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The journey to L3 reaches a new chapter. - Page 2

post #31 of 56
4/19/12 at 7:16am

I know it's been a long journey, Dave, but the gold pin is within your reach. Congratulations on your accomplishments! 

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post #32 of 56
4/19/12 at 11:51am

Congrats Dave! (where's that exhaling smiley?)

 

Remember the next step includes you coaching your peers to improve upon this level of skiing!

 

I guess I was lucky. I had to do wedge christies on a cat track with a double fall line for my level 2. Examiner said "If you have any faults, they;ll show up here". Yikes! It's been my observation that, in general, wedge christies get better the higher up the ladder you go (1,2,3,examiner, demo team).

 

Personally, I'm finding I can still learn things from a straight run to a wedge. Go figure.

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post #33 of 56
4/19/12 at 12:07pm
Thread Starter 

I was too beat to look for that exhaling smiley tongue.gif

Muscles are feeling a lot better today.

and the head is slowly clearing so I can start putting another thread together to share my experience in this latest process.

 

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post #34 of 56
4/19/12 at 12:10pm

Congrats Dave and good luck on the teaching.  icon14.gif

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post #35 of 56
4/19/12 at 12:13pm
I look forward to that thread, D! But take your time.

Best regards,
Bob
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post #36 of 56
4/19/12 at 5:24pm

Good going.  They say that the journey is the thing.  However, it sure feels great to pull into the train station every now and then.

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post #37 of 56
4/19/12 at 8:59pm

Congrats!

I passed my level 3 this year as well, and it is quite the ordeal! We do both the skiing and the teaching in one go here in the MW, I can only imagine its more taxing to have it split up!

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post #38 of 56
4/20/12 at 11:51am

Congrats, man.  Quite an achievement.

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post #39 of 56
4/20/12 at 5:09pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Braquage View Post

Congrats!

I passed my level 3 this year as well, and it is quite the ordeal! We do both the skiing and the teaching in one go here in the MW, I can only imagine its more taxing to have it split up!

Well done Braquage !

 

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post #40 of 56
4/22/12 at 2:29pm

We use the same format in the Central Division Braquage!  I agree!  Seems like it would be more stressful breaking it up!   Congratulations!

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post #41 of 56
4/23/12 at 8:17am
Talk about stress!!! I know guys in RM who have passed teaching, performance skiing in bumps and crud, etc., but can't pass something like pivot slips or wedge christies and have been going to exams repeatedly to do just the unpassed maneuvers.
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post #42 of 56
4/23/12 at 9:04am
Thread Starter 
Stressful yes. But I did like the fact that we do not have to think about teaching. We can just ski.

And because it's a coached module the feel is more like a clinic. We all know its's an exam but I didn't feel as stresed as when we just skied the tasks and wondered how we did.
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post #43 of 56
4/23/12 at 9:22am
Quote:
And because it's a coached module the feel is more like a clinic.

You're right, Dave. Having that brief opportunity to observe your first Squaw skiing exam in early March, I was impressed by the difference between your exam format and ours in Rocky Mountain. We're currently kind of at the other end of the spectrum, with our skiing tasks taking place in stations where the examiners work in pairs, waving down one candidate at a time as the candidates move through the stations at their own pace. Although we try to give a little helpful feedback to the candidate after each run, it's an exam, without question!

There are arguments for and against both formats. But yours certainly tends to create at least the perception of a "friendlier" experience.

Best regards,
Bob
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post #44 of 56
4/24/12 at 7:58am
Thread Starter 

Just got my "pass" letter from the PSIA-W office. I inquired about who passed. They would not give out names but they did say about 30%pass

 

16 started the exam with us. 2 dropped out due to previous injuries, so they didn't want to take a chance at re-injuring themselves. So either 4 or 5 passed is my guess.

 

 

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post #45 of 56
4/24/12 at 12:59pm

Dave,

 

Does that pass rate jibe with your observations?

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post #46 of 56
4/24/12 at 1:52pm
Thread Starter 

Not quite but then again I did not get to ski with or see all the other candidates in the other groups so I don't know how well they skied the rest of the time. We were in groups of 5 or 6 and we only took about 4-5 runs as a large group.

 

My first impressions of the whole group was only 2 or 3 of us were skiing that well. I'd say 2 were skiing stronger than me,both were full timers, were several seasons at L2 with other things going for them (racers or skied 100+ days a year even before teaching. A lot of the group was skiing faster or more athletic than I was but turn mechanics lacked precision.

 

I knew the pass rate was not going to be any higher. I expected it to be a little lower.

 

But like I said, I wasn't the examiner and I did not see the rest of their skiing. I also don't know who passed and who did not. The only thing I do know is I was the only one in our group of  6 and that no one from Northstar ski resort passed.

 

DC

 

 

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post #47 of 56
4/24/12 at 1:59pm
Thread Starter 

Also, I don't know where I was in the "pack" of people that passed. It's not really a bell curve. I do know that with the exception of a few bobbles in some of my bump runs I skied better than I ever have AND consistently for the whole exam. I did start to fatigue by the last few runs on the second day (top to bottom runs in steep sticky bumps in a narrow chute) where I decided to stop and take a break part way down in order to continue good turn mechanics rather than just make sloppy runs and get out of control.

 

I am pretty sure I nailed the one legged skiing and real steep chute situational skiing.

 

 

 

 

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post #48 of 56
4/24/12 at 2:49pm

 

Quote:
They would not give out names but they did say about 30% pass

 

 

30-35% seems to be the average pass rate for LIII over the past 30 yrs. or longer at least in the Western & Intermountain divisions IIRC.  It would be interesting to know for sure, if anyone has the statistics.  It has always been interesting to hear candidates say "Oh the exam/assessment was really easy that year, everybody was passing" or "This was a really tough year, no one was passing" yet I think history will show that the standard & pass rate have remained consistent.

 

dchan, it doesn't make any difference where you fit in with the pack, you either qualified & met the standard or you didn't...  You did!  Hip, hip hooray.  As others have said, NOW things will all begin to make sense.

 

JF

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post #49 of 56
4/24/12 at 3:13pm
Thread Starter 

The comment to "where I fit" had to do with my assessment in regards to Rusty's question if the pass rate jibed with my observation. Since I only know how I felt I skied and only observed a few runs, That's all I had to base my observation on.

 

Actually things started to make sense several years ago when they started to tell me "your skiing has moments of brilliance, Just not 90% of the time". As far as how I feel about my skiing, Since I passed the L1, It's all been a wonderful journey of learning and understanding. Epiphany after epiphany, stronger skiing and I sure don't plan to ever stop learning and pushing myself.

 

DC

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post #50 of 56
4/24/12 at 3:28pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by dchan View Post
It's all been a wonderful journey of learning and understanding. Epiphany after epiphany, stronger skiing and I sure don't plan to ever stop learning and pushing myself.

 

DC

 

 

Great attitude :)  & you are already paying it forward.

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post #51 of 56
4/25/12 at 1:37pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by dchan View Post

Just got my "pass" letter from the PSIA-W office. I inquired about who passed. They would not give out names but they did say about 30%pass

 

16 started the exam with us. 2 dropped out due to previous injuries, so they didn't want to take a chance at re-injuring themselves. So either 4 or 5 passed is my guess.

 

 

 

I was skiing the days that you were taking the exam and I am impressed at the skill level shown by those who stuck with it, which is sort of a pun since the snow conditions were occasionally like fly paper. 

 

Kudos!!!

 

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post #52 of 56
4/26/12 at 10:43am

At L3, you are supposed to be able to coach above your level. It's my contention that if a L3 candidate can not look at a group of other L3 candidates and break that group into definite pass, definite fail, borderline with at least 80% accuracy for the definites (and 60% identified as a definite vs borderline), then they are not personally ready for passing L3. So if you ski with a group of 5 all day, you should be able to definite 3 of the 5 and get 2 out of 3 of those correct. Examiners have to go through the full exam process and give everyone a chance to pass, but they do this kind of breakdown in their head when they see the first 2 turns.

 

If you know the standard and ski the standard, then you have felt the standard. If you have felt the standard and studied the standard, you should be able to see it in others. You can't accurately coach above this level if you can't see it. An informal part of the L3 teaching is coaching your peers in the exam and getting results. If you can look at someone's skiing and tell if they can pass or not and why, then you can coach up to this level and you have the tools to be able to coach above the level.

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post #53 of 56
4/26/12 at 12:14pm
Thread Starter 

Hi Rusty,

 

I agree with you on this one.

 

In our group I knew what the standard was. When I went for feed back and my results at the end of the exam, The first thing my examiner asked was, "how do you thing you did?" My response was "except for a few bobbles in a few runs, I felt I skied above the standard for the full 2 days" I also told him that if not being able to ski top to bottom 1000 ft vertical in slushy very steep bumps 3 times in a row (I took a short break half way down on the second 2 runs) was going to keep me from passing, so be it. That was when he smiled and told me I skied very well and passed.

 

That being said, in our group, I had a very good idea that I was well on my way to passing by the middle of the second day (until those 3 top to bottom attempts) The next person in the group I was relatively sure he was not going to pass but I've been surprised before. The other 4 were not going to pass. Turns out I was 1 of 6 in our group.

 

Again I did not get a chance to spend much time with the rest of the collective group but from what I saw, I was pretty sure there were 3 that were going to pass. 5 that were not and 2 on the fence. But if I was correct on which ones were there, I don't know.

 

Then again as most enlightened instructors will say, It's all part of the journey.

 

DC

 

 

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post #54 of 56
4/26/12 at 1:19pm

Thanks - That answered my question. That sounds more like a guy who is ready to pass the teaching part.

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post #55 of 56
4/28/12 at 2:23pm

Congradulations David.   I know what spring conditions would be like out there.

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post #56 of 56
6/8/12 at 1:57pm

Bravo David!  Well done!

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