Level 3 Exams - Saturday

One exam day down and one to go! And what a full day! We spent the morning teaching and did 4/5 ski-off runs in the afternoon. Only bumps remain.

The weather today was fantastic! It was sunny and right below freezing. The conditions started really firm and were soft after lunch. The atmosphere was much better than expected. The examiners did their best to put people at ease. Most people were pretty relaxed. I quickly distanced myself from anyone who was stressed.

There are 26 people on exams. The majority have been on exams before. Some have already passed either the skiing or the teaching and are back trying to get the second half. There are five examiners - Sandy, Brian, Doug, Jason, and James. All five are judging the ski-off runs with their marks averaged. We are in smaller groups of 5-6 for the teaching. For the teaching I had Sandy today and have Doug tomorrow.

I drew Intermediate Parallel and Short Radius for my two lessons. I couldn't be happier with the draw. As IP and SR are two of my best runs I knew I would be able to demo them well.
I had about an hour this morning to warm up before we started so I sought out appropriate terrain for my lesson, finding safe areas to stop, checking out sight lines, practicing my demo, and thinking about what I was going to say. When Sandy asked for a volunteer to go first, I jumped at the chance.
I think the lesson went well. Sandy asked me privately if I was nervous because my voice sounded tight but the people in my group who didn't know me thought I sounded confident. Sandy also told me that I did well at picking out what each needed to work on but could have had them ski faster. My guess is that it is still a pass.

I could then relax and take part in the remaining classes my cell had to teach - Advanced Parallel, Short Radius, and Bumps. My AP runs were really strong in the class where my SR was not as good as usual. It's usually the reverse for me. My Bumps were not good but then everyone was struggling in them as they were HUGE and none too soft in the morning.

I did a couple of runs after we were "released" for lunch. Then after the soup I brought from the condo I headed back out for a couple of runs before we re-adjourned for the ski-off. For the ski-off we had a practice run for each run. We started with Intermediate Parallel down Waterfall - a double black diamond, Devil's Glen's steepest run. Not exactly what I pictured for an Intermediate run!!! A good one for me to start on as it's usually one of my best runs. We went alphabetically so I was 4th from the end. I did my best to avoid watching anyone else come down so I could leave the vision of the instructor's demos in my head. It seemed to work as I think I did well on that run.

Next up: Dynamic Parallel. We did this one on Inferno, a single Black Diamond. I was feeling pretty good on it - getting so lateral that I felt I could scoop up snow with my hand. Then I had a stumble right in front of the examiners. Oops! I didn't fall or anything but got majorly out of balance. We'll see how they account for that.

The third run was short radius. We did it on Stairway - double black but not as steep as Waterfall. My run felt good. Not stellar but solid. One little stumble in the soft snow but recovered quickly. A few of the other candidates did go out of their way to compliment me on it, one going so far as to say that it was the best of all the runs. So maybe it looked better than it felt. One poor guy fell which must have been embarassing.

The final ski-off run was the dreaded wedge turn. Every examiner demonstrated it differently. The 5 of them stood close and seemed to compare marks as though they needed agreement. The run felt pretty good so hopefully I did well.

So, to summarize my day I think I passed my first lesson teaching. I skiied well today - not as well as I can but possibly well enough to pass today's skiing. To pass the skiing I need to pass 3 out of 4 of today's runs. A passing mark is 6 out of 10 as an average of the 5 judges' marks.

Tomorrow morning I teach short radius which I'm not too worried about. The real test will be the Bumps. They are a must pass and they are intimidating - large with big gullies on a steep pitch. We are doing the lessons in the morning followed by the Bumps after lunch so I can get some warm-up runs in over lunch. I'm just going to have to suck it up and really go for it. Wish me luck!