Skip to main content

crisp

Image
By
The weather is crisp - well, and raining here.  Are you ready for the season?  I'm already doing a bunch of the physical fitness parts of early season success.  But in addition to raking leaves, there's some homebound tasks I need to complete before my season starts on December 1st at training.  Guess I'd better get these done during the dark days of November.

My to do list:
  1. Find my boots in the basement.  They are somewhere behind the bike wheels, spare tires, rags, boxes of powdered drink mixes and camping gear.  somewhere.
  2. Try them on and call my bootfitter if I need to.  It's always easier to get work done in November than the week before Christmas.
  3. Find some skis, get the bindings set, wax 'em, tune them.  We left our skis in pretty good shape after our late Spring Utah trip last year, but I also picked up a new pair and we have a bit of switching around to do.
  4. Find poles.  Seems these are easy to forget the first trip of the season.
  5. Dig out all the clothes, wash with TechWash, order new mittens and any layers I anticipate needing.  Particularly important this year because I lost some weight.  I know many of my pants don't fit.  Hopefully the ones I bought in the spring on SteepAndCheap.com will!
  6. Touch base with our mountain's training and ski school directors.  I have some goals for the season.  If I let them in on it, often they can help me by providing assignments that further my goals.
  7. Email our PSIA-E dev. team coach.  See #6.  I'll ski with Matt at our upcoming training anyway, but always good to start the conversation early and let him mull things over.
  8. Reconnect with a few people I met out on the road last year who were looking for specific guidance this year in their ski teaching and training.
  9. Catch up on my PSIA SnowPro and 32 Degrees reading.  And tech manual review.  And start looking at some video while I'm on the stationary bike in the basement. 
  10. Review last year's notes from trainings, understudies, and clinics I led at the home mountain.  In truth, I've already done some of this and am starting to brainstorm how I can improve my teaching.  I was out on the road bike the other day thinking about how to get new instructors to coach movements more effectively and, in particular, how to demonstrate to them in a concrete way the differences between instruction and coaching.
  11. Flip through the latest toy guide and read a couple game reviews.  Yeah, I don't have kids.  But I get to teach them and I'm not exactly in the same movie demographic as they are.  Can't really expect a 6 year old to connect with me over the latest chick flick.
  12. Wait.  I'm really not a patient person.
Hope to see y'inz in a month or so!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning Styles – Doers, Feelers, Thinkers, Watchers

By
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
3 comments
Read more

Ages 7 to 12 – CAP

By
Cognitive I do best with one direction at a time I need to know “why” I’m asked to do certain things I will ask questions I can learn in a variety of ways I like process more than the goals I like to be challenged and successful I can describe and explain I will remember the highlights of my day Characteristics ---  Instructor Responses Can separate reality from imagination > Avoid the use of fantasy; it makes them feel that you are treating them like babies Can understand things they can’t see --- Use hypotheticals (what ifs) to introduce cause and effect and explain why something worked or didn’t work May overestimate their abilities (I can do anything!) --- Keep them reined in to avoid unsafe situations or setbacks Affective I want ownership in my day and can work independently I compare my achievements to those of my peers I want to have fun and like to play games I like to be responsible for my learning I like to know when I’ve...
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting ready to get into the bumps

By
I love teaching bumps. I’m a recovering bump-a-phobe. Learning lots of tactics and tricks really helped me love them. I like to think I can help someone make a similar breakthrough. This post has general ideas on teaching bumps. But I’d like to talk about how I develop tactics and skills before I take someone in there. My mom’s family is from New York and they love their bagels with a heaping mass of cream cheese. A cheese knife, spreader or what we call a “schmearer” is a key piece of equipment. The flat blade easily spreads cream cheese or peanut butter. I like to ski bumps like I use a schmearer by standing tall and keeping the edge angle low. This makes it easier for my legs to steer my skis and create nice “C” shaped turns. Standing tall gives us the added bonus of lots of room to flex and extend later. You can pair students up and ask the follower to watch the tips. Are the tips leading the tails? Are the tips pointing across the hill before they change direction? Once...
Post a Comment
Read more