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Are you a ski instructor? Advice please...

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 Hans 31 Jan 2017
Hi all

Considering signing up to a ski instructor course. I have plenty of piste skiing experience, and some limited off piste (all overseas). However my main concern is which qualification route to take. Particularly interested in the Austrian system due to my knowledge of German.

Open to other ideas on other systems throughout the world.

Cheers

H.

In reply to Hans:

I can give plenty of information on the British, Italian and French systems. Also the NZ, US and Canadian... I unfortunately have limited knowledge of the Austrian/German systems, but can ask a mate for you. It's a pretty long story, so what is it you need to know!? I suppose the main point is that the British BASI pathway has equivilence to French Moniter, Italian Maestro, Swiss Paton at it's highest Level 4. And can sometimes be converted fairly simply with a couple of day exam into these systems, or in the French case just a bit of paperwork. Regards
In reply to Hans:

Most of that is likely to change after Brexit once the free movement of EU workers and the equivalence principle is denied to UK instructors in our rush to leave...
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OP Hans 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Terry James Walker:

Hi Terry

Thanks for your reply. I guess my main concern is which pathway will allow most employment in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. BASI looks well established, as does the Canadian system. The Austrian courses are great financially but not sure if they could take me anywhere apart from German speaking parts of the EU.

All the best

H.



 galpinos 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Hans:

Bearing in mind the recent Simon Butler case and BASI apparent neglect of their members and their apparent actions/decision to favour the few and disadvantage the many.

Now the French courts have said that BASI and ESFs agreement that a Eurotest is required to teach independently has been shown to not hold up in as court of law things are due a shake up, though Brexit might put a dampener on that for anyone on the BASI system, out of the EU.
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 galpinos 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Hans:

Oh, and register and post on Snowheads, you'll get a better informed opinion.....
OP Hans 01 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:
So I googled Simon Butler and found this amazing piece of info:

''A huge number of French instructors have not met the criterion of this exacting race, which is that they complete a giant slalom no more than 18 per cent slower than the reigning world champion. Many are allowed to teach children nonetheless, as they are stagières or long-term trainees.''
http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/news/story.aspx?storyID=9917#.WJIjEMMrLVo

Not done any proper research, but looks like it's completely pointless to try and progress from level 2! It's a great sport though, would be great to teach the basics to kids etc.

Will check out Snowheads - cheers

H.
Post edited at 18:18
 John2 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Hans:

I don't think that the reigning world champion has time to travel round all of the nation's aspiring ski instructors. What I have been told is that a current world cup slalom racer skis a slalom course and the candidates have to match his time plus 15%.
 Doug 01 Feb 2017
In reply to John2:

but still totally pointless
 ad111 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Hans:

I did NZSIA levels 1 and 2 with a group called SitCo based in Queenstown. It was brilliant. The skiing might not be the best in the world but it's well worth going there for everything else you get!

I haven't done much teaching since - a bunch of weeks every few years in Italy. The guys I worked for have always been really positive about the NZ qualification and less so about CASI and BASI. I have no idea if it is personal or there if there is actually a difference.

I was a pretty crap skier to start with and did a 12 week course and managed to pass. There was a hell of a lot of teaching and I was skiing all day on all the days off as well.
 John2 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Doug:

Well, it applies a filter which means that only the very best succeed. It's not as though there's a shortage of ski instructors in France.
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 Doug 01 Feb 2017
In reply to John2:

But does skiing fast make you a good teacher ?
 galpinos 01 Feb 2017
In reply to John2:

The Eurotest is over a GS course, it's the Test Technique that's a slalom course.

Passing the Eurotest involves getting within 18% for men or 24% for women of the openers time, once it's been normalised to 0 FIS point equivalence.

 Misha 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Doug:

> But does skiing fast make you a good teacher ?

Yeah or even a good skier when it comes to off piste?
 galpinos 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Doug:

No, but having the Eurotest as a final hurdle ensures that those most likely to pass are those who have skied a lot and from an early age so those most likely to get jobs are those from the local area. It's protectionism, local jobs for local people......
 galpinos 01 Feb 2017
In reply to Misha:

If you are passing the Eurotest, off piste poses little challenge, you would be a very strong skier.
 Misha 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:
I guess my question is can you train exclusively on piste to get really good at slalom but not be that good off piste? A bit like training indoors for comps but not having the skills to do E1. I don't know enough about high end skiing.

At my modest level (happy enough off piste for ski touring but not exactly graceful and not good enoug for steep couloirs etc), I'd say to get better off piste I need more off piste experience rather than piste mileage. Perhaps it's different at the top end, a bit like top trad climbers needing to do sport and bouldering.
 John2 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Misha:

A number of the off piste guides in the Val d'Isere area are ex-ski racers who used to be in one or other French team.
 galpinos 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Misha:

> I guess my question is can you train exclusively on piste to get really good at slalom but not be that good off piste? A bit like training indoors for comps but not having the skills to do E1. I don't know enough about high end skiing.

I would say that there will be multiple cross over skills but you might have a few tools missing. I would equate a Eurotest standard skier as maybe an 8b redpointer so their climbing skill is very high. Stick them on an HVS (the equivalent of a decent Brit abroad's off-piste level) and they'll be fine.

In reality, the guys and girls who are at the level of the Eurotest won't have just skied GS on piste in isolation, they will enjoy piste, moguls, slalom, off-piste etc and will be proficient in all of them. They still won't necessarily be good teachers though!

> At my modest level (happy enough off piste for ski touring but not exactly graceful and not good enough for steep couloirs etc), I'd say to get better off piste I need more off piste experience rather than piste mileage. Perhaps it's different at the top end, a bit like top trad climbers needing to do sport and bouldering.

The only thing I would say is don't dismiss piste skiing as time wasted, there is a lot of cross over and numerous drills that can be done on piste that will help off-piste, just skiing off-piste in bad conditions may make you a good "survival" skier but might not help you improve in order to ski the steeper/harder stuff you aspire too. If you want to be graceful, you'll not learn that skiing chunder with a heavy pack.......

What do you class as steep? Skiing a moguly black run in a busy resort in half decent style is far harder than skiing No.4 on the Ben, Easy Gully on Aonach Mor or Aladdin's Couloir in the Northern Corries. Sometimes it's just belief in your own abilities?

 John2 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:

I thought that there were psychological modules in the ski instructor curriculum, which would presumably go some way to ensuring that a fully qualified instructor had reasonable teaching skills.
 galpinos 02 Feb 2017
In reply to John2:

I'm sure there are, doesn't mean that they end up good teachers though!

I would say that BASI does put a lot of emphasis on teaching to their credit, shame the upper echelons of the organisation are such a shambles to bring the rest of organisations remit into question.

I don't know enough about the French (or other) systems but they do seem to emphasise performance over teaching. I may be wrong and out of date though, too many memories of "Just follow me!" type lessons from my youth.
 John2 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:

I do quite a lot of skiing in Val d'Isere, and it's certainly still common to see older ESF instructors shouting 'Hoopla' at every turn. I have made a fair amount of use of off piste guides and French UIAGM guides, and I have enormous respect for virtually every one of them. I normally have a two hour private lesson on piste with one of the guides whom I know at the start of a season, and I have never experienced anything but excellent instruction which has delivered exactly what I asked for. Two hours with an ex-member of the French slalom team had me sweating profusely in temperatures of -15 this December.
 Simon4 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:

> The only thing I would say is don't dismiss piste skiing as time wasted, there is a lot of cross over and numerous drills that can be done on piste that will help off-piste

True, you need to get the actual quantity of downtime which ski-touring can never give you. I would say that off-piste with lifts is MORE helpful though.

> Skiing a moguly black run in a busy resort in half decent style is far harder than skiing No.4 on the Ben, Easy Gully on Aonach Mor or Aladdin's Couloir in the Northern Corries.

Not sure about that at all, one of the main points about ski-touring or off-piste skiing is just how unpredictable the terrain is and how you need to assess it all the time as you go. Moguls, even when icy are fairly predictable, as are the techniques to deal with them.

> Sometimes it's just belief in your own abilities?

Well all skiing has a lot to do with confidence, which is why you can get a cascade of failure as people make mistakes or get intimidated and then things get progressively worse, because they no longer believe that they can do it. But if you do NOT have the abilities to cope with the terrain you are on, then any confidence is quite misplaced and you will come a cropper.

 galpinos 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Simon4:

> Not sure about that at all, one of the main points about ski-touring or off-piste skiing is just how unpredictable the terrain is and how you need to assess it all the time as you go. Moguls, even when icy are fairly predictable, as are the techniques to deal with them.

Not for everyone but in Misha's case (which is what I was considering), he seems to be a pretty proficient alpinist and winter climber (far far more so than me) so I would imagine has a pretty good grasp of snow conditions and the ability to risk assess on the fly whilst having the mountaineering skills to get himself out of a bind if required.

For your average punter with little/no alpine experience, I'd agree


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 Simon4 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Misha:
> Yeah or even a good skier when it comes to off piste?

Well I agree about the limitations of the equivalence and that it is largely used as a restraint of trade, but there is no doubt that French ski instructors are very good skiers, in all conditions. They just have a largely well deserved reputation for not being very good or enthusiastic teachers. This is not that surprising, as the equivalence is all about personal extreme performance. Top-flight athletes, being so driven, selfish and intensely focused are quite often not very good at understanding or sympathising with timid beginner or intermediates and analysing and being effective at solving their problems and proposing practical ways to improve matters.

Teaching is a skill and high-level skiing is a skill, they do not necessarily go together. If you exclusively test and train for one rather than the other, you get an unbalanced result. This is quite apart from the very powerful financial factors applying in ski-resorts, especially in a season like the current one.
Post edited at 11:22
 Jim 1003 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Misha:

Skiing off piste is easier than skiing on piste once you can actually ski off piste, if that makes sense, i.e. if you can ski powder it's easier and less tiring than skiing on piste. But if you can't do it, then obviously it's much harder to ski off piste.
 John2 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Simon4:

'Top-flight athletes, being so driven, selfish and intensely focused are quite often not very good at understanding or sympathising with timid beginner or intermediates'

That is, of course, an unsupported generalisation. This chap https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Berthon , an Olympic gold medallist, is such a nice chap that he was often given complete beginners to instruct.
 nb 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Simon4:
> They just have a largely well deserved reputation for not being very good or enthusiastic teachers.

In my experience French and British clients look for different things in instruction. Stick your average French skier in a British-style group class and they will be begging for mercy after 2 hours of set-piece exercises and practice. On the other hand a British skier in a French class will feel like they're not being taught anything coz they're not being told what to do.

Also French clients tend not to look for the same show of enthusiasm from their instructor/guide. They might even be a bit suspicious about it!

And while I'm on the subject, the French are often quite happy getting shouted at by their instructor/guide. Their attitude is, "well of course I'm getting a bolloxing, I'm shit" whereas the British attitude is more, "well of course I'm shit, I'm a beginner which is why I hired an instructor, so why am I getting bolloxed?!" I think the French are generally better at accepting their shitness though, whereas the British take it a bit more personally.

>Top-flight athletes, being so driven, selfish and intensely focused are quite often not very good at understanding or sympathising with timid beginner or intermediates...

I think this is a fair comment, but I also think it's more that when you've learnt something as a kid (ie. without having to engage your brain), you don't really get why it's so difficult do learn as an adult. I wouldn't call all French ski instructors "top-flight athletes" though. They have to train hard to get through the Euro-test, but I think comparing it to a F8b rock climb (like somebody above did) is a bit OTT (although what do I know having done neither!!)

Does all this mean a Brit should hire a British instructor? There's defo an argument for it if you're not prepared to go with the flow and accept the French way of doing things. There are French instructors out there who know what British skiers want and can adapt, but it's a bit hit and miss without a personal recommendation.

ps apologises for swearing and stereotyping!



 Misha 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:
Makes sense.
 Misha 02 Feb 2017
In reply to galpinos:
Thanks for the compliment but you haven't seen me ski You're right though, a winter and alpine climber will be naturally at home and risk aware off piste. However that doesn't mean having good technical skills, either on piste or off. That's down to time on the skis and I guess you've got to work technique both on and off piste. Snow conditions make a big difference of course. I'd probably be happy to ski the big gullies in decent conditions but not with a cornice jump! Never tried it though.
 Misha 02 Feb 2017
In reply to nb:
I've had some great French instructors and guides through the UCPA but they do have an ethos of teaching self-sufficiency.
 Rich W Parker 02 Feb 2017
In reply to Simon4:

Skiing any of the aformentioned gullies is technically way easier than skiing steep moguls, in my opinion. More consequential, but easier. Unless of course half of the UK has stomped up and down No.4, prior to it refreezing. Then it would be nails.
 Rob Exile Ward 04 Feb 2017
In reply to nb:

Fascinating alternative take on some of the mind games going on!

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