[mark]

"2. Would the Learn to Tele clinic be too basic for me?"

You know, one of the best lessons I've ever seen, maybe the best in fact, was watching Hiroshi Ishikida* do a beginners lesson. Amazing communication, demos, and of course there's the whole ski skeletally vs. muscularly pedigogy as well which is IMHO light years ahead of much of what I've seen in N. America (and much easier for beginners to master).

With a goal of "how do you communicate this info to a student?", a beginners lesson with a top instructor will be really informative.

If I were a PSIA pooba, I'd get Hiro over to do some lessons for the whole crew.

* Telemark Association of Japan

[teletante]

If you have a good grasp of alpine progressions through level 6 and can make tele turns on blue terrain 75% of the time I don't see any reason that the L1 exam should not be easy. Since the Nordic exams are currently set up the way the alpines were back when I squeeked by my L3 exam now is the time to do it. It was a 3 day pass everything at once event and the prerequisets were based much more on skiing and teaching hours and much less on required PSIA clinic attendence. The rule of thumb on passing exams seems to be if you show you're coachable you'll pass L1. If you're a maybe at L2 you'll pass. If you are a maybe at L3 it's a fail.
I read what I could find and took NATO courses when I started. I worked with friends and other instructors that first year, taking the L1 early the following year-as I recall it was a skiing clinic had a great time and learned a lot. The hard step for me was to then go to my supervisor, and more importently the sales desk, and say I was looking to teach tele lessons. I got maybe 5 or 6 the first year, more the next. By asking in alpine lessons if people were interested in tele, and reminding the desk that if anyone asked I was there ready to teach I got enough hours to A: get more work-a good percentage of them requests and B: convince managment there is enough of a market that we now have a small rental fleet. By continueing to work the certification route I've shown the supervisors I'm serious about teaching tele, thus leapfrogging some with more seniority who also tele, and I've become pretty much the go to guy for teles in the minds of the desk staff- So far this season my teaching hours with the public are 2 hours of alpine and 4 hours of tele.
I still not getting rich but the money I've sent to PSIA has been well worth it. I've found that the Nordic DH events are more informative, and entertaining than alpine events. The nordic Ed staff people are less egocentric then the alpine staff can be. Yes I know some are on both staffs but there is something about being on equipment that can make you look so foolish seems to help keep egos in line.
------ WARNING:BLATENT PLUG TO FOLLOW------
Next week (Dec 13-17) Sugarbush is having Valley Ski Week. Its a real ski week with group lessons 10-12 each morning. If 4-5 people sign up there will be at least one tele group. It's $140 for just lessons and $180 with a 5 day lift ticket. Hell right now just a 5 out of 6 day ticket is $225. I'm planning on going for my L3 Nordic DH this year so I'ld love to get a tele group.
Dave W
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If you can't learn to do something well you can at least learn to have fun doing it poorly.

[Biff]

Mickey Stone got a few of us from NET to drag the EMS demo fleet over to Mt. Snow for the PSIA snowsports School Management Seminar last week. We proceeded to teach Ski School Directors from all over New England how to telemark. At the end Mickey handed them a stack of papers explaining how they can bring telemark to their mountain. It went over big and I think will become a yearly thing. NET is the only PSIA certified ski school dedicated to telemark (35 telemark instructors) and with all of our festivals and lessons on the side we must teach at least 1200 people each year. I think the ski areas are starting to see that there is a demand for telemark instructors and we should be seeing more and more mountains offering it.

[Telecaster]

Thanks for all of your feedback. Mickey from PSIA-E replied to my email today and he suggested the Teaching/Skiing clinic at the end of February. This will give me more time to prepare with the instructors at my home area and get some more skiing under my belt. Plus I have family in Connecticut, so I can crash with them and save hotel $.
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Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. - Norman Maclean