Stone Pie (a/k/a The Yelling of the Pizza)

Fig 1 below is a photo of a slice of pizza. Fig 2 is also a slice of pizza. Fig 3 is located at Pisa. Pictured in Fig 4 are the Pisas. Fig 5 is Alex Polizzi. Fig 6 is the frozen pizza section of my local supermarket in Vermont. Everything in the freezer pictured is pizza.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

 

 

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Even a five-year-old child would understand the difference between each of these photos and that they’re all pizza, Pisa or Polizzi. Still, take that same five-year-old, put a beanie on their head and then shove their head into what was their older sibling’s helmet, put a pair of goggles on their face that schmushes their face a bit, and make sure that they are wearing enough winter clothing so as to make it impossible for them to nod their head without all their base layers coming untucked, then send them down a snowy slope in ski equipment that is not their own and in which they have spent little time, and their ability to discern the difference between each of the foregoing pizza-like things disappears. Completely. They won’t know the difference between Alex Polizzi and Little Caesar’s, and they won’t care.

I get it, I really do. When we create a wedge with our skis they form a shape similar to that of a slice of Neapolitan pizza. And, granted, some of the kids among our clientele in Vermont and in Wanaka actually know and can identify the difference between Neapolitan and Sicilian pizza slices. Especially the kids from New Haven, Connecticut. Still, through all that gear, straight lining an icy slope, careening headlong towards the fence or base area condo, there isn’t a single child on the planet can process the word “pizza” being yelled at them from behind by an agitated adult. They certainly can’t make the analogical leap to the leg turning movements necessary to create a wedge with their skis in order to slow down or stop. Yelling “pizza” simply is not a recipe for success, and it’s not even a recipe for decent pizza, going to Pisa or to the Pisas, or for figuring out when we can watch Alex Polizzi on television. Having said that, after fruitlessly yelling “pizza, pizza” again and again, we may actually succeed in making the skiing child hungry. For that, again, I recommend New Haven.

As a general rule, it takes some time for young children to develop the ability to analogize on their own. My view is that this general rule holds true in the classroom among children who are wearing school clothing and don’t have their beanie-clad senses isolated from the outside world inside their big brother’s ski helmet. Under those circumstances, the ability to analogize freely happens far later in life, and then only fleetingly. Bear in mind also, all kidding aside, that from inside a helmet kids’ sensory awareness is especially limited – young children really can’t process a wide range of sights and sounds from anywhere but immediately in front of them. These are just a few of the reasons that experienced, well-trained ski instructors try their best to always look kids in the face when giving instructions and find success by telling kids specifically what to do, as in what movements to make.

There are a lot of benefits to skiing in a wedge (formerly known as “snowplow”, “chasse neige” to the French). Though some ski schools in the past have played with ‘direct to parallel’ teaching, the wedge remains an integral part of learning to ski for the first time. In the American teaching system, where we focus on the skills of skiing and develop them from a guest’s very first moments on snow, the skills we use to create a wedge, to manipulate its size, and then to make a wedge turn are skills that remain essential through every skiers entire evolution, from the very beginning to Olympic glory. The skill we use is “rotary”, meaning the twisting of the legs inside of our hips. Twisting of the hips is otherwise known as “shaking your money maker”, but that’s another story.

When we stand next to a child, show them how we twist our legs towards each other to make a wedge while standing still (“toes in, heels out”, etc.), and ask them to do it themselves with plenty of repetition, they learn to do it on their own. When we redo the same process again while sliding slowly together on very gentle terrain, one inch at a time at first, focusing on the movements and not the position, we find still more success. We can call the shape made by our skis whatever we want – wedge, slice of cake, pizza, cucumber, home base, dinosaur teeth, Alex Polizzi, anything – but as long as we make clear at the outset that the goal is to make the movements of turning both their legs inward at the same time to create the shape, and that it results in our being able to slow down and stop, kids will understand and be able to replicate those movements. Once they can make these movements, we quickly progress to turning both legs in the same direction at the same time (“aim your skis over here at me”, etc.), making turns and using those turns to control our speed and to stop. The ability to make a wedge but with balance so poor that a skier cannot yet turn results in what we call “The Death Wedge”, also another story altogether.

Obviously, I’m biased in favor of professionals whose training and experience makes them experts at delivering technically valid, achievable, fun, and safe instruction to kids. Communicating with young children in a way that ensures comprehension, provides enough repetition to generate comfort and confidence, all in a fun way that teaches kids to control where they go and how fast requires great skill on the part of instructors. The upside is, when done well, kids realize quickly that they are responsible for their own destiny on skis - the moment when that happens is a biggie! It’s a liberating and exciting experience, for them and for us.  When we don’t simply yell “pizza, pizza” at them, when we understand and appreciate their skills and abilities as kids in a respectful way, when we deliver the skiing goods to them and open the door to all that skiing can bring, they’ll follow us anywhere as long as we live up to the standard of empowerment we’ve already set. It’s amazingly satisfying to those of us who teach skiing for a living. And, as an aside, that’s all equally true for teaching adults, but you don’t often see kids yelling “pizza, pizza” at their beginner parents.

At the end of the day, as I like to tell kids, I love pizza, I really do, but too much pizza gives me a stomach ache. Let’s leave the pizza for eating, or at least make sure we’re understood when we talk about it. Speaking of which, how far is New Haven from here? I just got back from New Zealand and I desperately need a decent slice of stone pie. 

Above the Horizon

Give a blind man a camera ...

It’s the little things. Beginning several days ago, those of us that meet at the same spot in town to catch the staff vans to Cardrona for the work day could look each other in the face as we chatted. An odd thing to note, I admit, but it means that it was light outside. The dark days of winter here in Wanaka are very dark, and when the season begins in June our early morning pickup feels more like the dead of night. This week, on the heels of several days of shockingly beautiful weather, all of us marveled at the amount of gorgeous early morning light casting pink and orange hues on the Buchanan Range of mountains visible across Lake Wanaka. This week, the staff vans crested the long, windy road to Cardrona just as the sun popped above the horizon. It literally and figuratively sheds new light on a place that is genuinely extraordinarily beautiful even in the darkest days of winter. The whole staff has been in great spirits as a result, and our guests are more dumbfounded than ever by the views. And the birds are singing …

Like a few other places where I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time with and without my ski boots on, Wanaka makes amateur photographers of many of us and is a magnet for exceptional artists. Much like Santa Fe, New Mexico, the beauty of the Southern Alps and the quality of the light and air here stirs even the most jaded folks into fits of artistic expression. Luckily, while most fail to find the right words or the right technique and skill to capture the essence of the place, there are a few genuinely world class artists who call the place home and who successfully express the essence of this remote little spot on the globe. I’m very fortunate to know or to have worked with a few of them who travel the world pursuing their craft but who call Wanaka home.  In a blessed result of the advent of social media, a few of my favorites are kind enough to share some of their work with the wider world on a regular basis, capturing those images and feelings that I fail to while I’m here in New Zealand, and providing regular reminders of the stunning nature of the place while I’m home in Vermont. I try to stay away from being brazenly commercial here on my blog, but these folks are definitely worth a little time and a lot of oohing and ahhing.

Among the more celebrated of the photographers who call Wanaka area home is Camilla Rutherford. Camilla’s an award-winning and hard working young photographer who has somehow managed to create an immensely successful career that seamlessly blends her commercial work doing photo shoots for catalogs and magazines with her amazing gifts as an artist. Camilla’s regular facebook posts are most impressive given that they’re only a small sampling of her work. She can be found at  https://www.facebook.com/camillarutherfordphotography and http://www.camillarutherford.co.nz/.

Anthony Hansen is a long-time ski industry film camera guy and a true Kiwi local with amazing palmares through his career in film that are too long to describe here. Ant is a fixture on the local scene, including great work with some of Wanaka’s signature events – Warbirds Over Wanaka (http://www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com/), the World Heli Challenge (http://worldhelichallenge.com/) and others. Ant’s work can be found at http://www.facebook.com/wanaka.tv and http://wanaka.tv/.

My good friend John-Jo Ritson is a classic case of someone who arrived here to snowboard and teach snowboarding and discovered that he has a real talent as a video story teller, both commercially and otherwise. Getting to watch John-Jo’s work develop over time has been a real gift, and I’m genuinely excited that he’s finding success in his career behind the camera. His company is called Flashworks Media and his work can be found here: http://flashworksmedia.com/; and https://www.facebook.com/CreateWithFlashworksMedia. For a great little slice of his work, check out the short film of our mutual friend Biff Russell telemark skiing, playing the blues and just being Biff: http://vimeo.com/60938997.

Queenstown Wanaka 360 is in part the brain child of my friend and great snowboard coach Keith Stubbs. Keith’s been working hard on this business and its site for a couple of years now, and it’s become a cool blend of artful commercial photography work and NZ resort updates and information, and the photo pano’s are awesome: http://www.360queenstown-wanaka.com/.

Last on this list but not least and definitely not the end of what could be a long list of talented people is The Picture Lounge. The Picture Lounge is a gallery space and business opened a few years ago by photographer and graphic artist Christopher Thompson specializing in local NZ work. My disclaimer here  is that I don’t know Christopher and I’ve never met him, but his shop would be the first place I’d send someone looking to purchase local photos to help fuel their daydreaming problem. Don’t go there unless you want to insure you have trouble focusing on your work in your office. http://www.thepicturelounge.co.nz/; and https://www.facebook.com/ThePictureLounge.

And now, I’m going to head back out in the sunshine of a spring day in Wanaka and marvel at all of the natural beauty that I fail to capture, daily.

My work day on August 24th began like this at Cardrona Alpine Resort ...

 

... and ended like this along the lake in Wanaka.

I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ski Lessons

Red sky in morning ... at Cardrona Alpine Resort

Pardon my grammar but it’s a sentiment I hear frequently, if not exactly in those words. Each time I hear someone explain away why they don't take lessons, it shines the bright light of day on a perplexing issue for those of us dedicated to teaching skiing and riding to the public. There are many sides to the story, many different perspectives from which instructors discuss this issue over quiet beers, in far flung pubs, in small mountain towns all over the world. In the end, it all comes down to the problem of people who think that they’re so good at skiing that they don’t need lessons, along with its invisible but necessary corollary, that they’re so good that a mere instructor couldn’t possibly teach them anything. As you can probably tell, it rubs me the wrong way.

Usually, the folks who express the sentiment that they don’t need lessons are the same people who explain to their children’s instructors that they ski double diamond terrain all the time with their kids and that they’d like their kids to not ski in a wedge any more. Notably, the kids being described are usually five or six, and they usually ski in a wedge because they’re five or six and their parents drag them down terrain that requires a wedge for a five or six year old to survive. What we need to impart here, what we need to provide these guests, is a bit of perspective. On their kids and on themselves.

Let’s play a little game here: let’s list the reasons people give us to explain why it is they don’t need a lesson. So, here it is, in no particular order, Russ’s Top 10 Reasons People Give for Not Needing No Stinkin’ Ski Lessons:

1.       I ski double diamonds all the time with my buddies and I’m really very good.

2.       I skied [famous chute] at [famously difficult Western destination resort] last year and survived.

3.       I skied with [mildly famous skier] last year when I was in [famous far-away ski area] and [he/she] gave me the best tips.

4.       I read [name of ski magazine] all the time.

5.       My buddy was an instructor when he lived in [big Western resort] after college in the ‘90s and gives me great tips.

6.       I ski raced as a kid and I hate skiing moguls anyway.

7.       My kids are ski racers (as though you couldn’t tell by looking at my ski gear).

8.       I had an awesome private lesson when I was in [big Western resort] [decades ago].

9.       I don’t like standing around and talking, I think exercises are stupid, and that’s clearly what instructors spend their time doing.

10.   I’m too arrogant and closed minded to find any value in learning, I lack enough deep-seeded self-confidence to be open to coaching without feeling inadequate, my ego is too delicate to survive finding out that I’m not a total rock star, or I know I’m not as good as I say I am and don’t want to be called out on it.

Ok, that last one was actually four, but they’re all basically rooted in the same psychological stuff. And, yes, it’s a bit snide. Sorry about that.

One of the great joys of teaching kids to ski and ride, really working with kids at all, is that their principal vocation in life, what they spend 100% of their time doing, is learning. How awesome is that! Whether they’re taking ski lessons, going to school, playing foosball in the Cardrona Kids Club, running around in the woods, or simply reading a book, kids are in the business of learning for a living. The bad news is that at some point in some people’s lives, somewhere in their ongoing evolution, they develop the mindset that learning is no longer fun, productive, or valuable. This is crazy, plain and simple. Adding learning to any experience – eating, cooking, vacationing, walking down the street, reading the newspaper, chatting over a cup of coffee, or simply vegging out on the couch in front of the television – elevates that experience and makes it all the more rewarding. It’s not an accident that describing an adult as having a child-like sense of wonder and curiosity is a great complement. It’s also a description that often applies to smart, successful people. Go figure.

All kidding aside, when discussing with other ski industry folks about how to get the skiing and riding public to understand and appreciate the tremendous value of embracing that child-like learning mindset, I divide this issue into two related questions. The first question is more interesting than important: what happened to make experienced skiers stop taking lessons the way they used to? The second question is not merely interesting, it’s vital to growing our sports and the importance of our profession in them: what can we do about it?

My usual glib response to self-professed expert skiers when they pooh-pooh lessons is “You don’t look like a complacent person,” but that’s not exactly the friendly, guest service minded approach we need. We do spend a lot of time as an industry and within the teaching profession discussing how to make this change happen, and it’s definitely something I focus on a great deal as the Director at Sugarbush. At the end of the day, as individual instructors the best thing we can do is work hard every day to embody in our professional approach the same sense of wonder and curiosity, the same dedication to constant learning that we admire in kids. How can we promote expert lessons for adults if we ourselves are not open to constant learning, continuous evolution?

When we do this, when we enjoy and share the learning process with our guests, when we seek to understand our guests and their skiing and riding better all the time, we can’t lose. And we might even love it more all the time. Even if it means playing foosball left handed in the Cardrona Kids Club so we make it fairer for the 6-year-olds. Hey, at least I'm learning to play foosball left handed.

Radio Silence

Sunrise at Cardrona Alpine Resort

My muse has been observing several months of forced radio silence. It’d be nice if this was the result of my hard work on the Great American Novel or my development of the Next Big Thing in Skiing, but neither of those things has been happening or is even likely. No, my lack of writing has been due to a singular focus outside of my day-to-day work: recovery. No, not some far-fetched analogy here, not some carefully woven cultural reference; just the simple, old-fashioned, hard work of recovering from injury.

Six months ago today, I pulled out all the stops and did a really professional job of injuring my knee. Oh yeah, a real humdinger. By the end of March, the injuries that could heal on their own had made good progress and I went under the knife for what was the second ACL reconstruction of my ski career. That was precisely four months ago yesterday. It’s been an interesting four months, and there are a few details worth noting while I rev up my muse to come out of retirement.

I love cryo-cuffs. In a classic piece of ski community empathy and understanding, not one but two of my close friends sent me their cryo-cuffs to use. If you don’t know what a cryo-cuff is, you either have never had a serious knee injury or you don’t know what you were missing when you did. Think knee shaped air cast hooked up to a water cooler and filled with ice cold water. Alex and Martin: you rock!

My surgeon is a rock star. To folks outside the ski industry from the Burlington area (Vermont’s largest city), there isn’t much in the rest of Vermont providing value other than cuteness or dairy products. So, when they asked me about my surgery, they’d ask where I was having it done, expecting that I’d be seeing some surgeon at the world renown teaching hospitals Dartmouth Hitchcock or Fletcher Allen. When I’d tell them I was going to Rutland, they’d balk, shocked. In contrast, ski industry people would ask “Who’s doing your knee?”, “Is Mel Boynton doing your knee?”, or simply “Are you seeing Mel?” Every generation of physician seems to have one standout surgeon for certain types of sports injuries, especially among ski pros. Mel Boynton, practicing in the outstanding Rutland Regional Hospital, is that guy. If he signed his work, an amazing number of pros in Vermont would have his John Hancock on their knees. His staff is excellent, his ability to communicate and provide meaningful care to his patients is terrific, and I’m lucky to have him as my surgeon.

No good can come from responding to work emails the day after major surgery while recovering on the couch and under the influence of narcotics. No more needs to be said on that subject.

Athletes don’t heal faster. Just ask Lindsay Vonn about this little nugget (she should have known better). Muscle mass recovery takes a long time and a lot of hard work, even for folks accustomed to hard physical training, and healing takes time. Period. I will say that the moment when rehab becomes more about putting in the “hard yards”, as they say here in New Zealand, is a wonderful thing. It means that recovery becomes all about the hard work you put into it, and hard work is the easy part. For me, it’s the hard work that keeps me sane when I’m on the long road back.

My physio is the shizzle. I have an excellent physical therapist in Rutland who I’m looking forward to seeing when I get home, but here in Wanaka I’m incredibly fortunate to be working with a woman who is like the Mel Boynton of “physios”. Ginny Rutledge is pretty much a household name here in Wanaka. She’s a world class physio and a progressive and leading expert on injury recovery and prevention, especially among snow sports athletes. As important, working with Ginny constitutes “health care” in the truest sense, and that’s equally true for the carpenters, farmers, professional big mountain skiers, Olympians, and slightly out-of-shape, aging but totally committed ski instructors like yours truly. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to work with her.

Why this diatribe that may be more like an Academy Award acceptance speech than a blog post of actual value or interest? Because I skied today, that’s why. Four months post-op, I skied for about 90 minutes on some of Cardrona’s well-groomed, wide intermediate runs. I had a close friend with me to set a good pick, to keep it fun and light, and to keep me company (Lin, you rock too!). They weren’t my best turns ever, but they weren’t my worst either. I may have had the invective-laced words of Barb Marshall in my head to make sure my movements were sound and the amount of time I’ve spent in the gym was not in vain, and that may have helped matters. (Yes, Barb’s stuck in my head and I’m lucky for that as well.)

I’ve got a long way to go and a lot of work yet to do, but I know the road ahead, I know where the pitfalls are, and I know what kind of effort a full recovery will take. Skiing a bit today certainly helped make it clearer and will continue to make it a bit more joyful, and that will only increase in the coming weeks.

I hope to write a bit more while I’m here enjoying another winter season in my home away from home in Wanaka, New Zealand. And I promise, I’ll never, ever respond to emails while on pain killers again.

The Title IX Games

The Schoolhouse at Sugarbush getting in the spirit

It should be no surprise that I’m a big fan of the Winter Olympics. As much as I’m so focused on alpine skiing as a general proposition, there seems to always be one event or one story in the Games that really captures my imagination – the ski jumping at Lillehammer, for example, just resonated with me. This time around, in Sochi, what I found really compelling, the story that held my interest was something bigger picture, something more about the evolving nature of sports in society. I am convinced that the Sochi Winter Olympics provided us with a visible and important benchmark for the success of women’s place in sports. These were the Title IX Games.

My thinking about this began this past fall after having watched “Ready to Fly”, the exceptional 2012 documentary about women’s ski jumping. The film is about the exclusion and eventual inclusion of women’s ski jumping in the Olympics, and about the extraordinary athletes responsible for that pursuit. The most poignant moment (in a very stirring film) occurred when, after having lost their legal fight for inclusion in the 2010 Winter Olympics, then reigning world champion American Lindsey Van stood on the courthouse steps in Vancouver and in a hail of emotions said “I can’t believe my future is in the hands of some old dude!” To me, her reaction demonstrated that despite the difficult road and numerous challenges of pursuing her sport, she nonetheless had believed that if she trained hard, kept her focus and remained resolute, that the she could achieve her goals. She believed that she lived in a world where right prevailed, where merit counted, and where people were enlightened. Her devastation illustrated to me (to all of us) that she was regrettably wrong on the one hand, but it also showed something positive. It illustrated that having been a beneficiary of Title IX, of equality of opportunity in sports in America (relative to her predecessors, anyway) had imbued Van with a sense of what was possible. Not as a woman, but as a person. Her anguish and disbelief illustrated how far we’ve come. Rosa Parks expected to be removed from the bus; Lindsey Van expected to be able to compete in the Olympics.

So many of the great feats of athleticism, the great stories of person trial and compelling devotion from these Sochi Olympics are about women athletes who embody the Olympic ideal regardless of their results – further, higher, faster, stronger, etc. Lindsey Van did not win a medal at these games, nor did the great American Nordic skier Kikkan Randall. Hannah Kearney won bronze in moguls and professed her disappointment at it not being gold, much to the chagrin of the nay-saying press who have no idea what it’s like to be in her boots. Luge, skeleton, half-pipe, bobsled, slopestyle, every event seemed to be yet another moment where women athletes were treated like athletes and not like cute girls playing in a man’s world.

Obviously, the cause of gender equality has a long way to go. Some nations have made great strides, many haven’t. For me, at the end of the day, the simple expectation of the women of Team USA and others (and of the men on those teams as well) that women athletes will receive the same consideration, respect and opportunities as their male counterparts is a sign of the successes of the last three decades of work. I hope it’s not too far fetched to think that at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, the term “female athlete” included the word female as a descriptor and not a qualifier. We have a long way to go, but it’s OK to feel good about how far we’ve come already.



Showing our support for Warren, VT local Nolan Kasper. #GoNolanGo!



Pistol Packing Pete





Full moon rising over Sugarbush

New Years Eve snowstorm at Sugarbush

A million years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I spent a summer working for a very intimidating guy who happened to be the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. I’ll spare the details of what I was doing there and how that contributed to my career in the ski business, but the judge (known tongue in cheek as “Pistol Packing Pete”) had one particular attitude that I’ve been thinking about lately. Oddly, it’s been on my mind here at Sugarbush as we planned our alpine staff training for the month of January.

As an instructor, one of my goals always is to make sure that my students understand why we move on skis the way we do, why our ideal technique is what it is. Of course, this invites concern that I can overcomplicate things for them, not without justification for those that know me well. Still, I swear, I work hard to keep things simple and understandable for my students, and to keep their skiing in a context that keeps it clear. Thankfully, modern ski technique involves pattern of movements that is pretty natural, universal really, and is easily understood by our guests, whether or not they can do advanced physics and understand complex biomechanics.

As a trainer of instructors (and as their Director), I often explain to staff that my principal goal for the outcome of my training clinics is better thinking instructors. Better skiing instructors and better teaching instructors come with time, experimentation and repetition, all built on a foundation of understanding. I received some interesting comments from one of our staff recently about this concept that is so nice in the abstact, and that drew me back to my history with Pistol Packing Pete. Remember Judge Pete?

Pistol Packing Pete the federal judge presided over the federal courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University and the Yale Law School. Interestingly, Judge Pete had a strong anti-Yale bias in the hiring of his law clerks. Yale had years earlier dispensed with conventional grades for their students. In their view, apparently, the mere fact of having a Yale law degree was enough for proper evaluation by the marketplace for new attorneys. Pistol Packing Pete took the opposite view, and vocally so. In addition, Judge Pete found that the Yale graduates lacked enough practical knowledge and skills to be useful as clerks to him. Ok, I’m open to the idea that there was something else, some bias involved in his view, but his attitude does work for me here. Nota bene: here comes a sweeping generalization (and a little Latin).

Yale is one of the preeminent law schools in the nation and the world. Its students study with some of the greatest legal minds on the planet, are genuinely in the upper echelons of thinkers and are a remarkably bright and motivated collection of folks. Top tier all the way. For which I congratulate them. I’m sure it’s very useful in deliberating the theoretical underpinnings of our judicial system. Still, if I were hit by some horrible turn of events and needed some sharp, concise, targeted, and effective legal counsel, I’d hire some hungry, boots-on-the-ground practitioner. Someone who could get stuff done in a pinch. No muss, no fuss, no glitz, no glam. I'd need someone from Quinnipiac or Suffolk Law School. Ooh, Brooklyn Law. Seriously, wherever, I’d need results.

Here’s my point, and the lesson my staff has just taught me. All the understanding of skiing in the world does not in-and-of-itself enable people to teach it. At some point, new instructors need to be given some specific tools to do their job. No, I don’t love “bag of tricks” clinics that give instructors exercises and activities to do under certain specified circumstances. Yes, the idea of a “bag of tricks” itself gives me the willies, but the truth is that I have one myself. I have numerous activities that I like to use on occasion to illustrate a point with students and staff, that draw out certain movements or concepts in skiing. They’re not ‘stupid human tricks’, and they work. And some of them, many of them, are actually fun. For adults and kids. Whoa, crazy idea.

If I’ve done my job well and my students and the instructors I train understand the movements of skiing, understand why and how in simple terms, then the right activities work. Use them judiciously, keep them simple, make them fun, and ski plenty before and after to put them in context, and the practical affect of exercises is incredibly useful. And they enable new instructors to have a platform from which they can explore the deeper reaches of their own understanding while still delivering great learning experiences for their guests. I get it. We all need a tool kit and some practical get-stuff-done knowledge. I hope to strike a better balance with our training program between these two complementary goals for a more pragmatic approach. Guest centered teaching, and instructor enabling training – what an idea! Maybe I’ll throw in some Latin expressions just to mix it up. Protinus!