The Stoke - November 2021

November 2021

News from the NRM Office

Greetings from you team here in the NRM Office. Fall Festival is coming up, December 3-5. Join our talented team of educators for 3 days of on snow sessions, après activities and awards honoring those influential members of NRM. Please see the Fall Festival page for more info.

If you are in need of financial assistance for attending events the coming winter, please visit our scholarship page; please note that the first deadline for applications is December 15.

The education leaders of PSIA-AASI have had a busy summer refining Performance Guides, Standards, and creating unified Assessment Forms for Alpine, Cross Country, Snowboard, Children’s Specialist, and Freestyle Specialist. Please check out the discipline pages over the coming weeks for more updated information.

Please give us a call (406-581-6139) or drop us an email (info@psia-nrm.org) if you have any questions or need any assistance; we love to hear from you!

We look forward to seeing you all out on the slopes and trails this coming winter.

New and Improved Preparation Pathway to Alpine Level 3!

As The Learning Connection has helped frame the way we look at the instructor as a whole, we are revamping the training pathway to better help folks achieve Level 3 certification. With the new standards and goal of improving consistency across the nation, we feel this improved pathway will add more depth, as well as practice time, to our preparation courses. This depth and time for practice, will enhance all attendees in their preparedness to do their jobs as instructors, and to attend an on-snow assessment.

In the past, the Alpine Level 3 Prep courses have been three days. There is a lot of information to receive and process in 72 hours. Reviewing the past few seasons of assessments, the alpine committee and task force identified some key areas to enhance in our prep courses. First, we needed to alter the pacing of the information in order for candidates to absorb and implement their new understanding. Secondly, we needed to have the time to delve deeper and ruminate on specific areas.

To address these needs, we have changed the requirements to add more autonomy and tailored approach to the training process. The available on-snow prep courses will focus within the pillars of the Learning Connection, enabling specific coaching in Teaching Skills or Technical Skills, or practicing at the assessment. The Virtual Movement Analysis module will allow the time to assess the depth of knowledge outside the on-snow portion of the assessment.

The new requirements can be viewed in full in this document. You may also reference this flowchart of the process.

Ramblings from the President

Looking out the window at the Bitterroot Mountains, the peaks are draped with clouds - clouds that will hopefully leave the peaks dusted with white. Fall is here and I’m busy getting ready for another season of sliding on snow. Summer is always a fun time being able to enjoy riding, hiking, or playing in water. This summer, it was sometimes too much. Too much hot, too much smoke, just too much. Now that October has rolled around, I’m finding myself relishing having to put on a sweatshirt in the mornings. I’ve been enjoying the beautiful colors on the hills but mostly I’m looking forward to sliding on snow.

Clicking into my bindings on a crisp clear January morning. Hearing the snow creak under my skis. Feeling the cold air on my cheeks. These are all sensations that I can look forward to. Knowing that by January my turns will be clicking, my lessons will be flawless, and there’ll snow dusting my mustache from face shots.

Getting ready for the season means lots of things for all of us, whether it’s doing more legs days at the gym, opening up the manuals to knock off the cobwebs, going to the latest movie release to see your favorite athlete or reading the reviews on this year’s hot gear. For the division, Herb Davis and our discipline chairs have been working getting the schedule of events put together. Along with Fall Festival, there will be mini academies at Red Lodge and Targhee later in the season. Keep looking at the event calendar to see when and where events are going to take place. To close out the season, National Academy is returning to Big Sky. If you haven’t attended a National Academy, you should really try to make it. It is such a great experience to ride with other instructors from across the country.

First day on snow is just around the corner. I’ll be ready, but first I’ll be building training plans, looking through manuals, going over the Learning Connection so that I’m ready to greet and welcome sliding on snow.

Cheers,
Stu Hoyt
Chairman, Board of Directors
PSIA-AASI Northern Rocky Mountain