We had the monday and Tuesday off to relax or practice any aspects we think we need to work on prior to our exams. I decided to just have a fun day of riding, spent some of it in the tree’s but stayed out the park to make sure I don’t run the risk of picking up any injuries.
Wednesday, day one of the exams:
Registration was between 8am-9am after which we were split into groups (about 7/8 to an instructor), my instructor was a guy called Clovis. We set off for a mornings warm-up ride, well I say warm-up ride, it was more of an ongoing evaluation of our riding, making sure we could do the key area’s required under the CASI level 1 such as Stance & Balance, Pivot/Steering, Edging, Pressure Control and finally, Timing & Coordination. After a few hours riding we broke for lunch. The afternoon was spent half down in the nursery slope area going through parts 1-3 (Basics, Sliding, Control) on the quick ride system and the other half in our daily workshop with the instructor where we went through what we’d done in that day, giving us the chance to talk about anything but also gaining valuable feedback from the instructor about what we did well and what we could improve upon and more importantly how.
Thursday, day two of the exams:
In the morning we spent about an hour watching a video of the standards required for a level one pass, after which we went back out on the slope to work on our riding. This was useful time as we could work on anything that was highlighted from yesterdays workshop. In the afternoon after we’d come back from lunch we went through parts 4-5 (Turning, Linking) of the quick ride system down in the nursery area. Once our instructor had finished his demo’s of the quick ride system it was our turn, he gave us a theme to work on and then we had to run the lesson from that point, I think I was given ‘Control’ which was fine with me. I did my demo, took about 15 minutes and I felt it had gone really well, I couldn’t recall forgetting any aspect of the theme, I’d given my introduction and explanation about the ‘Gas pedal’ and ‘Sideslipping on toe-edge), backed it up with a good solid demo of what I’d like them to try, and then had the students (2 members from my group) try what I had demoed. After we’d all given our first demo time for the day was just about up, so we headed back to the meeting room for our workshop to run through how our day had progressed.
Friday, day three, last day of the exams:
We met in the village and straight away headed down to do our second teaching session. This one was an easy one for me, as I had been given ‘Basic’ which I had, had plenty of practice teaching before I’d even come on this course due to getting the job at Castleford SNO!zone. After we’d all done our teach sessions we broke for lunch, I think most people were releaved to have gotten two teaches out the way, not only that we all started to relax a bit more, realising that it actually wasn’t as bad as any of us thought. After lunch we did our last teach session, this was a real mix bag, as it was out of the nursery area and on one of the gentle green runs down from the village. I was pleased with my last two teach sessions so was looking forward to what i would get this time, and oh my what a lesson Clovis has planned for me. A family group of 4, Dad, Mum and two children, this in itself doesn’t sound bad, but this time I was given a scenario:
Dad can turn comfortably and is really there to support Mum. Mum can turn but needs to work on it a bit she doesn’t feel comfortable or confident. The kids just want to point the board down hill and go fast. You must get Mum and the Kids turning, but not leave Dad feeling left out.
So bit of a tricky scenario that one as effectively its three lessons in one, but I coped with it very well, and my instructor Clovis was very happy with what I had done. I got Dad to have a go at switch riding, as this is a great tool for improving aspects of your normal riding, as well as giving the added bonus of being able to ride switch. Mum I had try a few turns down the slope so I could see what might help her, whilst I spoke to the kids about how important turns was, and that we all liked to go fast and point straight down the hill, but what if I wanted to hit a jump over to the left or right, if I can’t turn I’d never get to them. As a reward I said if we can get some turns going I’ll show them how to do front flips (obviously this isn’t something you would show kids who can’t turn, but we found a nice stash of powder and did more of a front roll, than a flip, but the idea was the reward would give them something to work towards).
After we had all finished our lessons we had a couple of hours to practice some riding before the instructors went off to do the marking. A few hours later we all met in one of the pubs to get our results and either drown our sorrows, or celebrate in style. We had a 100% pass record with not one snowboarder failing either the teach or riding evaluations, congratulations everyone.