Sorry for the delayed blog post, I thought I would have more time available to myself over the duration of this course. As it happens BASI’s schedule is pretty hectic, even on a level 2 course we are skiing from 9-4pm and then having an evening meeting with our team, then having to fit in time to eat and sleep around that.
Where do I start? Well after a very last-minute decision to drive out to Hintertux with two other guys on my course (due to the flights stopping) we eventually made it to Austria after around 15/16hours of travelling.
Despite the tiredness we decided to head up the mountain for a couple of runs that day just to ‘get our skiing legs back’ before heading down to meet our trainers that night.
Week 1
I personally found week one rather intense, not due to the skiing but as I had received an exemption from the Level 1 course, I quickly had to learn all the terminology and principles relating to the Central Theme. I would like to thank my trainer Gavin Crosby for the patience he showed me whilst I was nagging him with questions to make sure I was understanding as well as the rest of the group.
The technical skiing aspects of the course were very interesting and I have to admit it was strange spending so much time practicing the developmental phases of skiing i.e. snowplowing, plough turning, plough parallel, parallel turning and then having to switch straight away into performance skiing. Needless to say I got particularly excited one afternoon when we were taken over to the moguls. In my head I thought about it as a competition run and just sent my skis down the moguls, however I soon learnt that this is not BASI’s preferred method of moguls skiing and had to use a rounder turn.
All in all I am feeling very positive after the first week of the course out here and I will report back once the second week is over.
Week 2
Week two started with a blue sky day and temperatures over 10 degrees up on the hill, conditions which didn’t change for the rest of the week. Having spent the weekend snowploughing and plough turning like it was going out of fashion I felt ready for the challenges of the week ahead.
The idea of week two is to assess everything that you have covered on week one and help to develop your personal performance further to ensure a pass. Having tried my hardest at every task given to me I felt confident walking into the ‘hotseat’ to find out whether I had passed or not and…RESULT, I am now a BASI Level 2 Ski Instructor.
Andy Longley
Tags: Andy Longley, BASI
