Your thoughts on freestyle lessons/coaching

[scratch1080skier]

I learned the hard way, friends telling me to go down a hill, and try to stop myself, and years later, I've found myself teaching people how to ski. I get tired of just teaching people to make it down the mountain and would love to be working (and getting paid) to be in the terrain park more often.

I'm wondering what everyone would think would attract skiers (and, i guess...boarders, since we do give lessons to both) to take freestyle ski lessons AND also what you think should be taught in that lesson or what you would like to get out of a freestyle ski lesson (if you were to take one).

There's a whole PSIA freestyle teaching guide and blah blah blah, which is ok for someone who doesnt know much about park to learn then teach...but as a skier who learned by doing it, I know there are better ways to "teach" park. The freestyle lessons I have tought so far, I've first gauged the skier's capabilities (just to make sure they won't hit a jump and land right on their back) and figured out what they were good at and what needed work, then asked them what they wanted to learn or work on.

Let me know what you think.

 

[nickyp]

I learnt the hard way too, watching edits, and trying to emulate the tricks. Part of the learning curve is taking a few hard slams, and getting back up and doing it all over again..
I do think the whole "teaching in a safe environment" is not as beneficial. Teaching perfect technique is difficult: everyone has a different style, people slide/ jump with their weight distributed differently, and you develop your own style through practice, not being told.
Park skiing is not an exact science: there is no perfect way, or even a truly correct way to do it, which makes teaching it that much more difficult.

 

[scratch1080skier]

Agreed, there's definately no safe way of learning...and I feel better after getting banged around a few times myself because one...I know I can walk away from it and two...I know what NOT to do. There's no way to know how to do something until you try it the first time.

And usually, that means you're going to be walking back uphill to pick up your skis while wiping the snow out of your goggles. It's one of the best sports out there, it has kicked my ass many times, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[partyalex]

I actually started the qualification process to teach park skiing, this was back in 2004, though, and i really hadn't skiied much park at this point but was already a ski teacher in tremblant. I found it too regimented, shit like taking your skis off and standing on rails to get used to it, it was just strange so i never followed through but just never taught again and just skiied a load of park for fun and got better that way, it was definitely the right choice.

 

[Mr.Huck]

No hate, but I have to disagree. I'm PSIA level III. That said, I don't know if the way I teach freestyle is the PSIA way. There isn't really a formula, but PSIA at least grills you on movement analysis and teaching to people with different learning styles: visual, aural and kinesthetic . Not everyone is going to get into beating the crap out of themselves until they learn something. I've seen kids that had awesome raw talent, take huge wipe outs and never get back to where they were. Their confidence is just shot. There is no way to make park and free ride completely safe, but you can minimize risks and teach progressions that help skiers learn skills they can build on. Shit, that sounded way to PSIA, but it's true.

You just want to make sure that the people you are working with know that you have a plan. You also want to make sure they are having fun. You are so much more likely to get injured when you are uptight and tense. When people are having fun, you can get them to do some amazing things. One of the best moments I ever had as an instructor was when I got a 73 year old guy to do a shmeer turn off of a 12 foot cornice. He dropped, turned 180 in the air, landed, bounced his uphill hip, threw his hands forward and started making turns like Shane. For the rest of the day and maybe for the rest of the year, this guy had a shit eating grin on his face that you couldn't chisel off. You could teach 100 crappy lessons and that one would erase all of them.

 

[Legoman]

Im hopefully going to be taking my CSIA Snowpark this year but I also got help learning park last season from one of my instructors that had all ready done the course after I finished my other exams. Now I am still very much a beginner but it definitley helped having a few pointers to help me out, especially on boxes and rails. I had to slide them and stuff before I went out for the season but early on in the season wrecked myself trying to do a flat to down box several times and lost a bit of confidence in my technique. So yes did some lame standing on the box with just my boots on and stuff but it helped me feel a bit more comfortable sliding again without KOing myself every 3minutes to the point where I don't want to bother. Also you cant make park/freeride safe but you can do as much as you can so people dont make stupid mistakes and get hurt unnecessarily.