Yesterday, I took a re-cert clinic to keep my hours up. It was a teaching clinic aimed mainly at Level III candidates, seeking their next level of certification. And while technically I am in that demographic, I haven't really actively done anything to get ready. So I skied all day, had a lot of fun, learned a few things, "taught" a few things and got my credit hours out of the way until next year. One of the big points in the clinic was, less is more, focusing on "teaching cues". Small easy to remember phrases etc, that while on the surface seem pretty simplistic, but have deeper technical meaning underneath. At one point in the day they were referred to as "pearls." Things like "Lets ski this crud/mashed potatoes trying to keep the pressure even/equal all the time" or "like we are skiing on egg shells and we don't want to break them". On the surface those things seem pretty simple (Ok, I think I can do that) but when you really start to think about what it takes to accomplish the task, there's a lot going on.
Now what I would like to thank everyone for is at the end of the day, after I turned in my evaul of the clinic, I was talking to our examiner and asked "So am I in the ballpark with this (teaching) stuff." The reply, "I don't think you'd have any trouble with the teaching/tech in the exam." Wow. That's cool. It's also exactly what I've been thinking for a while, but you never know. What I like to thank everyone for, is you don't know how much hanging around this place has helped me get to that point. The other cool thing for me is while folks were pulling out contrived stuff, I all I did was the stuff that I do in my lessons all the time. It worked because I had the presentation down, I had the verbiage down, etc., etc. It's not something I made up on the spot, it's stuff I do ALL THE TIME. And it's the stuff I get from hanging around here....
For example, we were working on the release and there is one "exercise line" that I use all the time in my classes that starts off as a series of questions. We just so happened to get to the perfect terrain for me to do what I normally do. We talked for a bit and when the examiner asked "Any questions?" I fired right off into my normal routine "Yeah, ummm, so what are we doing to keep from slipping vertically down the hill here?" The examiner looked at me puzzled for a second (I'm sure he was thinking "He can't be that stupid can he?"
) and then quickly figured out what I was doing/where I was going, "teaching cues." I went through the whole series of things I normally do (at level 2-8+), the questions and the like. When I was done he was like "That was awesome. I've never seen that one before. Right on the money. High five." Needless to say, I was petty reaffirmed and stoked.
Later, we discussed a few issues that I have in my skiing, that have been brought to my attention before (and are the reason I haven't jumped into the process yet.) In my defense, I have done ZERO (real) prep for the skiing part this year. In fact I thought I was skiing much better a year ago than I am now. And after our talk I'm wanting to try some things equipment wise (boots). It's also easy to preform in a clinic when there's no pressure vs an exam. So I'm not out of the woods yet. But, at this point (the end of the season, yeah! ) I'm feeling pretty good about NEXT year....
Anyway Thanks ALL just for being here!!!!
Now what I would like to thank everyone for is at the end of the day, after I turned in my evaul of the clinic, I was talking to our examiner and asked "So am I in the ballpark with this (teaching) stuff." The reply, "I don't think you'd have any trouble with the teaching/tech in the exam." Wow. That's cool. It's also exactly what I've been thinking for a while, but you never know. What I like to thank everyone for, is you don't know how much hanging around this place has helped me get to that point. The other cool thing for me is while folks were pulling out contrived stuff, I all I did was the stuff that I do in my lessons all the time. It worked because I had the presentation down, I had the verbiage down, etc., etc. It's not something I made up on the spot, it's stuff I do ALL THE TIME. And it's the stuff I get from hanging around here....
For example, we were working on the release and there is one "exercise line" that I use all the time in my classes that starts off as a series of questions. We just so happened to get to the perfect terrain for me to do what I normally do. We talked for a bit and when the examiner asked "Any questions?" I fired right off into my normal routine "Yeah, ummm, so what are we doing to keep from slipping vertically down the hill here?" The examiner looked at me puzzled for a second (I'm sure he was thinking "He can't be that stupid can he?"
) and then quickly figured out what I was doing/where I was going, "teaching cues." I went through the whole series of things I normally do (at level 2-8+), the questions and the like. When I was done he was like "That was awesome. I've never seen that one before. Right on the money. High five." Needless to say, I was petty reaffirmed and stoked.Later, we discussed a few issues that I have in my skiing, that have been brought to my attention before (and are the reason I haven't jumped into the process yet.) In my defense, I have done ZERO (real) prep for the skiing part this year. In fact I thought I was skiing much better a year ago than I am now. And after our talk I'm wanting to try some things equipment wise (boots). It's also easy to preform in a clinic when there's no pressure vs an exam. So I'm not out of the woods yet. But, at this point (the end of the season, yeah! ) I'm feeling pretty good about NEXT year....
Anyway Thanks ALL just for being here!!!!
