Archive for the ‘Snowboard Division’ Category

SBINZ’s Technical Director, Adam Dooney, went to Croatia’s snowboard workshop last week. Here’s what he has to say about it…

Clinic title: A New Approach to Teaching Snowboarding

Clinic synopsis: This clinic outlined how a ski instructor can effectively and safely teach a first time snowboard lesson while on skis using their poles as a balancing aid!!!

The progression they use is based on the student experiencing the feelings of snowboarding through assisted balance until they find their own balance. The clinician believes that teaching snowboarding on skis using poles reduces the amount of falls making it a much safer lesson.

Our summary: This progression starts with the ski instructor holding poles under each arm with the student doing the same. This creates four points of contact for student with the ski instructor providing the majority of the balance. As the student starts to find their balance through an assisted floating leaf the ski instructor will reduce the amount of contact points on the poles. The student is then moved on to linked turns assisted by holding poles with both hands and to finally holding the pole only with their front hand before making unassisted turns.
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Karl ‘Dutty’ Dunham went to Finland’s Snowboard Clinic. Check out his review…

Clinic title: Just Try It

Clinic synopsis: Jussi from Finland showed us a super guided discovery teaching style he is bringing in to snowboard instructing in Finland.

Our summary: This is how the Fins use this style of teaching in a beginner lesson…

They would start with a typical board intro explaining how the bindings work etc. Then a little work on balancing with no board on, including balancing with the students eyes closed.

He said they basically wanted a terrain park for a first timer which would have cones, bars and snow bumps (sometimes imaginary) to form corridors, things to jump over or duck under or points to aim towards in order to set challenges for the student.
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Fanta and Ben went to check out the Swedish snowboard workshop on Friday. Here’s their review of it…

Clinic title: Passion and Wi-S-H analysis

Clinic synopsis: This workshop highlighted the importance and inter-dependency of the WILL of the student, the SKILL of the student, and the HILL they are riding on. The WILL, or the passion, of the student is essential in the learning process and that is the area the workshop mainly focused on.

Our summary: We began by detailing Wi-S-H analysis before we took it on snow. This is as follows…

WILL
Expectations – what does the rider expect to do?
Preferences – what does the rider want to do?
Objectives – what is the rider’s objective/aim?

SKILL
Technical skills – rotary movements, edge control movements, pressure control movements, balancing movements
Physical skills – strength, coordination, fitness, mobility

HILL
Conditions – weather, terrain, equipment
Context – static; set up (group, private, recreational, competitive)
Context – dynamic; personalised progression
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Kyle and a few others attended CASI’s clinic on Friday. Here’s the review…

Clinic title: CASI QuickRide and 5 Skills

Clinic synopsis: Overview of their First Time progression and the movements they use in CASI system.

Our summary: The morning indoor presentation consisted of a short powerpoint about how there system works and what would be involved in the days clinic. QuickRide was introduced in the morning. This is essentially CASI’s beginner progression. There are five parts to QuickRide. They are Basics, Sliding, Control, Turning and Linking.
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SBINZ boys Ben and Kyle caught the Czech’s clinic this morning. Here’s their summary…

Clinic title: Snowboard the Czech way (kicking it old school)

Clinic synopsis: The Czechs presented us their snowboard progression.

Our summary: The Czech Republic gave an hour indoor intro of both clinic topics. The snowboard topic was translated in English.

The main points of interest in the clinic were to eliminate critical ‘moments’ and movement options. The clinic leader pointed out the obvious that students are scared to fall and one of his main solutions to avoid the critical areas is to be very hands on! This was physically demonstrated to Kyle by doing a very small C-turn. Kyle felt safe within this, but had very little personal control of the required movements or the situation.
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Mat Philips and Keith Stubbs went to check out the Slovenian Snowboard clinic yesterday. Here’s what they thought…

Clinic title: Eliminating the Fear!

Clinic synopsis: The clinic concept was ‘how we can utilize educational tools to take away fear from the student’ at a beginner level.

Our summary: The tool the Slovenians chose was a ski race gate pole. They made some adjustments to the pole such as adding a rubber disc around the pole to stop it sliding away if dropped. They also slid another fiberglass pole inside the existing pole to stiffen it up. They recommended a two-meter pole minimum.
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Kyle and Benny C went to hang with Ze Germans the other day. They presented a clinic that split into two parts…

Clinic title: German technique and the way to multi-talent young snowboarders.

Clinic synopsis: An overview of the current techniques for German snowboard instructors and some new theories on teaching children.

Our summary: The German workshop started with a very well organized presentation, they gave a great overview of the various clinics being presented on the day. To my surprise the snowboard team took the stage first and outlined what was to be covered in there clinics, ‘the German technical snowboard concept’ and ‘the way to multi-talent young snowboarders’.
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Fanta’s been a busy boy these past few days, getting round the mountain with lots of other nationalities. Here’s a summary of the USA Snowboard clinic he went to yesterday…

Clinic title: Teaching that Embraces Technology

Clinic synopsis: Highlighted the changing board technology (camber vs reverse camber and hybrids, base bevels, spoon noses) and how it affects our lessons.

Our summary: The clinicians began by talking about the changing user groups that they need to attract and retain in snowboard lessons and how the new snowboard technology can help. They said that in the USA they have many over-weight people who are not athletic, and they have many young people who expect results and improvement straight away. New snowboards with base bevels and reverse camber make a huge difference for the majority of students we teach who are beginners to intermediate riders.
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