A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single SaaS Solution
BASI
British Association of Snowsport Instructors
Day 4: BASI trainee Instructor
Jul 21st
Today wasn’t the greatest day for my snowboarding, things were just not jelling together. We started working on “beyond the central theme” which is basically everything other than teaching (riding bumps, steeps, carving). But the afternoon was better.
We ran out of food!!! Mike and Matt had to dive off the coach back from the slopes to buy…. well we wanted them to get some bread, milk and a couple of essentials, but came back with steak… wine… and lemon grass which is of course required in cooking steaks(!??!!). The wine went to good use and we now have none left.
SNOW INFO: No new snow over night 
getting really quite icy in places at between -2 and -3 degrees.
Day 3: BASI trainee Instructor
Jul 20th
Well today I did my lesson today went ok. Ran out of time and didn’t do a summary. Brook had to do straight running to a group of 8 year olds. So the rest of the group had to pretend to be 8 year olds and we had our own goals that we wanted to do during the lesson. One person wanted just to build snow men, I had to always want to go to the loo, another just wanted to go on a the magic carpet (basically a travator on snow). It was very funny…
Went to my first Swiss Ball class today with Mel and Jen. Kinda strechy! 
good fun tho. Got another 5 sessions to go.
Mel and Jen got back from there night sleeping in there snow hole. Ironically the snow hole was warmer than our house!! (NZ people don’t belive in central heating… or insulation for that matter!). A couple of people got wet while they were making there snow hole so had a cold night, but everyone seems to have had fun. Just a bit chilly if you wanted to go to the loo in the night
SNOW INFO: Had a dusting of snow last night. A lot of the powder has gone on the main slopes but its not as icy as it has been.
Day 2: BASI trainee Instructor
Jul 20th
Well today we worked on different training techniques and the Central Theme (a load of activities for people learning snowboarding need to master). Also did a bit of a mock lesson and what we need to include in the lessons. Big thing tho I need to present a 10minute lesson by my self tommorow on side slipping. Sounds easy its not! I’ve been going through what you need to get across in a consise way and in only 10mins. Oh and the people i’m teaching are supposed to be fat.
Day 1: BASI trainee Instructor
Jul 18th
First day of my trainee instructor week! As we have been with the NZSIA instructors last week our stance and riding has got a lot better. Tom’s out BASI instructor and today he’s been going throught he BASI central theme (Steering, Control, Adjustments, Body Management) looked at mountain hazards and did a mock accident (what you have to do etc).
Oh yes and I fell asleep on the coach home and someone took a photo… maybe it will appear on the blog tommorow… you never know … at least it snowed a bit today but most of the day there was quite a bit of flat light which made things challenging. The TC pistes have all these natural gullies, half pipes and jumps, its just one massive terrain park.
Mel and Jo (my house mates) who do skiing (boo hiss) are doing their back country course this week so they are sleeping out on the mountain tommorow night (they’ve packed enough food for about 6 weeks tho!). They need to dig a snow hole and sleep in it and during the day are doing avalanche awareness. Hopefully it won’t be too cold as I have to do it in a week or so!
SNOW INFO: Overcast today with about 2cms of snow in the afternoon, about -4 degrees
Weekend off
Jul 17th
Well i’ve been non-stop snowboarding for about 7 days now so decided to have a well deserved weekend off. I start my pre BASI instructor training next week. You usually get Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday off but because of the pre-course i’m working Wednesday too. The pre-course is basically a bit of training in how to teach snowboarding and also improving your snowboarding (stance and posture). At the end of the week they evaluate you and decide if you should continue on to the full BASI training and/or what you need to do in the mean time to get to that level…. anyway it all seems a bit scary so I took the weekend off to read up on the BASI central theme… and sleep
Part of the evaluation envoles checking to see if you “look the part” so you dont have tatty trousers, boots gaffa taped up etc. Matts goggles and board pants were … hmm… well not great so he went out and got some new kit and then pranced around the house:
When they got back we headed off for a walk around Wanaka lake before dinner got a couple of shots of the lake:
Oh and i’ve got my copy of Harry Potter don’t think i’ll be reading the BASI manuals much this week
SNOW INFO: No snow this weekend last snow fall was on the 14th July which was – Saddle Basin: 25cms, Main Basin: 18cm at the top and 8cm at base. But everything is more or less open now except the terrain park and Race training bar. But hey, with Treble Cone as it is with all the natural gullies and jumps you don’t need a terrain park!
