So finally after five weeks of training with Winter Sports our Level 2 exam was upon us. The weather was the coldest yet and the temperature at the top of the chairlift on Day 1 was minus 47 degrees with the windchill.
It is a 4-day exam but it is called a course as you are supposed to be learning throughout it and are expected to show improvement during the course. Our evaluator was from out of town and had what I’ll refer to as a “unique teaching style”. What he was looking for in the teaching practices was very different to what we’d been taught so our group met each evening to agree how we could rewrite our lesson plans to fit the style of teach. I even started each day Googling for cheesy jokes to tick the “guest services” aspect. Here is my cheesiest – What is a penguin’s favourite food? ……..Brrrrritos!
Anyway the other half of the exam is about your riding skills and the rider improvement sessions are supposed to add value to your riding. Unfortunately these sessions resulted in confusion, not improvement, and our group got really concerned about board performance as this was a concept unknown to us and was apparently lacking in our riding. One positive was that we got to ride a little with Jeff Chandler, who is the God of CASI as he appears in the riding standards videos and writes all the course materials. He rides so smoothly and gave a few great tips in the short time he spent shadowing part of our day 3.
And then to the results presentation. …. Pete and I both passed the teach but failed the riding half of the exam. This means we can re-sit just 1 day of the exam if we decide to do that. We were not totally surprised but dissapointed, especially by the evaluator’s feedback. There were other snowboarders and skiers in our group who were also unsuccessful in one half of the qualification and I won’t lie … there were tears aplenty.
But well done and congratulations to everyone that passed their Level 2!!!!!!
The day after we woke up with monster hangovers (never drinking double bellinis followed by butterscotch moonshine again) and two cracking colds – ouch!
It was a year to the day of us leaving the UK and what a year we’ve had……
4 months travelling SE Asia and meeting the most generous, often poor, but beautiful people.
2 months travelling France in our ace van seeing some amazing scenery and fabulous French historic villages and architecture. Meeting some lovely people along our way.
4 months of fab cycling in the Alps and getting to know some crazy but cool bikers while at it
2.5 months of snowboarding with some amazing people. And having achieved 2 x Level 1’s, 2 halves of Level 2’s, 2 avalanche courses and 1 Adaptive Sports Level 1.
Turned to the darkside and learned how to do parallel turns on skis.
Also we’ve had so much fun with 40 of the nicest people you could wish to be with. From aged 17 to 47 we all get on and everyone is so like minded. Yesterday two guys from the group headed back to the UK after their Level 2 ski – it was a sad day. In a celebratory last run Owain managed to snap his ski!
We miss you already Chris and Owain!
