 Poster: A snowHead
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Just completed the Alpine Development Coach Level 1 course. This is a three-day course that can be done indoors or in resort, and is the first qualification in BASI's revised coaching qualification pathway. This is a fairly new development, and is designed to provide development and progression for those people who want to get involved in coaching ski racers rather than teaching recreational skiers. Level 1 is very much an introduction to coaching and is framed in terms of preparing you to work with children who are new to racing at your local ski club. There are 4 levels of coach qualification offered by BASI, with Level 4 aimed at coaches to national senior squads. At level 1 and 2 (not sure about 3 and 4) the assessment for the qualification is based on your ski performance not your coaching performance, although you do have to run sample coaching sessions for the other skiers on your course. The principal outcomes of the course are described as:
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How to design & deliver a well structured coaching session (Introduction, Warm Up, Activation, Cool Down and Roundup)
Difference between teaching and coaching
Introduce people to performance skiing
Methods of skier analysis using TTPPEE
Analyse and develop performance skiing
Ethics in sport
Effectively develop performance skills through skiing drills
Prepare people for ski racing |
I did the course at The Snow Centre at Hemel. My original plan was to do it at Hintertux (and continue straight through to the Level 2 course) because I thought I'd get more out of it if I was in a resort, but I realised that I'd need to do more work to get up to standard for L2 so it seemed a bit too expensive to get out to Austria just for a 3 day course. The L2 course is 4 days and must be done in resort so there will be plenty of opportunity to develop my skiing then. There were 10 of us in the group at Hemel, ranging from decent recreational skiers whose kids raced in UK clubs, instructors working towards their ISIA award and a couple of youngsters who raced including one in the GB youth team.
One of the best things about the course is the quality of the reference materials we were given. There are two DVDs, a 300 page manual, and a 20 page workbook. Better still was the quality of our Trainer: Ross Green is a former GB national squad racer who competed at Europa Cup, World Cup and Olympic level, with a top 30 world ranking and a 15th place at the Salt Lake City Olympics to his name. I think all of the guys on the course, me included, enjoyed being coached by him a great deal.
After introductions to each other and to the supporting material it was out on to the snow for a warm-up. This is an essential first step in a coaching session, and was a feature of all three days for us. It started with some CV work to get hearts pumping, then moved on to dynamic stretching, then on to skis for some slow speed runs to develop feeling before picking up the pace to complete our general and specific warm up tasks. The warm ups are meant to be fun and energetic, so running on the spot simply won't do. We tried new things each day, such as running around in a tight square without hitting the others, dodging around ski poles, or forming a close circle and spinning around. They certainly did the trick in terms of getting us warm, physically and mentally, although the other people using the slope must have thought the local care in the community group was on day out. Once warm we did some dynamic stretching, such as synchronised lunges or hopping like a variety of animals, and then we were finally ready to put on skis. We would then do some very slow speed runs to focus on things like getting a good feel for balance or edges, normally doing some kind of drill. Finally we would start to pick up the speed to fire up timing and balance before blending in to the main work for the session. Altogether the general and specific warm up lasted about 20 minutes.
The main part of the day, which was termed the activiation period, was spent doing a mixture of drills to develop our own skiing as well as to illustrate some of the key concepts in coaching such as the model of skill acquisition, skills analysis, how to plan and structure a training session, coaching strategies, etc. The drills are designed to develop all aspects of skiing such as balance in all four planes, timing, coordination, edging, rotation and pressure control. Some of the drills were well beyond me, and I think only the two racers could do everything that was thrown at us. The drills included one-footed skiing; lots of explosive short swings such as tic-tacs, tip on snow, tail on snow, etc; lateral stepping; boots undone; pole plant variations such as dual tap, doubles and norwegians; drills to exaggerate vertical or lateral range of movement, etc, etc. The reference manual has 131 pages of different drills than can be inflicted on skiers to develop different aspects of their skiing, so no shortage of fun for sadistic coaches. Each session concluded with a warm-down period and a brief roundup of the work we'd done.
In addition to the skiing we would have on-snow or off-snow discussions about how coaching works, including things like planning training sessions, how skill acquisition works, skill analysis and diagnosis, strategies for delivering a training session and the role of the coach in making ethical decisions about their athletes. On snow this tended to be by practical demonstrations where we might be given the opportunity to do a new drill or analyse the skiing of someone else in the group. This was complemented by the two-hour classroom sessions each day after we'd finished on the slope, which included video feedback of our skiing.
On the final day we had to deliver a 20 minute coaching session to the rest of the group. We were given an approximate age range and ability level and had to plan the session beforehand. I chose to focus my session on lateral power and explosiveness (skating start and then blending into short radius turns maintaining the same power in the outside leg), which culminated in a some pole-free parallel races from a standing start at the top of the slope. My apologies to any other slope user who thought that we might have been a bit raucous at that point!
BASI states the pre-requisite ability is to cleanly link carved turns on blue terrain. I think this is about right, but this needs to be performed precisely. You should have the control to be able to do this without any pivoting of the skis whatsoever, and feel comfortable on steeper terrain where a significant portion of the turn is also carved. Assessment criteria for the course focuses on technical precision in slalom and GS type turns, specifically:
maintain balance in all planes
side cut both skis when edging
show separation and angulation skills
link turns with rhythm, movement and speed
show left/right symmetry
manage speed with turn shape and type
carve before the fall line
maintain upper body discipline
use a pole plant for timing
show upper and lower body separation
There is a four point grading system based on levels of skill acquisition (initiation, acquisition, consolidation, refinement) and to pass the course you have to reach the second grade (acquisition) in all of the assessment criteria.
I really enjoyed the course. The quality of the tuition and the supporting materials was extremely high, the skiing challenging but fun, and the group I was in were good company and included a couple of very good skiers that set a high standard to compare myself to. I'm not sure that I would recommend this course to everyone, but if you are keen to work with your local ski race club as an assistant coach I think it's a great first step in developing your skills. It, along with Level 2, is also a requirement of BASI's ISIA level instructor qualification, so if you're taking your teaching to that level or beyond you need to do this course at some point. But if you see the L1 course as a way to improve your own performance skiing I think there are better, and certainly cheaper, options that you could follow.
The motley crew
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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rob@rar, so you're now qualified to take over from Phil and Sally with the Golden Oldies group on a Monday night now?  Will you be going on to do the L2 course?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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rob@rar, enjoying reading about your progress. Well done!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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rob@rar, thanks for the write-up, enjoyable reading (can really see Chris Hillier's influence on the course  ). Glad that you enjoyed it.
Were you able to do any work on GS shape turns, I'd have thought it'd be a bit tricky in a fridge?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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rob@rar, well done, another one under the belt! Ross really is great value, isn't he? I did my ADC Level 1 last year with him too and have since shadowed him at MK.
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rob@rar, well done. I recognise a face or two in that picture - although not as many as when slikedges and I did it. It's (mostly) a really enjoyable course, and even the less enjoyable bits do make you think pretty hard. I think I found the practice coaching sessions the most enjoyable bit of all - particularly as a couple of us really got into pretending to be 6yo!!! So I take it we'll see a few more variations on your warm-up runs tonight? And non-contact dodgems? Just recently my race warm-ups have been mainly walking up the hill when the lift-queues have been sooooo loooooong  .
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Cheers for the comprehensive report rob@rar. Sounds like you enjoyed yourself 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ross clearly betrays his racing heritage by making sure his sponsors skis are clearly visible. The rest of you obviously still have much to learn.
I particularly enjoyed your "sickbird" warm up with the arm flapping and I'm sure the sound of cawing. Some of your drills did look pretty cool - the sychronised double pole tapping runs the younger lads were doing were very interesting (& a sure recipe for disaster if you let shs at them)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Well done, Rob, great review!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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great stuff, is the confidence up for a crack at L2 soon?
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You know it makes sense.
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| skimottaret wrote: |
| great stuff, is the confidence up for a crack at L2 soon? |
Not sure about that. Some of the drills were pretty tough for me, particularly the one-footed stuff, so I'd want to perform at a higher level before giving it a go. I'll work on things over the summer, especially fore/aft and lateral balance, and then decide when to give it a go. Hopefully next season...
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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rob@rar, if you know what the drills are now it should be pretty straightforward to practice them and give the course a go fairly soon. That's my gripe with that method of assessment - it's as much about nailing a drill as it is about overall skiing ability!
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Poster: A snowHead
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It's not exactly as if you're short of time or a place to practise them either 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Sideshow_Bob, you're right. It used to be one of my favourite excuses: I'm rubbish because I don't get to ski very often, but it's really quite difficult to use that any more. I'm trying hard to think of a new favourite excuse.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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rob@rar, you certainly look to have improved your short turn work in the few weeks since Hemel opened. Man up and book up!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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rob@rar, did you find out if the L2 course is scored using CSCF or BASI grading scale?
passing minimum scores 2 of 4 CSCF compared to 4 or 5 out of 6 BASI is a big difference me thinks.....
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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skimottaret, I think Ross said it was the CSCF, but I'd need to double check that.
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Wayne, thanks for putting that up. There're more courses on now than when I last looked, and that one in Dec looks as if it's just about the right time for me .
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skimottaret, do you think it would be harder on the BASI scorng system then? With ours it was the CSCF system wasn't it?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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beanie1, Yup and yup (do you think that Andy fellow who got straight 2's would have passed if it was BASI 4's of 6??)
performing a drill to a CSCF 2 level of competence isnt too tough... a BASI 4 or 5 is definately harder and would take more practice IMO
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skimottaret, agree completely. He'd only have got 3s I think, I think he scraped it even with the CSCF system.
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