Challenge:

Freestyle Specialist 1

By Greg Fatigate AASI-E Examiner and ACE Team Member AASI-E Steering

Committee Chair

Are you a member of your school’s staff who is teaching freestyle zone? Are you someone on your school’s staff who skis/rides in the park regularly? Are you looking to highlight and validate your skillset to become a specialist in freestyle? Maybe then, this is the season you take on the Freestyle Specialist 1 (FS1)!

Check the PSIA-AASI event schedule for FS events near you: easternsnowpros.org/calendar and filter in freestyle.

Additionally check into the FS standards, found here: easternsnowpros.org/education/freestyle-specialist

Beyond training directly to the FS1 standards, here are a few other ways to develop your teaching for the FS1 whether you attend this season, or are just considering it for the future:

• Teach freestyle skills outside of the park for implementation at a specific park feature. Take board slides for instance. This maneuver requires you or your student to move their equipment 90 degrees to the box or rail. Typically, the mechanics to do so need to originate from the lower body. If the rider or skier stands tall, or pivots their equipment from the upper body, that bit of upper body leaning up hill will have serious consequences. In this regard, it is best to experience the learning process on a surface (snow) that is forgiving to the failure-success process required for the maneuver.

• Teach a variety of skill levels with the promise that all participants may attend on a “challenge by choice” basis. By doing so you’ll gain valuable experience on how to modify your teaching strategies based on the outcome goals of the individual.

• Make trips through the park a regular part of your day. Not every trip through the park needs to be for the intention of “going big”. Going small, or just plain moving through the travel lanes on a regular basis will give you perspective on how the park conditions at your home mountain change day to day.

• Make teaching in the park part of your everyday teaching repertoire, especially if it’s part of your students’ motivations. Are you able to teach little hops/jumps to your beginners when they do straight glides? Could you teach 180’s to your beginner students on flat terrain? Could you teach grabs with your equipment on while sitting down for a stretch session? Simple adjustments that account for student safety will enable you to use a variety of freestyle moves for your beginner level lessons in a session like environment.

• Get comfortable with a variety of small Freestyle elements in most-to-all snow conditions. This aspect is geared to your development. By training yourself to take on park features in a variety of conditions, you will familiarize yourself on how aspects of the ATML cycle need to be adjusted to be successful. This level of knowledge & experience will enhance your ability to adjust to the changing needs of the learner and manage physical and emotional risk for your students when you are teaching in the park.

• Inspire your co-workers to join you for intro to park learning. To do this, here’s a word of advice: start with small jumps. In my experience I have found that instructors may expect that boxes and rails will ruin their edges, causing an initial apprehension to join a clinic on the topic. Small jumps found all throughout the trail network tend to be more approachable to the masses before moving into the park for a small jump session (sounds like Point #1, huh?).

• Locate the quarter pipes and halfpipes your home mountain has. Most trail networks were constructed using a “bench cut” method. That is, the trail was cut into a side hill, where one side falls away, while the other side has a very usable quarter pipe transition when covered adequately with snow or snowmaking blowoff. Not only are these areas of the trail super fun, but they also help you train your eye for halfpipe and transitional features. A word of caution before going for it here: the runout of the “landing zone” in these areas typically cuts across the trail’s flow of traffic. Great care needs to be taken to assess when it is safe to use the transition zones found to the sides of trails. These are just a few suggestions that will help you move towards the goal of attaining an FS1. The freestyle zones at your mountain hold great opportunities to evolve your teaching repertoire. Follow ParkSMART and start small. See you in the park! <<