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Participant Requirements
This programme requires all participants to be active, so academy students need to ensure they feel relatively fit and able to join a programme of this nature. You should be at least an intermediate skier/rider.
Programme Age Limit
Minimum age 18, maximum age decided upon potential participant’s health.
The NZSIA Stage 1 is an 8 Day course/exam and includes:
- Teaching from wedge turning to advanced parallel turns with a pole plant (level 2-4).
- Understanding the teaching model and the learning process
- Skier analysis of these levels
- Technical information and demonstrating at these levels
- Class handling and safety
- Personal skiing will also be improved towards the level.
The SBINZ Stage 1 is a 5 day course/exam and includes:
- Modules covering rider improvement, movement analysis, the teaching model, progressions for levels 3 and 4 students, class handling and safety on mountain terrain.
- Candidates’ riding is continually assessed over the five days with key requirements being riding all blue groomed and off-piste terrain with good form; tidy skidded and edged demonstrations on-piste; tidy demonstrations of level 3 and 4 freestyle elements (switch riding green terrain, straight air, ollie, nose roll, air 180)
- Candidates are formally assessed on student movement analysis and lesson planning via a video clip followed by a brief interview with their trainer.
- Candidates’ teaching is assessed on the final day during a 30 minute teaching presentation to other members of their group.
Academy Course Outline
Working in small groups, you will have all practical and theoretical lessons on the mountain, preparing you for your exam (detailed above). The course operates 4 days a week, with the weekends off and one weekday kept free. This flexibility allows the course to make up for any lost days due to the weather.
As well as covering the main exam criteria, there are additional informal courses that will benefit you for both your instruction and overall mountain awareness. These courses include:
Back Country Safety and Avalanche Awareness
This course is covered at the start of the programme. It teaches the students to be able to identify dangerous ski areas and make safe route selections, as well as to be able to understand the risk of avalanche. You specifically learn:
- How to spot basic danger signs
- Where to obtain information about avalanche risk and how to understand this information
- Skiing and riding in safe back country check point s
- Avalanche Beacon Training (takes a full day)
Although the course is informal, it is vitally important that you learn all of its content in-depth. Breaking of the mountain rules may lead to your pass being confiscated and you having to leave the course.
Equipment Tuning Session
During this session you will work directly with an equipment specialist, learning the best ways to maintain and tune your equipment. This will cover:
- Waxing your skis/snowboard
- Maintaining the edges in terms of sharpness and angle
- How to fix holes/deep scratches
- How to change binding settings properly
The session lasts for about 2 hours and will leave you equipped to tune your skis/board with confidence.
Exams
You will complete both examinations towards the end of your course. This is to ensure you have had adequate time to meet all of the correct examination criteria and are prepared for all types of scenarios in a teaching situation. It is possible that you may have the opportunity to complete your CSI after week 7, however, this depends on course numbers and whether your instructor is confident you have met the appropriate levels.
Resort Information
The Niseko resort is broken up into 4 main ski areas, with a number of small villages near each as a base. Hirafu is the main village and where you will be based the programme. Although your course is likely to take you to all 4 areas, you will spend most of your training days in 2-3 of the areas. In total, there are 38 main lifts between the individual areas, there is over 45Km of groomed trails and the mountain is open for 12 and a half hours a day, with excellent lighting available for night skiing. Hirafu has one of the largest night-skiing areas in Japan.
Daily Transport
Because you will be accommodated close to the mountain lifts, you will not require transport to the mountain each day. However, transport is available on the local shuttle buses, which moves between the resort villages, if you wish to visit supermarkets etc. A return journey will cost you £2 approximately and during the evening the buses are free.
Programme Support
Throughout your programme, you will have the support and supervision of our qualified Instructors. Each are fully qualified and experienced, and are able to provide you with all the instructional and safety support necessary on a programme like this. They will also provide you with competent assistance and help you with any questions or advice you may need during your stay. The Academy staff will be on hand throughout the day and the Academy Director will be available to you 24 hours a day if you have any serious problems or emergencies.
In addition, we will provide you with a 24 hour emergency contact number before you depart, so that you can contact one of our UK staff at any time should you need to.
Orientation
At the start of your programme you will receive a local orientation, to go alongside your pre-departure handbook. This orientation will be conducted by our local programme coordinator (your course instructor) the day after you arrive and will cover the following areas:
- Course outline – structure of programme
- NZSIA/SBINZ CSI and Stage 1 exam criteria
- Local area: Niseko resort and it’s various amenities
- Safety: how to remain safe during the course; ski areas to avoid; how to read threat of avalanche and signs etc. More detail regarding mountain safety is covered in your course.
- Expected behaviour and course commitment
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