Skip to main content

Teaching tasks for beginner to intermediate skiers

These scenarios are common with beginner to intermediate skiers and equally common in a level II exam. In some cases they are looking for you to coach to a specific out come (Coach the skier to make turns in both directions) and some times you have description of a student and you need to figure out the goal of the lesson along with the lesson plan.


Your homework is to sketch out this lesson in whatever way (writing, drawing, talking..) works for you.

Skiers have never skied before. Can put on/off skis, side step, walk, turn-around and get up from fall. Coach Movements/Skills for next stage of development in skiing.

Skiers can straight run, wedge, speed up & slow down in a wedge on beginner terrain. Coach Movements/Skills to develop first direction changes while in a wedge.

Skiers can “match” skis after fall line on Green and Easy Blue terrain. Coach Movements/Skills that will develop “match” prior to fall line on same terrain.

Skier makes wedge turns comfortably on all green and moderate blue terrain. Coach movements and skills to bring skier to the next level.

Skier can vary the size of the wedge and stop and control speed using the wedge. Coach the skier to make turns in both directions.

Thirty-five year old woman who kayaks and hikes and loves the calm of nature hates the sound that her skis make when they scrape on ice. She’s an open track parallel skier balanced on her heels.

Ten year old girl rides horses, dances and does gymnastics. Gliding wedge skier who controls speed with the size of the wedge.

Fourteen year old girl who is a champion kick boxer. Open Track Parallel skier, skis in a “Hunched Position” most of the time.

School bus driver in her fifties, used to ski a bit in her youth, giving it a try again. Wishes she could look graceful. Wedge Christy skis matching at the end of the turn.

Sixty-two year old who's only other sport is golf. Makes wedge Christy turns and has trouble controlling her speed.

Young boy who loves flying and airplanes, his father is a pilot. Makes wedge Christy turns. Coach him to match his skis earlier in the turn.

Six year old from Florida who rollerblades and has never seen snow Has never skied before. Has performed preliminary movements with skis off. Coach him/her in his/her next movements with both skis on.

Sixteen year old male and his hobbies are Xbox and chatting online. Makes wedge turns both left and right but needs to link them

Woman just returned to skiing after not having skied for several years, recently had a baby. Wants to ski with grace and style. Stems at the beginning of the turn, links parallel turns on green, but wants to advance to blue terrain

Twelve year old boy, fairly athletic, who rollerblades. Can carve turns, then gets going too fast after 6 or 7 turns.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

VAK - Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic

Visual learners These students learn best by watching and imitating others. The following guidelines are helpful when teaching visual learners. • Ski well-executed demonstrations that illustrate the point. Be careful not to exaggerate and destroy the picture of good skiing. • Target the students’ attention to a certain part of your body or to particular movements.

Learning Styles – Doers, Feelers, Thinkers, Watchers

A learning style is the way a person’s sensory, perceptual, memorial, decision-making, and feedback mechanisms operate. Or more simply, the preferred technique to approach learning. Some students have a dominant style and others are comfortable in more than one. PSIA references different theories on learning styles, this is a classic one. Doers Values active experimentation Pragmatic, practical, functional Good problem solvers, work well with others Constantly active, doesn’t like being idle and gets frustrated with too much talking Learn by experimenting, trial and error Instructor should provide experiences that will guide the child Experiential learning is an effective method for all students

Sarah’s Big Binder of Ski Teaching Geekery (and more!) (Updated/edited as of October, 2015)

UPDATE: October, 2015: This has been updated with new links, programs, and information. Please let us know if you have other references, we promise to update again before 2020! - Kerry (Diva2) Last year when I was preparing for my L3 Part 1 Skiing exam, the Dev Team Diva turned me on to these great task descriptions developed by Bob Barnes for the PSIA Rocky Mountain Division (the Pocket Summaries listed under "Skiing" below). (Kerry's edit: Those pocket summaries are not on the PSIA-RM site anymore. But I think what you're looking for is in the Skiing IDP linked below.) In my search for them online, I discovered lots of other valuable ski teaching resources tucked away on various PSIA divisional Web sites. So I printed them out, organized them into categories, and stuck them in a binder. The binder became an invaluable resource in discussions with my good friend and ski coach as I helped him to prepare for his Dev Team tryout and he coached me to success in my ski