CON POULOS

People of APSI

 

Certification/s and year achieved.

  • PSIA 1985 full certified.
  • APSI 1987.
  • Australian race coach level 2 2000

 
What was training with the APSI like when you achieved your certification and how would you compare it to current times?

1983 Level one was held in Thredbo. The mountain closed due too extreme wind, but apparently safe enough to send instructors up Ramshorn chair. We bounced off the towers to the Basin t bar.

My full certificate experience-1987, back then, if you held a full certification in other country, you could sit the exam without doing the pre course. I had PSIA cert. so off to Buller I went with little idea what to expect.

The manual was crude -, about 15 pages stapled together.

I remember on the top of one run it was announced “here you will ski shear to scissor step turns” not knowing what a shear turn was I thought best get a good look at this demo.

Pretty sure the examiners weren’t happy with me passing as they changed the pre-course rules the next year

 

Which Australian Snowsports School did/do you work with?

Started at Smiggin Holes where I learned to ski as part of the local Jindabyne Public School Friday afternoon sport program in primary school. Perisher where I started my training career and then Guthega in its last year as a standalone resort, Blue Cow, and now 33 years in Thredbo. I spent nine of these years as Training Manager for Thredbo and still help out with training.

 

Did/do you also teach in the Northern Hemisphere and where?

Kirchdorf, Austria. Brian Head, Utah USA but the majority of my years were in Vail, Colorado, USA.

 

What position/s did/do you hold in the APSI (include years held)?

    APSI board from1990 for many years and the technical committee through until 2007

    Selected for Australia’s first demonstration Interski team in 1990, did not go, but that’s another story. Then made the next 4 teams. Proud of being selected for five Interski teams to represent Australia.

     

     

     

     

    What made/makes you most proud of the APSI at that time?

    The high standard of the full certificate, and the continued evolution of the training program

     

    What important events happened during your time with the APSI?

    15 page manual growing to a text book Interski

    Snowboarding

    Children’s certificate Shaped skis

     

    With regard to your work with the APSI, what accomplishment/s are you most proud of? (share all that apply)

    Trainer guidelines - The red book. It was created by Roger Burns, Lachlan Maclean and myself.

     The only coloured paper we had when printing it was red hence the creation of the “red book”.

     

    Snowboarding - was starting to be taught. I helped its technical committee to align its curriculum into APSI format.

     

    Exam process reform - Back then you either passed everything and resits were limited to those who failed one section. Tom Peters and I instigated the rule where you could keep credits for all section passed.

    The technical committees that I was involved with was an extremely talented group – Tom Petres, Ian Bruce, John Fahey, Kent Carpenter, Tina Burford, Bob Irwin, Andrew Rae and Mark McDonald .

    Together we took to the raising the standard. We looked outside our ski world and brought in experts from other fields to widen our vision – eg Dr Jenny Saunders for biomechanics and Dr Bond from the AIS for sports psychology. Prior to this there was limited or no focus on physics, biomechanics or psychology.

     

    How to teach - was very basic, children’s learning and teaching expanded.

    The implementation of pedagogy, and the efforts taken to prepare our trainers with skills to deliver better courses.

     

    The mechanics of skiing improving our knowledge of biomechanics and physics increased our understanding on how to analyse good skiing. We studied the best skiers endlessly, not so easy on old video equipment.

     

    Skier analysis - We moved skier analysis from a few casual questions after your teaching exam to an examinable block.

     
    How did the above accomplishment/s change the APSI moving forward?

    We went from skiers to teachers

      

    How did/do international organisations view the APSI? Was/is there much communication/sharing of information between organisations?

    Lots of information was sharing, pilfered, or stolen

    Australian instructors taught across the world. We all brought back influences, ideas and trends. It’s not hard to get an opinion from any instructor. The hard thing is who to believe.

     

    During your time with the APSI, who were some influential/inspiring people within the organisation?

    Phil Pepper, Gerhard Krahbichler, Mike Sodergren, Brad Spalding, Mike Porter, Don McInnes, Tom Peters, Kerry Lee Dodd, George Perry, Ian Bruce, Kent Carpenter, John Fahey, and many others.

    Honourable mention to the late Ron Lamaster for his contributions. From his many brilliant articles and books.