Glen Plake is now a PSIA examiner

[4ster]

Took me a while to get here as I do not like to post without at least perusing the whole thread. This one seems to have split into two distinct parts, Glenn Plake and PSIA exam standards.

Although I am no longer active in PSIA, I am still a member and do my best to keep up with what is going on.


First, I am not so sure about the 85% failure rate that has been mentioned a few times. IIRC, during my time the pass rate for L3 was consistently around 30 to 35% and L2 was around 70 to 75%.
I don’t think the complaints about PSIA exams are exclusive to one division or decade, they are universal and timeless. From my experience and POV the standards are and always have been very clear. Clear at least to those who assess them and to those who meet them, it seems confusion only surrounds those who do not meet the standard. It may sound funny but the only way for the standard to become clear is to meet it. I think it is the assessment process that is sometimes not clear and can appear to be far too subjective. The first step to make the skiing more objective is to put all candidates in a race course and let the clock tell the story. next, create similar more objective criteria of assessing other areas of one’s personal skiing. The successful candidate has a clear understanding of physics, biomechanics, turn mechanics, ski design & is able to link them all together through their skiing, teaching & MA presentations. This mastery comes through learning, teaching and practicing. Too many candidates get hung up on improving their personal skiing separately without seeing the correlation to their daily learning and teaching.
A national standard is something that PSIA claims to have been on the verge of for as long as I can remember! It is disheartening that that a consensus has still not been reached .


I can’t say that I know Plake but I knew Glen before he was famous. I taught skiing with his father for many years, he also lived across the street during the 70’s & 80’s. Glen was a few years younger than me but he would come hang out with us on the hill occasionally and entertain us by hucking off big stuff. Once he got a few years older we did run in some of the same circles and I was privy to premiering the unedited, uncut version of the Blizzard of Ahhs with him at a mutual friends house. We all knew right away that this could be big. After that I think the only time I skied with him was a few runs in Killebrew Canyon at Heavenly. I remember following him over the precipice of a very steep chute. As I prepared to shut it down and make some tight short swing turns, I glanced up to see him already through the flats at the bottom of the valley going about 70mph. He had just pointed them and straightlined the whole thing which was not common practice at that time.
I also know that before fame he was hired by Stu Campbell to teach skiing at heavenly. I don’t know if he ever taught a lesson or even showed up for work but he was hired. We were also on the same town league race team one season but I don’t think he ever showed up for a race. I don’t think our paths have crossed in the last 25 years or so but I have kept up with his career and what he’s been doing through discussions with his dad. Glen has made a career of being a very recognizable ambassador to the sport of skiing all over the world. Getting certified can only enhance his ability to share the stoke with all the skiers he encounters in his travels.
As far as being an examiner, what better way to trickle down the enthusiasm then to spend time infecting the countries teachers through conducting clinics (the fun part of being an examiner) or maybe even conducting exams. As I recall, I think Daron Rahlves went through PSIA certification around the same time.
I believe the fast track controversy came about a few years ago when a group of US ski team athletes went through a weeklong camp with PSIA gurus that culminated in a level III exam which they all passed.

 

[markojp]

I have spent much of the last 10 years attending events, searching out potential mentors, getting personal coaching and reading published materials.

As @LiquidFeet has said, many resorts don't have Examiners on staff. Mine has some Level 3's but their knowledge of the ever changing exam requirements is not sufficient, nor in some cases even accurate.

I am one of the "top" instructors at my school.

I would probably pass the teaching exam without much difficulty, but instead I am lumped in with the thousands of Level 1's, some who don't understand much at all about skiing mechanics, and many, like me, who are long time, highly trained and effective educators.

The Level 2 skiing exam and the dissemination of materials and clear understanding of what is expected is what I'm complaining about. "This is what we're looking for. These are the specific movements (hiccups someone said?) that will keep you from passing. Here is a current video of passing and failing versions of these tasks." etc.

Instead it's kind of like the definition of jazz. "If you have to ask, you don't know what it is." or the definition of pornography. "We know it when we see it."

I took an exam many years ago where all three Examiners had different criteria for "open parallel" skiing. One wanted drifting/skidding, one didn't. In addition there were Examiners in Training at the exam. Each Examiner described the task. Then the ETS demo'd it. They weren't always the same. What should I do" What the Examiner asked for or what the ETS demoed? (Rhetorical question.)

Sorry it's just a bunch of great skiers with a list of general concepts, making judgements. There is no consistency. How can you study for a test when you don't know how it will be graded?

I'm kind of annoyed by some of you saying it's the student's fault not the system's. Yes there is personal responsibility. Yes I may suck. But so does the system.

Not throwing you under the bus here... have you read the most recent manuals or accessed exam information from your division's (or any of the others') websites?

 

[Skisailor]

I have spent much of the last 10 years attending events, searching out potential mentors, getting personal coaching and reading published materials.

As @LiquidFeet has said, many resorts don't have Examiners on staff. Mine has some Level 3's but their knowledge of the ever changing exam requirements is not sufficient, nor in some cases even accurate.

I am one of the "top" instructors at my school.

I would probably pass the teaching exam without much difficulty, but instead I am lumped in with the thousands of Level 1's, some who don't understand much at all about skiing mechanics, and many, like me, who are long time, highly trained and effective educators.

The Level 2 skiing exam and the dissemination of materials and clear understanding of what is expected is what I'm complaining about. "This is what we're looking for. These are the specific movements (hiccups someone said?) that will keep you from passing. Here is a current video of passing and failing versions of these tasks." etc.

Instead it's kind of like the definition of jazz. "If you have to ask, you don't know what it is." or the definition of pornography. "We know it when we see it."

I took an exam many years ago where all three Examiners had different criteria for "open parallel" skiing. One wanted drifting/skidding, one didn't. In addition there were Examiners in Training at the exam. Each Examiner described the task. Then the ETS demo'd it. They weren't always the same. What should I do" What the Examiner asked for or what the ETS demoed? (Rhetorical question.)

Sorry it's just a bunch of great skiers with a list of general concepts, making judgements. There is no consistency. How can you study for a test when you don't know how it will be graded?

I'm kind of annoyed by some of you saying it's the student's fault not the system's. Yes there is personal responsibility. Yes I may suck. But so does the system.

This is my experience too @Steve. We have an 80-90% failure rate on certification exams - particularly at L3. An interesting perspective I have is that I ride to the mountain every day with retired examiners who say it was not always this way. And that their relative success was NOT, I repeat NOT, because the standards were lower at that time. These examiners talk about the kind of training that was done, how the trainers and examiners got together to make sure they were being consistent, how they were sensitive to the costs of exams, and that candidates were never recommended to take an exam until it was pretty certain that they could pass on their worst day of skiing. They do not disparage the work ethics of candidates. Are there some candidates who do not "do their homework"? I'm sure there probably are. But IMHO, a pervasive high failure rate year after year after year can only be ascribed to the students if the trainers and examiners have blinders on. My personal experience is that certification candidates train very hard and very seriously.

My personal experience with the certification process so far has been somewhat frustrating, but very successful. I only mention this because I hope it removes any assignment of a "sour grapes" attitude toward the points I make in this post. I passed my L2 on the first try with very very high scores. The words "Level 3" were used during my post exam debrief by my examiners. But I was also lucky enough to have an excellent mentor - not something which most other candidates had access to.

I have since been training off and on, practicing Level 3 tasks and I did take one L3 prep clinic to get a sense of where I might be. Training the tasks at both L2 and L3 has certainly been worthwhile and has improved my versatility as a skier. I have fun learning and training, which is frequently a part of my free skiing time. That said, however, I have no intention of going for the L3. Why? Because I see it as an exercise in futility - largely because of many of the points you made in your post above. There is no consistency on how tasks should be skied, or on what constitutes passing vs. failing. It seems to definitely be a "we know it when we see it" standard. Only it's charitable to use the pronoun "we" in that phrase because it's different from trainer to trainer and examiner to examiner. There also seems to be a bias toward candidates who have a certain style of skiing . . . . enough said there.

For awhile, I accepted this and told myself that it will only increase my versatility to be able to perform the various skiing tasks in many ways so that I can potentially pull anything out of the hat at exam time. But as I got farther into it, I realized that it was impossible for me to be ready to perform tasks in an infinite number of ways. The common advice - on exam day, just watch the examiner and do what they do - becomes a problem in the cases where what an examiner says (i.e. what they believe they are doing) and then what they demonstrate, does not match. L3 candidates have, or should have, pretty well developed MA skills and can see this kind of thing. It would be instructive for trainers to hear what students are saying to each other as they ski away . . . In any case, while some examiners are open to candidates who seek clarification during an exam, I know of situations where they didn't take kindly to being asked: "Do you want me to do what you said? Or what you did?"

But the final nail in the coffin for me, probably more important than anything else in this post, is that I began to question whether the certification process (upon which our pay depends) is measuring the right things. I watched an L2 candidate fail the exam after passing everything except for one skiing task. And then, the next year, they failed the exam after failing every skiing task except one! Did this person's skiing change that dramatically during the off-season? No! Of course not. And this instructor was a strong skier, an ex-patroller, who was already regularly teaching students up through Level 7 with excellent results. I had to ask myself - is the L2 exam measuring the right things if an instructor like this could not be recognized as skiing and teaching to the L2 standard?

It certainly sounds like some Divisions are better and some are worse at bringing their instructors along. But this is nibbling around the edges. I believe there needs to be a fundamental re-thinking of the certification process - of what skills we should be measuring to certify teachers of skiing. And that a more fair and consistent process for awarding certifications needs to be developed.

 

[WheatKing]

One thing that always struck me as odd with ski instructor levels is that you are required to perform the actual skiing, not just merely understand the mechanics and being able to diagnose and explain how to make different movements to achieve the end result..the practical and theory seem to be lumped together.

My figure skating days were quite different.. there was different levels of progression.. skills which were tested to demonstrate your athleticism.. and separate theory testing, where you showed that you had the proficiency to explain it well enough to teach. You didn't necessarily need one to do the other. If you could teach and showed proficiency at learning the "rules" then you could be certified to judge.

Maybe it's this way by design, to help identify those that are the "elite".. but it seems it would really limit the pool of L4 qualified instructors to those that can perform and can instruct.

It seems that most of the population could be helped by a current L2/3 that can identify and explain and teach at a L4 (theory) certification.

While it's important that instructors be able to show some athletic proficiency.. i'm not so sure that it's necessary in order to teach those at higher levels of athletic proficiency.

Should the only ones certified to teach/coach at a world cup level be those athletes that have won a world cup?

And maybe that's the way the governing body wants it.. to teach you need to demonstrate.. to my mind it would greatly benefit students if you could get a split certification. Lets face it.. there are some gifted athletes that could easily ski at a l4 but only teach at a l1/l2 level and some not so gifted l1/l2 that could easily teach a l3/l4 level.

My 0.02 from the sidelines.. I've got no interest in obtaining any certifications.. I'm just happy to go out and ski.

 

[fatbob]

My 0.02 from the sidelines.. I've got no interest in obtaining any certifications.. I'm just happy to go out and ski.

Ne neither, though I guess I might change if I hit retirement and start looking for ways to spread the stoke. (actually am qualied long ago as a CASI L1 snowboard)

The structural problem in ski instructing is as you identify - to progress to the highest levels you need to be both an strong skier and a strong and effective communicator. Maybe rightly so, make the badge worth something. Yet the unprepared tourist can pay $$s for a private lesson and end up with an instructor with no badge at all.

At the opposite end of the problem are the extreme barriers to entry thrown up in France around the Eurotest etc which effectively excudes anyone starting their instructor journey after the age of 35 from independent operation. This restricts the pool of good empathetic later life learners from ever instructing.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Those of you who read and post here know my attention to technical detail. I studied everything I could get my hands on before doing the LII skiing for my first time try. I failed, but I had a hunch that would happen. It did not hurt my feelings to fail, but I traveled with fellow instructors of merit from my mountain who also failed and got caught by surprise. They were mad, as in enraged. Why were they surprised while I wasn't? Probably because they thought they knew what they needed to do, while I knew I didn't. I knew I didn't know what to do because I had delved deeply into the resources provided by PSIA, and they were inadequate.

All that studying, note-taking, and going out on the hill to do what the materials said to do left me confused. Lots of the stuff provided was vague. BERP does not tell you how they want to see you initiate a turn. I realized that without a mentor who was actually a functioning examiner and up on everything current, I had no way of knowing if I was skiing to the standard. And I had no mentor. And no chance of getting one where I taught.

Since then I've learned enough, again not with a mentor, but on my own, to pass that exam and get the LII pin. It can be done without a mentor. But it can be made easier than it currently is for those of us who have no mentors. To do that, should PSIA decide to stop telling people to try harder, to stop being lazy, and to go find a mentor. It has to do something it hasn't decided to do yet, something different.

PSIA leadership, if it wants to get that pass level higher, has to make hard decisions about turn mechanics that they have been unwilling to make. BERP and the Five Fundamentals (an expanded version of BERP) do not address turn mechanics. Their purpose is to describe generalizations about a skier's versatility. The Five Fundamentals are generalizations that will apply to all turn phases and all turns, that will apply to turns made on snowboards, powder boards, tele boards, race skis and everything in between. Such generalizations do NOT tell a candidate how to do a "dynamic short radius turn" on an eastern black groomer with hard snow after a thaw-freeze, such that it will pass a LII exam criteria.

PSIA needs to publish materials that describe clearly initiation, shaping, and finishing all kinds of turns, from short radius to long radius. It needs to differentiate turns made on snowboards and narrow skis, on deep powder and hard bumps. It needs to talk about how to handle the phases of a turn when skiing a round line in the bumps, and when skiing a direct line. It needs to specify how to make turns in chopped up bowls and how to ski bottomless powder, and it needs to identify which of these types of turns candidates need to perform in each of the skiing exams. Such material is non-existent. If these things were made clear and had the imprimatur of PSIA, then the candidates willing to use those materials could have the potential to advance without a mentor. PSIA now relies on mentors too much, and has abdicated its responsibility to define just what it is looking for.

PSIA could publish a book along the lines of this one by Ellen Post Foster, which includes step by step explanations of turns, accompanied by photos:. Foster is quite good at putting things into words that leave no confusion.

...or even better, publish a book like this one by Karl Gamma, accompanied by line drawings, which are much more clear than photos:

If PSIA published such a book, it could be marketed to the public and bring in some cash. PSIA could publish something for its membership as an addendum that identifies which things in the book they are required to do on each level of skiing exam. Mentors, trainers, and buddies could look to the book to evaluate their skiing.

How much clearer could they be?

 

[Mike King]

I have spent much of the last 10 years attending events, searching out potential mentors, getting personal coaching and reading published materials.

As @LiquidFeet has said, many resorts don't have Examiners on staff. Mine has some Level 3's but their knowledge of the ever changing exam requirements is not sufficient, nor in some cases even accurate.

I am one of the "top" instructors at my school.

I would probably pass the teaching exam without much difficulty, but instead I am lumped in with the thousands of Level 1's, some who don't understand much at all about skiing mechanics, and many, like me, who are long time, highly trained and effective educators.

The Level 2 skiing exam and the dissemination of materials and clear understanding of what is expected is what I'm complaining about. "This is what we're looking for. These are the specific movements (hiccups someone said?) that will keep you from passing. Here is a current video of passing and failing versions of these tasks." etc.

Instead it's kind of like the definition of jazz. "If you have to ask, you don't know what it is." or the definition of pornography. "We know it when we see it."

I took an exam many years ago where all three Examiners had different criteria for "open parallel" skiing. One wanted drifting/skidding, one didn't. In addition there were Examiners in Training at the exam. Each Examiner described the task. Then the ETS demo'd it. They weren't always the same. What should I do" What the Examiner asked for or what the ETS demoed? (Rhetorical question.)

Sorry it's just a bunch of great skiers with a list of general concepts, making judgements. There is no consistency. How can you study for a test when you don't know how it will be graded?

I'm kind of annoyed by some of you saying it's the student's fault not the system's. Yes there is personal responsibility. Yes I may suck. But so does the system.

https://www.psia-rm.org/education/alpine/#1539010390324-bbfe96bb-1b52

 

[Steve]

Not throwing you under the bus here... have you read the most recent manuals or accessed exam information from your division's (or any of the others') websites?

Yes. There's not much I don't "understand." However without a trained eye to look at me and give feedback specific to the 3 Examiners that will assess me it's far from enough.

I hope PSIA reads this. If they do they might realize that their revenues are going to be effected as people realize that the expense isn't worth it.

I keep my membership primarily for the discounts on gear and skiing.

 

[Steve]

https://www.psia-rm.org/education/alpine/#1539010390324-bbfe96bb-1b52

Oh great, now I can pass.

Apologies for the sarcasm, and I've always liked and respected you Mike, but give it a break OK? That's not the solution.

Plus that's RM, not Eastern.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

PSIA needs to publish materials that describe clearly initiation, shaping, and finishing all kinds of turns, from short radius to long radius. It needs to differentiate turns made on snowboards and narrow skis, on deep powder and hard bumps. It needs to talk about how to handle the phases of a turn when skiing a round line in the bumps, and when skiing a direct line. It needs to specify how to make turns in chopped up bowls and how to ski bottomless powder, and it needs to identify which of these types of turns candidates need to perform in each of the skiing exams. Such material is non-existent. If these things were made clear and had the imprimatur of PSIA, then the candidates willing to use those materials could have the potential to advance without a mentor. PSIA now relies on mentors too much, and has abdicated its responsibility to define just what it is looking for.

I'm not so sure those things can even be put in writing. That's probably why I find myself posting less and less.

As much as people talk about studying for the exams, it's supposed to be kind of an affirmation that you are at the level. I'm not saying this is always the case, but there are some people that train and train and train, but rarely teach. It shows! Not making any accusations about any posters in this thread, btw, just an observation from exams I have been at and watching who from my mountain has and has not been successful.

 

[Mike King]

Yes. There's not much I don't "understand." However without a trained eye to look at me and give feedback specific to the 3 Examiners that will assess me it's far from enough.

I hope PSIA reads this. If they do they might realize that their revenues are going to be effected as people realize that the expense isn't worth it.

I keep my membership primarily for the discounts on gear and skiing.

Well, you said you didn't know what the standards were or have video demonstrating passing execution of the tasks. There it is. It is also on the Eastern site.

Now it seems you find the issue that you don't have access to an examiner to assess your skiing. Has your school brought examiners in for clinics? Are you asking your division to run clinics at your mountain? Have you made use of video and self coaching?

 

[Steve]

I didn't say I don't know what they are per se, what I said was that they are not consistent. How can you "know" something that is different from Examiner to Examiner and changes from year to year.

I was about to answer the rest of your questions, but I'm out. Sorry for my complaints, we clearly see things differently. Of course we're looking at different things, divisions in particular, so that's not a surprise.

I will not do target practice to prepare to shoot at a moving target.

 

[KevinF]

PSIA needs to publish materials that describe clearly initiation, shaping, and finishing all kinds of turns, from short radius to long radius. It needs to differentiate turns made on snowboards and narrow skis, on deep powder and hard bumps. It needs to talk about how to handle the phases of a turn when skiing a round line in the bumps, and when skiing a direct line. It needs to specify how to make turns in chopped up bowls and how to ski bottomless powder, and it needs to identify which of these types of turns candidates need to perform in each of the skiing exams. Such material is non-existent. If these things were made clear and had the imprimatur of PSIA, then the candidates willing to use those materials could have the potential to advance without a mentor. PSIA now relies on mentors too much, and has abdicated its responsibility to define just what it is looking for.

As I've gotten better at skiing, I've learned that "snow is snow" and smoothing out various challenging conditions (i.e., chowder in bowls or icy bump runs, etc) all comes down to the same fixes.

For example, last year the instructor that I work with and I were working on "point 'em down the hill"; i.e., don't bypass the fall-line. Doing so improved grip on ice, it improved stability in steep at Big Sky last year. I'm looking forward to working on that concept this season as I found that concept transformative, but it's not a condition-specific or ski-design specific thing... it's a "skiing" thing.

I subscribe to the "good turns work everywhere" theory and that you ski the same way everywhere, regardless of conditions. @Josh Matta 's infamous "it's not that you can't ski bumps, it's that you can't ski" statement is -- while blunt -- fairly truthful.

Do you feel that PSIA doesn't do an adequate job of describing what a "perfect turn" looks like, or they don't do an adequate job of describing how to execute it? Or that examiners each have a unique vision of what "perfect" is? All of the above? I've always thought the L1-L3 skiing standards were milestones along the way to more consistently executing a "perfect turn".

 

[4ster]

I'm not saying this is always the case, but there are some people that train and train and train, but rarely teach.

I have seen this so much over the years. I have even seen instructors say "I'm going to take a season off to focus on getting certified" It usually doesn't work that way. Same point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

Too many candidates get hung up on improving their personal skiing separately without seeing the correlation to their daily learning and teaching.

The most successful candidates teach... ALOT! The best training to be a certified ski teacher is teaching.

 

[markojp]

Oh great, now I can pass.

Apologies for the sarcasm, and I've always liked and respected you Mike, but give it a break OK? That's not the solution.

Plus that's RM, not Eastern.

My theory... divisions with high percentages of part time instructors experience generally higher failure rates. Eastern is by far and away the largest division, and also has a large number of part timers. The other thing that probably needs clarification is exams are conducted by two examiners and often shadowed by a third examiner in training. They certainly compare notes to see if there are discrepancies in their scoring. Shadowing an L2 exam, I was also asked to score the group. It was for my benefit, and my score didn't count. What I can say is all three of our scores were consistent. 1 passed, 5 failed (skiing) . Failing people isn't something examiners I know personally enjoy.

Someone above mentioned that they failed an exam because they failed a task. FWIW and in my experience in the PNW, the 'failed task' confirms the missing skill or skill blend that is also present in the candidate's skiing.

 

[KevinF]

I have seen this so much over the years. I have even seen instructors say "I'm going to take a season off to focus on getting certified" It usually doesn't work that way. Same point I was trying to make in my earlier post.

The most successful candidates teach... ALOT! The best training to be a certified ski teacher is teaching.

Would you think you need to teach a wide variety of skill levels for the "best training for teaching is teaching" adage to hold true? Here in New England it's a rare sight to see a ski-school jacket on anything approaching advanced terrain.

 

[4ster]

Would you think you need to teach a wide variety of skill levels for the "best training for teaching is teaching" adage to hold true? Here in New England it's a rare sight to see a ski-school jacket on anything approaching advanced terrain.

Yes & no, not necessarily. If we practice what we preach then the movements & skills we promote are the same no matter what the level, as you hit on above.

As I've gotten better at skiing, I've learned that "snow is snow" and smoothing out various challenging conditions (i.e., chowder in bowls or icy bump runs, etc) all comes down to the same fixes.

I think that the lack of advanced lesson teaching opportunities is the same everywhere except at the big mountain mountains. For myself coming from a small/medium sized day area/beginner factory that initial experience came from return guests becoming more advanced, teaching school & rec groups that came for multiple lessons over the season & often working with my peers & newer (than me) instructors.

"best training for teaching is teaching" is true but I also meant "the best training for skiing is teaching". It's not the only thing but it is significant.

 

[Mike King]

"best training for teaching is teaching" is true but I also meant "the best training for skiing is teaching". It's not the only thing but it is significant.

@4ster, does that also imply that you should be able to self-coach? Perhaps with video?

Perhaps gets around the lack of an examiner problem...

 

[4ster]

@4ster, does that also imply that you should be able to self-coach? Perhaps with video?

Perhaps gets around the lack of an examiner problem...

Absolutely! Especially nowadays with available technology that allows you to split screen 2 skiers on the same screen. Aren’t we all our own worst critic? It does help to have another knowledgeable eye around as we are also pretty good at making excuses for ourselves.
I know my own skiing improved when I began working with a videographer/photographer.
for instance, this short clip would remind me to be mindful of bending at the waist…

 

[markojp]

Would you think you need to teach a wide variety of skill levels for the "best training for teaching is teaching" adage to hold true? Here in New England it's a rare sight to see a ski-school jacket on anything approaching advanced terrain.

You're absolutely correct, Kevin. If someone had the time and money, a year spent teaching full time would fill in a bunch of holes. Fact of life is a brand new full timer will have more teaching time in 2-3 weeks than many part timers will have in a year or two (or maybe more). And if you're not 'learning' and dialing in your skiing while teaching even first timers, it's pretty clear there will be some hurdles that even a dedicated training staff won't be able to resolve. Working with lower level skiers, everyone should be able to make b(*^'in wedge turns, wedge christy's, open parallel turns, AND understand the fundamentals associated with them.

Not being familiar with the situation in the east, it's tough to say much about exam prep and the realities of what folks teach every day. Unfortunately, it can be a little of 'chicken or the egg' situation. It's not as much of a problem out this way as it's actually pretty easy to over-terrain students if we're not careful.