ski to its edge by pushing the toepiece back! This is the thing that is moving my core foreward and against the platform progressively. I feel power and control with that move, I don't want to change it!

But, as Milton Katsellas used to tell us in acting class, you have to be willing to kill your babies. Its true. Don't ever love anything in your skiing so much that you aren't willing to try it differently. So I tried advancing the ski.

Suddenly, something clicked. When, where and why?

I can still push my toe piece back at the begining of the new turn, and then slice the ski through the snow. Think of slicing a tomatoe. You have to pierce the skin first, and then slice the knife through. If you just push down, you will crush the tomatoe. If you glide a blade with no pressure across the tomato, you won't get any penetration through the surprisingly resiliant skin.

If you drive the tip into the tomatoe, and then slice the knife forward, it goes through beautifuly.

I was now able to pressure the ski at the top and bend it just before the apex. Of course, once again, I got rocketed across the fall line from the energy of the ski, and spent the rest of the day learning to want that energy and put the energetic intent of my core down the apex of the turn while letting my feet turn under me.

The only issue now was that in short turns, the skis were still squirting.

Kurt and I went out a few days later, and he agreed that my skiing had changed significantly, it was smooth and much more powerful. But the short turns don't match the rest of the skiing yet.

The next day, Cindy and I went out together to train in the bumps and take a break from the insanity that was becoming my obsession with the short turn.

Though my bumps had been signed off, I still have a lot of work to do in the bumps (and always will!) We participated in a clinic with Weems in the morning on hand positions and pole planting (a hand jive clinic) which gave me some clarity about alowing my hands to "float" in a neutral position that is equidistant from anywhere they might go were I to get out of balance.

With this piece floating in esoteric extsacy around my brain, and with Megan and Katie's video analysis of my hands in the bumps from the week before, we went to work.

Cindy and I worked Scarlett's, a long blue bump run on Highlands and lapped it with Weems. I am working hard to learn to steer a flatter ski in the bumps, engage my spine, and quiet my hands.

We spent quite a few laps up there, and by the end of the day, my understanding of how to navigate my way through the bumps had changed and improved YET again. Cindy was incredible, she's working hard on her movement analysis eye and her ability to communicate coaching ideas, it was an ideal day for me!

We discovered that we have similar learning styles.

Stop me if I am doing it wrong, I want to identify in effective movements as well as effective ones, so I can feel when I am doing it "wrong".

Tell me (and show me) what you see, and what you want to see. Tell me succinctly with a good picture.

Tell me what I can expect to feel when I do what you are asking me to do.

Let me practice, stop me if I am doing it wrong.

Using these guidelines, Cindy coached me to a new level of understanding in the bumps in about five runs. It was fantastic!

Today, Cindy and Schanzy and I skied at Snowmass together, Schanzy was working on a new movement concept which he borrowed from Martial Arts, and Cindy and I were his guinea pigs. It was outstanding, as it plugged right back in to the short turns training I've been doing, and seemed to be the next piece.

Schanzy was talking about energetic initent (which I love). He was talking about what its like to throw a punch in martial arts, where you turn your fist over, effectively doing a corkscrew type movement with his arm and fist.

We applied this idea to the new outside ski, screwing the ski down into the snow as it lengthened. This simple idea combined so many movement patterns in one thought, we had tremendous success with it.

By the end of the day, I realized what was going on with my almost short turns, and was able to screw the ski down into the snow directly under me, trusting that this impetus would force the ski to bend and turn under me. As usual, I had a run of my best twenty turns about ten minutes before I had to go pick my kids up from ski school.

It was a great day of discussion of ski technique and technical understanding, Schanzy and Cindy are both terrific at creating a safe space to experiment and play, there is no judgement, just open discussion and space to create your skiing.

I came home exhausted but happy things are happening under my feet, my skiing is changing and I think I may just get my trainer passport signed off this season. Even if I don't the journey there is incredible.

Tomorrow the kids go back to ski school, I have on snow Demo Team Training again!