Francis’ Weblog

yupieee… I passed and just to prove it heres my certificate (and yes it is my certificate they just spelt my surname wrong!)

Overall its been a good week, it was good to get out of TC for a bit and try a different mountain at Cadrona. Its also quite good to see the examiner teaching in a slightly different way… quite good in that respect. The only thing that was a bit anoying was that most of the information we had been told before, so it was just re-doing the same things, but Rookie said they were going to put the CSI earlier next year which makes better sense.

We were introduced to how the board moves (as if we didn’t know them already), and we had exercises on each of the planes of movement. We then had to run a lesson that had nothing to do with snowboarding but fitted the lesson structure (Introduction, Analyse Students, Student Goals, Plan lesson, Present Information, Check understanding, guided practise, feedback & summary). So we did … “how to juggle with snowballs”, which was ok… and then we were given demos on the Level 1 progression (introduction, one foot orientation, skating, straight running and j-turns). We were doing so well we didn’t end up doing the evening session as we did it during the day instead.

The rest of the week we were doing rider improvement and the level 2 progessions. We were being assessed throughout the whole week on our riding and then on friday we had a mock test. There were 9 people in our group of which 2 failed their mock exam and I got a boarderline pass… Only one person got a really good pass.

The actual exam on saturday we were split into two groups and we won the stone, sissors, rock game so we got to choose if we went first or second. We wanted to get it out the way so we went first (it had dumped 12cms during the night so it was powder day!). We were expecting -19oC including wind chill but it ended up being a very nice +2oC. The examiner then picked decided what level the group had got too (ie “They have just completed J-Turns”) and we in turn had to continue the lesson for about 15mins.

… anyway… during this one of the other group turned up looking a bit shocked and he had just fallen off one of the rails and puncherd his leg which was a bit messy… five stitches! and before he had a chance to do his exam!!! anyway luckily the examiner had already seen him ride during the week so another member of the group did the demo for him and he just talked through the lesson… he passed Then Chloe from my group hit her knee on the boardercross track while we were waiting for our results… Dillon our examiner just thinks he’s cursed… every exam he does someone manages to break themselves…

Anyway here are my exam results… Dillon asked if we wanted to be marked as “Level 1″ rather than “CSI” so that we could get some meaningful feedback so i’m ok in the lesson side, just need to work on my riding. Two weeks to go before my Level 1 exam… ARGH!!!

The last two days we have been doing freestyle. Monday morning they got all the snowboard Rookies (8weekers and 13weekers) doing an obstagle course. We had to do 180s, olies, nose rolls etc along the course, duck under some poles, flat land 360s between two polls about the size of our boards… well it was interesting after we did it once we split up into groups (about 3 people per trainer) and learn’t how to oli etc properly then came back just before lunch to see if we had improved… i did… a bit more practise required tho you have to teach 180s to pass NZ level 1!!

In the afternoon we headed over to the sadle, we had about 2cms fresh snow the night before but it was sticky as anything. The most sticky snow I have ever had. It was like hitting earth every 2 metres or so, was really technical… then today we did a bit more freestyle and we took it in turns to guide our group down the mountain trying a range of different exercises. The afternoon was abandoned by the trainers as it was more or less raining on the mountain (it was definatly raining at base camp) and as our NZ CSI exam starts tommorow we came down and needed to get everything dry in time. Then headed off to the cinema!! its an amazing little cinema saw Batman… they have an interval half was through the film and I ordered a really nice pizza and they make really nice cookies during the first half so you can have just baked warm cookies during the second half… anyway then headed back for bed… CSI exam starts tommorow… ARGH! at Cardrona too… i’ve only once been there but its a much easier mountain to ride on than TC.

Wish me luck!! i’m off to bed…

Well its been a week since my last post. We’ve been doing mostly rider analysis and learning how to teach (and do) 180 jumps… great fun but my knees are now smegged we did some teaching as well, with some real learners rather than teaching on eachother which can get a bit boring sometimes.

Had a reading day today and i’m going up tommorow to practise my demos we have our CSI (NZ Certified Snowsports Instructor) starting wednesday the structure of the exam is as follows:

Day 1
AM: Introduce 4 movements and board performance concepts
PM: Introduce the teaching cycle & Level 1 Progression

Day 2
AM: Rider improvement (focus pedaling+steering)
PM: Introduce class handling/safety & Introduce level two progression
Night Session: Introduce MA formula & Introduce teaching children

Day 3
AM: Rider Improvement (focus pressure + edging)
PM: Introduce guest service elements & Practice teach levels 1 & 2

Day 4
AM: Examiners to present level 1 & 2 model answer
PM: Formal assessment (presentation of one exercise/drill to last approx 10mins)

Heavy snow and about 2 foot vis… my goggles totally fogged up and I couldn’t see a thing… generally not nice, going off-piste not being able to see a thing is not the best of fun. We did some more rider analysis in the morning and just rode off-piste until we stopped early for a 2hrs on teaching children, which was really interesting. BUT over half a metre of snow fell during the night and day!!! It stopped Sat & Sun during the day but during the night it was heavy snow falling. I took a weekend off this weekend…

Heres some photos from Friday, my board had around 3cms on it when I came out after lunch… 3cms in 1 hr!

They also opened Matukituki, Magnum and Sundance for the first time on Saturday.

Today it was pounding down on the mountain. In the morning it was raining on the beginners slope! but snowing everywhere else on the mountain. By lunchtime it snowing hard everywhere… the visability was really bad and at one point I even stopped next to a trainer and his group thinking they were my group.. DOH! anyway all I can say its interesting going off-piste in totally flat light with your goggles steemed up and snow all over them. As I write that it is raining hard outside which should mean its snowing hard on piste so tommorow… SHOULD be a cool powder day. The forcast for the rest of the week is snow and more snow which is great cos we need a bit more!

Today was my first time at a pot noodle for lunch… not bad but had to finished it off with a chocolate cake from the restaurant (well its kinda still my “birthday week” :))

The BEST DAY EVER! … the lift at TC didn’t open until 11am once they had fixed the electrical probs. But we didn’t care… we were heli-boarding! all day, and as there was fresh snow yesterday it was AWESOME!

I think the photos speak for themselves but we have some awesome footage and were waiting for the DVD from the heli-ski place too. Yes Helen I was in a helicopter all day! Rusty was our pilot (hope his name didn’t sugest his piloting ability! which it didn’t) some of his landings right at the top of the mountain had to be inch perfect! Some of the ledges were tiny! half the copter hanging off a vertical drop, at one point you could see the virtical drop from the foot well windows! crazy but amazing fun!

Some pictures from my Party last night:

Well i’m going to let the photos speak. Hover over the images for descriptions!

Well end of quite a day, I was going to go out for a meal with my housemates and a couple of other Rookies, and maybe pop round to a bar where a load of other Rookies were going to be. I got to the mexican restaurant and EVERYONE was there, it was amazing. At first I just saw one big table of people then looked over and saw another huge table of people. 41 Rookies… crazy. Total surprise, didn’t have any inkling… …

Also we were given the nod this afternoon that we will be going heli-boarding tomorow but we need to wait for confirmation at 8am. So we are all bundling into the coach as usual at 7.30am down to town and awaiting the word at 8am. If its a go we’ll be off to the airport, otherwise the coach will continue up to TC (treble cone) or we can jump off and come home as Wednesday is a day off officially…

What can I say last night the snow fell, BIG POWDER DAY! by 11am 15cms had fallen in the saddle basin, 10cms in the main basin, and it continued to snow. It was great. Tony took us everywhere, pipetastic! We took an earlyish lunch and finished at around 12:50. We got straight on the main lift up but then it broke down, we were all stuck on the lift for around 45mins. Aventually we got up to the top, and headed over to the saddle for some powder runs but they closed the main lift for the rest of the day. This had quite a good side effect, because everyone had gone to lunch they had got stuck at the bottom of the mountain! So we were over the otherside with a couple of lucky people doing powder run after powder run. It was more or less empty! During the morning it was quite overcast and there was a lot of flat light, but while we were in the saddle things started to clear up and it was just a great afternoon. Our group was the only rookie group that managed to get over to the saddle, boy did we rub it in when we got back One 8 week group was with one of the examiners and this particular examiner decided they should be inside to do rider analysis they did 3 runs down the main basin and then got stuck at the bottom on the beginners run!!! boy they were not happy… 3 runs on a big powder day!!!

Got a big poster signed by a load of rookies, boot dryers, a packed lunch made by Jen my housemate, snowboard multi-tool, cards and a chocolate cake. Great day! Snow on my birthday, who would have guessed it!

Opps, almost forgot… in 28mins i’m the ripe old age of 27!

Today I was back with Tony one of the examiners (or should I say: AASI-RM Chief Examiner, NZSIA Examiner- Snowboarding Trainer. Only the best at Rookie Academy! :)). I haven’t ridden with Tony for quite a while now so it was really good to get back with him. This week we are doing rider technique and instruction on how to teach the NZSIA progressions. Today was amazingly good for my riding. We worked on the plains of motion and how they interact with the board concepts. IE: The plains of motion are longitudinal (moving fore and aft of the board), lateral (moving over the toe and heal edge), vertical (guess!) and rotational (rotating around), and the board concepts being pivoting the board, tilting the board and rotating the board (I think). Anyway worked on these and how they inter-relate to themselves and did a number of complex exercises to demonstrate this. One of the simplest increased my riding by loads!!! and here it is:

Think of four points one under each toe and each heal edge. If you number them 1 to 4 so that your (if your a regular rider) left toes are 1. Right toes are 2. Left heal is 3 and right heal is 4. The range of movement when making toe side turn would them be 1, 2. Then 3, 4 to go onto your heal edge so your moving your posture/weight/centre of gravity over these points when you move down the mountain.

For me everything became a lot more stable as I was using the entire edge for the duration of the turn. I don’t think I’ve used any fore & aft pressure/weighting before to any great extent to it really did improve my riding. Anyway techno babble over (if you could understand it!).

SNOW INFO: The snow is getting very dodgy. It hasn’t snowed since the 31st and even then only 2cms. BUT it’s raining right now down in the valley so we are hoping were going to get at least 3cms up the mountain tomorrow… here’s hoping!!