ISIA Training

Ski conditions in Verbier are great, with lots of fresh snow today the pistes were soft and powdery, and slowly but surely the trees are filling in.  It's still an avalanche forecast of 3/5 and with the recent new snow accompanying strong winds it will be interesting to see what the affects of this are.


This ski season I am hoping to complete my ISIA ski qualification.  Under the BASI / British system, the ISIA stamp is also the Level 3.  To complete this you need the following:

• Level 1
• First Aid
• 70hrs ski school experience
• Level 2
• 200hrs teaching after Level 2
• Common Theory
• Mountain Safety
• Second Language
• Coach Level 1
• Second Discipline Level 1
• ISIA teaching
• ISIA technical

So that makes a total of 47 days of compulsory training and assessment if everything is passed first time.

However it's not just the compulsory courses that will get you anywhere close to the level required.  Over the last four winters I have skied, taught, ran, and read in preparation for my ISIA and am still yet to be 100% ready for the last two exams.

In March I will be sitting my technical and teaching exams, the last on the long list and the ones I know I will find the hardest.  This week will be my last work free one to train in (excluding the optional BASI performance training course the week before the technical exam) and here are some of the things I have been up to:

Monday - shake down day in resort, having been away for three weeks I took the chance to build some leg endurance and work on a few of the things that I had changed and focused on in January.  This was mostly pressure management in the piste performance strand.

Tuesday - focus on piste performance short turns.  Improving body position, pressure control and early edges.  Also working on getting every turn right from the offset, keeping a rhythm down a pitch and through several pitches varying in angle.  Really driving the ski and standing on it early too.

Wednesday - bumps, bumps, bumps.  Focus on the adaptablility of movements to match the terrain, maximum ski to snow contact, linking rhythmical turns in varying corridors from zip line to medium length turns.  Moguls are going to be the hardest part of the exam for me.

Thursday - a bad weather day today so my main aim was to 'try to replicate what I can do in the sun in the fog'.  A tall order but we got there.  By the end of the day I had some good revelations about pole planting and body position.  Now I need to make my pole plant stronger, in the correct place, keep my shoulders stiller in the shorter turns, think more about my body position - not opening up and launching it down the hill!, and more.

So... not a long list at all then!