Should BASI introduce a race test for lower grade Instructors?

A snowHead

There has been a bit of debate about how wide the variation is in skiing technical ability when looking at entry level instructors (CI's, ASSI, BASI level 1 and 2)

Would it make sense for BASI to introduce a timed pass/fail race test as part of the qualification for lower level instructors say beginning at Ski Instructor Level 2 ?

Grade 1's must pass the Eurotest

Perhaps Grade 2's should have to pass a test modelled on the French Test Technique

Grade 3 (level 2) something like the Aosta valley test

A snowHead

An objective test of technical ability would be a good thing as I've seen one or two Grade 3s that I was very surprised had been passed. What that objective test should be I'm less bothered about - are there alternatives to timed runs? If a timed test were introduced they should aim to demonstrate recognised equivalence with qualifications in other systems to help BASI instructors get jobs they are qualified for.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I think the government should introduce a race test for driving instructors.

You know the sort of thing, maybe a timed lap in a kart for trainee driving instructors instructors with a single seater GP2 type lap before they get signed off. I imagine 'The Stig' from Top Gear would be happy to set the times and the instructors would have to get within a percentage.

I went karting, racing against a group of Driving Instructors the other week and I was appalled at their driving. wink

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[rant]

I must admit that I remain to be convinced of any linkage between speed, technique and the ability to teach.

Bode Miller is darn fast. But at a technical level he does all sorts of stuff that he "shouldn't" do. None of the speed tests marks "technical merit". If you get down in the time then your technique doesn't actually matter.

It's possible to be technically excellent, yet lack the nerve or willingness to go fast.

And it's possible to be both fast and technically excellent, without having any real ability or passion for teaching.

I've no problem with the concept of speed being an element of the highest levels of teaching - but I've met ski instructors of all nationalities, levels and speeds whose teaching, frankly, sucks.

If I'm paying for skiing lesson, which am I paying for?

[/rant]

[duck]

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PhillipStanton, skiing gates (either GS or slalom) isn't about going fast, it's about being technically precise. I ski much quicker when I'm free skiing than on the few occasions I've skied gates, even in an open course like the one set for last season's EoSB. But even though I ski a bit slower in the gates it is still much more technically demanding if you are trying to set a quick time. I think there's a very strong relationship between technique and speed in the gates, and if I'm paying for an instructor I want them to be a good teacher AND technically very proficient. Either one is not sufficient as far as I'm concerned - they have to be a good teacher and a good skier. The speed test is just one way of ensuring that they are technically proficent, but obviously not the only hurdle they have to pass when working their way through their qualifications.

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skimottaret, Why ? You already have to pass both the TT and Speed Test to work in France.

There are several organisations offering race training already...

PhillipStanton, The Speed Test (IMO) is the only objective way of measuring a skiers' performance, but whether that makes you a good ski teacher is a complete other bag of worms rolling eyes

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PhillipStanton, My point is that a good teacher should be both a good communicator as well as technically proficient.

The teaching/communication ability is always going to be subjective and must be assessed by the trainer/examiner. However minimum level technical ability can be determined pretty clearly through a timed run IMO.

AFAIK in Slalom speed isnt really the issue it is more being precise as Rob says. I think too often in this type of debate we confuse flat out high speed downhill racing with precision slalom skiing.

I am suggesting a Slalom test that isnt too quick but seperates skiers with good technique from poor technique, not a GS or downhill.

As a big component of teaching skiing is demonstration and follow me/practice having a clear measurable level of skill would help determine minimum standards in addition to a subjective evaluation by a trainer.

ski, Perhaps having an equivalent to the TT to work outside of france wouldnt be such a bad thing to reduce the number of technically poor instructors working

After all it is free

skimottaret, I wouldn't discount GS. This is much closer to 'regular' piste skiing than either slalom or DH, but no less technically demanding than either of those disciplines.

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PhillipStanton, points well made but i recon that was two rants Laughing

just how do you define "significantly technically better"

PhillipStanton, just a few comments:

Although I won't ever have the ability to find out, isn't the only way to pass a demanding time like the Eurotest to be technically very proficient? I don't think that it would be possible to pass by being simply strong, or courageous or very fit?

I would not advocate that a timed run is the only test of a skier's technical proficiency, just one part of what is examined. As I understand it, the Eurotest is just one of the technical requirements of UK, French and Italian systems (and others?) for reaching ISID status. It doesn't seem to be unreasonable that those skills are examined when trying for the ski instructor qualifications.

Although I think a timed test is one essential component when examining new instructors I think that the current demand at ISID level in the Eurotest to reach 18% or 24% of the pace-setter's time is unnecessarily high. Lowering this hurdle slightly would allow the great instructor you know to pass, but would still prove to be a fair test of one aspect of a potential instructor's technical ability. I have always been very impressed with the abilities (skiing & teaching) of BASI Grade 1s who have taught me, but one or two of the Grade 3s I've skied with really don't deserve the tag "ski instructor". If a speed test is one part of ensuring that skiers of this ability don't get full equivalence I'd say that's a good thing.

I appreciate that objectivity is difficult to achieve and in any case should be complimented by professional judgements about a ski instructor's potential ability to teach clients. But I don't think we should abandon any attempt to make objective judgements because they are difficult to make. The speed test is one way of making that objective judgement, and if there were other ways I'd be happy to endorse those instead. I just can't think of any alternative ways...

You know it makes sense.

people should have to have a race before they're even allowed into lessons

that's how it will be when I am president of BASI anyway Evil or Very Mad

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

At the entry levels in the UK, US, Canada and others, many of these instructors do a great job teaching beginners for NO or next to NO pay! There ability to teach and inspire people to take up and continue to ski in really valuable and should not be underestimated. At any UK slope, the majority of the instructors turning out on a Sunday morning are probably level I or II (in BASI terms), they give up their weekend, probably make a loss, but do a great job. They don't need to be performers at this level. Don't think it should be made any harder for these guys. If you want to operate as a professional, then that's maybe a different story.

A snowHead

Why does somebody taking a beginners lesson need to be such a super-duper race orientated skier?
Why does somebody teaching old first timers (niche market though it may be) need to be a super-duper race skier?

Do you want your kids to be taught by somebody who can communicate, give them a fun time, while teaching them, and finally leave them loving skiing?
Or do you want them to be taught by a super-duper race skier?

Of course...that super-duper race skier might be a good, or great teacher. But he might not be.

Of course the good, or great teacher, might also be a super-duper race skier. But he might not be.

If you want to race...get a race coach. He had damn well better be a super-duper race skier!

I really...REALLY....disagree with the whole idea of TT and Eurotest.
Far...FAR...better to have the 70 hours shadowing etc that BASi require...at least then there is a decent chance that the techniques of teaching are learnt...not just the techniques of racing. Add to that the obvious need for skills testing...variable for grade.

It is flippin daft to think that TT and Eurotest are the qualifying factors....are their proponents reall saying that all the Canadians, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis who have their qualifications are lesser instructors than those holier-than-thou french qualified super-duper racers?

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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rungsp, what's a "race skier"? Do they do something different from what the rest of us do on piste?

I really disagree with the notion that skiing gates is somehow different to any other type of skiing. When I ski in gates I use exactly the same skills that I use when skiing anywhere else on the mountain, although if I'm going to get to the bottom of the course without being embarrassingly slow I need to make sure that I use those skills well. The fact that I was considerably slower in the EoSB race than two guys who had recently passed the Eurotest was entirely down to them having much better ski skills which they deployed far more effectively than me (rather than them doing anything completely different to what I was doing).

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Surely the point being made is that most skiers who take instruction do not need the technique to do gates unless that is what they are paying for- I have had lessons from some possibly!! technically brilliant French instructors but the ability to teach was without doubt questionable

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None if you are skiing on piste at an advanced level -no problem having the elite instructors at that level but everyone is not capable of skiing at this level -that is why yhere are different levels of instructor because they have different levels of ability ....you are not taught at school by professors we wait till we are at uni to benefit from there knowledge

After all it is free

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The ability to run gates is without doubt important but should not be the over riding elemrnt as to whether someone is capable of developing someones skiing in what in most cases will be 5 days per year of ski instruction
Have a higher level of instruction for those who need and want it

redrunmarcus, Who says it is the over-riding element? I have 2 instructors who won their race components (one beat the CSIA pacesetter by 1 second) but failed their top level exams in other areas... They need to show competence in all areas - theory, free skiing, teaching, demos, safety, second discipline, etc etc etc....

One even failed the exam by one mark... will we argue if the rest of the exam is too hard? Or the one that failed demos but was used as the example of how to do demos at every demo training day? Should they lower the bar for his case too?

As they will tell you - they simply have to do their best on the day. Sometimes you don't/can't perform as well as you think/know you should... Sometimes there is personal politics involved.... At least the race components are a known level and objective... Whether the levels are a bit high in some places or low in others(Nastar Gold is not that high a level - it is my current level) is another issue entirely. IMHO some race component in pretty much a necessity for the sport as it stands... else you get instructors teaching who simply have such a poor understanding they teach THEIR bad habits to students (yes this has happened to me and it was a pain to ditch them although at least I had not too long to undo)

You know it makes sense.

Why is it that aspiring instructors both French and English only seem to bemoan and worry about the speed test - not the other elements of the total?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

redrunmarcus, I've had many instructors with quals from many places and working for quals in many places.... they all moan about any upcoming tests... Wink

I hear kids at school moan about tests - lets drop all those tests too? rolling eyes

You are arguing the race component should be dropped because it does not relate to teaching - yet it directly relates to demonstrating an understanding of the subject matter..... It exists in most systems I know much about... WHY? It is not unique to France or UK so why are they the ones moaning? (Do the french moan about it??)

In Austria you cannot enter the training for staatliche without passing a race test AFAIK... that was certainly the case when I left home because my instructor was coaching his GF(now wife I think) to get in....

The bar may be a little high for the ISTD level (or may need an age handicap component) - these are different issues to simply wiping the whole idea out because someone "WE" think should have passed did not make the race level required.

I think that canadian should have passed not failed his CSIA4 by 1 mark - he had the highest return rate in the resort for lessons so some folks thought he was doing OK - but the fact remains that the system has to have some levels - you cannot just ditch them for people you "like" Politics in the system exist and all components but the race component are judged in a fairly arbitrary way... only the race is a KNOWN level that is able to readliy determine how close you are to it rather than sitting endless exams attempting to reach some arbitrary standard of "angle you hold the pinky finger at during pole plants on black runs in bumps" or "only using this years gobbledegook words"

A snowHead

No one is saying it is an overriding element but race training/ timed minimum standards could possibly form a part of the overall training one gets at the lower levels.

The thread was talking about early level instructors and the bar need not be set at the ridiculously high standard of the Eurotest but surely a reasonable level could be set against the BASI trainer (as pacesetters).

I actually think it would be great fun to do this and see how you compare against your trainer. For instance the standard of the Aosta valley test is a GS with pass mark +40% for men, +44% for women, relative to the pace setter which could represent a good minimum level.

When you talk to people who have learned about skiing at a high level they typically point to race training as a key aspect to them breaking through into understanding how they understand there own skiing, body mechanics and movements and then are able to articulate this to others.

Until entering basi Grade 2 training there is zero component of gates or race training and an introduction to racing at an earlier stage may be helpful.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

What I am trying to get across is that in MY opinion the industry wuold be better served if instructors were graded at different levels and specialise in teaching at different levels-a beginer needs a different type of instruction to an intermediate and so on .........all instuctors need the technique but to differing levels
aspiring intermediates may aim to run gates but they could get many levels of instruction to achieve that goal
I aspire to do fantastic figure of 8's in powder but it would have been pointless being tought that by Glen Plake in week 1

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redrunmarcus, so what is the relationship between teaching ability and technical performance (including running gates)? Or what about the relationship between technical performance and the ability to teach beginners?

I don't think that it follows that because you can ski to a very high level you are somehow not well suited to teaching beginners. I think that ski instructors need both aspects (teaching ability AND technical skills) regardless of what particular class they are teaching that week.

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rob@rar, Of course they need technical skills as well as teaching skills but I am still to be convinced that skiing to 20% of some other guys speed should be one of the deciding factors to be able to teach
There is no need for this level of race(you would say technical )ability to teach in the states -does this mean that Americans can't ski...................Bode seemed to do ok until the party instructors took over snowHead

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redrunmarcus, I think one of the earlier posts in this thread stated that the highest level of qualification in the US and Canada both require a race component.

If it wasn't 20% but, say, 80% would that be more convincing for you? Is it the level at which this threshold is pitched, or the fact that there is a threshold at all which you aren't persuaded by?

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Interesting discussion. Here we have two recently qualified BASI3s, both (from what little I've seen of their skiing) pretty good skiers taking opposite sides of the fence - the one in favour of the early race test probably having just had a nasty shock about how high the bar currently is for existing French qualifications, and wishing he'd realised what was involved a bit earlier Wink

. We also have one aspirant to the BASI ladder, who happens to know a lot about education, very much in the race test camp. Now you're going to get the view of a non-instructor who has spent the last two years race training.

I think I agree with both elbrus and skimottaret. Without knowing much about it, I suspect the modus operandi of ski instructors in the UK and alpine nations is very different, hence different approaches to solving the problem. In the UK, is it not the case that the vast majority of ski instructors will be part time, working mostly at dry or indoor slopes, or going on school parties etc., and as b]elbrus[/b] said very poorly or even unpaid? So to get the BASI3 you're going to have to take a minimum of 3 weeks of precious annual leave to take the courses - for very little reward other than personal fulfillment. So making their life more taxing is not an obviously good idea. I suspect that there is very little demand for French instructors away from the Alpine areas, but more full time work in the Alpine regions, so much less need for part-timers at evenings and weekends fitting their instruction around the full-time job needed to keep food on the table. Hence the French (Austrians etc.) can take a more exclusively professional attitude and cater less for the part-timers.

In contrast to the the snowHead

instructors I've seen here, though, I have seen some BASI3s I would hate to have teaching anyone. I think the argument that you don't need Einstein to teach GCSE Physics is a good one, but you need someone who clearly knows what they're talking about and can demonstrate such - so again it's a matter of where you set the bar. If you're learning anything you will do your best to copy the example given you by your teacher, so that example had damn well better be worth copying (unless you are very stong willed and can work out how to do it better, in which case you need to change your teacher anyway).

Having said that, I know from my own experience what a radical transformation race training has made to my own skiing. I also know that I'm way more analytical and conscious of what I do when I ski by reviewing what went wrong when I miss a gate (there has actually been criticism in the past that I'm actually too self-analytical when skiing in lessons and need to loosen up a bit - getting that blend has been one of the successes of this summer's racing). Maybe I'd get that from instructor training as well, but I have to say the hours I see the trainee instructors spend snowploughing down the bunny slopes do not seem nearly as much fun. I'm pretty sure I could pass the Val d'Aosta test, and I'm also pretty sure those 3s that I've recoiled from in horror couldn't. Setting up some test like that on UK dry slopes or snow-domes would be able to sort the wheat from the chaff without too much problem, and not require ridiculous amounts of training time using up valuable leave for the interested amateur.

There has also been comment elsewhere about some BASI3s being very stiff while skiing. This would be entirely consistent with what I see them practicing - perfectly positioned snowploughs that are like blocks of stone skiing down the slope. You cannot get to any level of racing whatever if you ski like that! Racing teaches a degree of fluidity in movement that has to come naturally, rather than being a separately imposed drill.

Those in the anti-race camp generally forget that the technical tests are only part of the requirement, and that there is a teaching requirement too - and never see that those in favour of the race element are not arguing for it as an alternative to the educational requirement, but as an complement to it - two sides of the same coin. There is a whole separate argument of whether the educational aspects are tested enough (and that's a perpetual gripe of one of our instructors, who also happend to be a professional educator).

So I'd certainly agree that some level of race qualification would be good for a lower level instructor. Not at L1, but maybe a push in that direction should be given on that course and then tested at L2. Particularly as it then avoids the shock when you see the level you need to achieve for the next level up. It also gets you into a very important mindset of continual improvement - as there will always be someone just faster than you that you think you ought to have beaten, so will then try and work out what you did wrong to drop that fraction of a second. I wonder how many people get their BASI3 and think "Oh well, done that, well done me" (and quite rightly so) but then sit on their laurels and their badge for the next 40 years thinking that they'll never get BASI2 so they have no more improvement to make (not such a good attitude).

After all it is free

rob@rar, As you say at the highest level so they should -I am arguing for a system that lets excellent ski instructors teach at differing levels -some instructors hate teaching kids-so let those who love it do it BUT do they need the highest level of technique to do this .Surely a progression through the levels of instructors makes sense and would IMO make sure the instuction was given by somebody who was getting a buzz teaching at that level instead of an extrenely bored instructor.
We all know people who would not have lessons with certain companies because of bad experiences maybe fitting the level of teacher to the level of pupil may help
I am not against a timed race being part of the progression but there appears to be nothing in between !!!!!!!!!!

redrunmarcus, The BEST instructors should teach the beginners... the early lessons set the basis for the skier to build on... poor early teaching results in much rebuilding being needed...

In general kids primarily COPY - should they copy poor technique? or good clean technique?

I have skied quite early in my skiing with an australian examiner/trainer for Level 3(full cert) APSI instructors... was he bored teaching me? Never seemed that way - he even made the effort to search out my instructor at my other resort to set the program for my season...

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The argument for Eurotest would hold more water if French instructors had a better reputation for their instructing rather than their skiing. The skiing bar seems set too high to me (touch over 100 FIS points), but serves the intended purpose of limiting sheer numbers, and it appears the teaching bar is set too low for them. The priority in all this is clear. That said I think a timed race with a low bar would be good for Level 2, to avoid the situation seen of rubbish Grade 3s (esp older ones), though I think that at Level 1 that'd be too much for the system of teaching provision we have here to bear.

Help!!

Should BASI introduce a race test for lower grade Instructors?

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