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Principles of American Skiing

The American Teaching System is simply effective and versatile skiing that has core movements and skills that develop over time. Movements allow for different body shapes, terrain, equipment and conditions.

The Principles of American Skiing include:

1. Having outcomes and images of contemporary skiing
In your head you know want you wnat your skis to do and what you want to look like while skiing. The skiing image that PSIA aspires to be is efficient, functional, precise, clean, elegant, fresh, effective, accurate, exciting, contemporary, and incorporates full use of the equipment available.

2. Evolving the Skills Concept
A skill is a specific movement sequence that accompanies a given task or group of tasks. The PSIA Skills Concept offers a versatile template of fundamental skiing movements and skills. If you understand the concepts of how balancing movements, rotary movements, edging movements, and pressure-control movements lead to proficient skiing, then you are on your way to becoming a successful ski teacher.

Fundamental skiing movements are the essential movements your body makes which allow you to create and manage reactions between your skis and the snow. If you build a strong base through movements, you will have the ability to control the interactions that your skis have with the snow and the ability to adapt your movement patterns into skills. With a base of skills, you and your students can choose outcomes and goals and you can understand what blend of skills is needed to achieve the results that you or they desire.

3. Making the skis perform
Understanding the interface between your skis and the snow will allow you to not only get the results that you desire, you will be able to help others understand how to get the results that they crave.

It is crucial to understand how skills affect the performance of your skis in and on the snow. Remember that the movements that you teach are not the ‘end result’ of your lesson. The ‘end result’ of your lesson is to get the skis to do what your student wants them to do.

4. Understanding skiing movements
As a teacher, the ability to assess movements (MA) is a key factor to improving other people’s skiing. MA is a process of identifying and reinforcing the strengths of your students and recognizing and targeting areas that need development.

Once you can assess what your student’s needs are, you can tailor your feedback and teaching to each individual’s needs. Knowing ‘where we want to go’ and ‘how we get there’ are important keys to the MA  puzzle.

The ability to observe and describe what you see is one piece of the puzzle. Another piece of MA involves recognizing and understanding the movements that you see in others and how those movements affect the ski as it passes over and through the snow. Sharing the correct information with your students and coming up with a game plan for reaching desired outcomes allows you to create valuable experiences for your students.


Stepping Stones To Effective Skiing: pathways to learning customized to student needs and goals.
PSIA-E Apline Exam Guide
Oct. 2009

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