Interski report
	During Interski I attended; ENGLAND out door CANADA  in door SPAIN in door DUTCH  in door SWISS  in door/ out door GERMANY in door/ out door ITALY out door SLOVENIA out door There was one common goal I found each country had when it came to snowboarding. All countries were very focused on alignment when snowboarding. Some riders from each country might not have had the strongest riding skill but there knowledge was excellent. There was very little time in each session to truly get a feel for each country and get all the answers that we were looking for. I believe with the limited time each country had they did well in representing their country. ENGLAND out door The out door session presented by England was focused on FLOW. Trying to prepare a rider mentally before and during a lesson. Before the lesson there was a focus on trying to relax the client and get them to picture what they are about to attempt. They used exercises such as breathing and stationary stance positions to help. With the static positions they got each trainer to hold a stiff position getting the feeling of resistance then got everyone to feel more of a relaxed position. When riding the main words used, was to get to feel the board. There was no focus on movements as such more on just working with the board. The BASI system mainly focused on twisting the board to aid in the turning process. To initiate the turn twisting or torsional flex is quite effective. When asked about Rotary there was no key focus. CANADA in door The Canadian in door session was mainly focused on how there system is set up. The level which they have and what is expected at each level. The one thing that stood out the most for me was their membership, over ten thousand members. This is mainly due to their level one. At their level one stage candidates do not have to work for a ski resort but just have to attend training. This is also the case for there level 2. The only down side to this is the candidates don’t  have any teaching experience to attend the exam. The big up side is there are a lot more members meaning the budget is huge allowing the trainers to focus on quality course and exams for the candidates. SPAIN in door The Spanish indoor session didn’t quite go to plan with their power point presentation unable to work. The explained what their out door session would be focusing on? The why they ride, the way they do. Spain uses a strong upper body rotation to aid in turning the board. They believe it is very useful in the conditions they experience in Spain but also believe it helps the rider move their mass in the right direction. DUTCH in door session The Dutch in door session was focused on asking each of the countries to answer a specific comment: Advanced snowboarders do not come to the ski school anymore! The answers ranged from what people believe is advanced snowboarding, to lack of terrain at certain place. There have also over the past few years been a number of camps starting to pop up which has seen a huge movement of young kids in this direction. There were many answered that were agreed upon. SWITZERLAND in/ out door Switzerland discussed their teaching methodology and how they use a range of teaching aids to get the best results out of their riding. Very similar to modern teaching they try and get the riders involved in there own improvement, not just through riding takes but games and questions involving the riders. Their riding was also quit diverse building basic skills through to more challenging areas such as steeps and freestyle. The riding portion I attended was half pipe based. The progression used was similar to Australia, but there was more of a focus on working with each other and learning each other’s strength and weaknesses. GERMANY in/ out door The in door session was mainly focusing on the skills that Germany like their snowboarder to posses. The skills were a stance for balance, vertical movement for pressure control, lateral movement for edging and rotary movements to aid turning. They also presented a goal sheet in which to try and aid in the development of their snowboarders. This gave the rider a variety of options as to the direction they wanted to head with their career. It also gives the trainer an understanding of were the candidate wants to head and their perceived ability level. On hill we started at the low end of their riding level but as we started to advance our skills we started to blend a combination of an up un-weighted turn with a down un-weighted turn. Their aim is to keep the rider moving through all the turn. ITALY out door Italy had a big focus on snowboarding not having a regular and goofy stance but being able to teach people to ride in either direction. They believe, if taught early a rider will be able to ride both ways improve their balance, skill and mobility around the mountain. They used stationary exercise getting each person to walk their way through each task in both directions so to comprehend the task and give the mind the ability to learn the task. With the board on they used a number of 3-point turns in both directions to give the rider a feel of turning. By turning up hill in the 3-point turn it also washed the speed off. I did ask if this could confuse people and they believe it could do, if rushed but if time is taken in preparing the rider then it would be fine. SLOVENIA in door Slovenia presented a new teaching aid to help with jumping. It was a speed-reader, which was placed at the base of the take off to a jump. The speed-reader would tell you the speed of which the rider was travelling before taking off the jump. The aim is to give the rider the correct speed so as not to over shoot the landing or knuckle. It would also allow the rider to feel more confident with the speed need for the jump, aim to take away some of the fear. There were also a number of other uses not just jumps but straight lining for approaches, rails and half pipe drop ins. I was unable to attend the out door session but was interested to see how it worked. AUSTRALIA The start of our session was about equipment set up in relation to stance and performance. What we have been noticing is that a wide stance with high duck angles has not been beneficial to candidates attending exams. The majority of exams for instructors a turning based and the stronger freestyle stance has been affecting the skills and how a rider needs to move to get the same performance. At first they thought the APSI was against a duck stance which we are not, it is the combination of wide and duck which effects such skills as for and aft and steering. We explained the APSI certification path and what the main skills were that we focus on. The remainder of our time was spent showing the riding standard for candidates that go through our system. Levels 1, 2 and 3. More reports click here.