PSIA-AASI

11.4.2011

Team Training Update: Setting the Stage for the Future

PSIA-AASI’s annual Team Training session at Copper Mountain, Colorado, has always sparkled with the freshness of a new winter settling in across the high country.

In the same way that baseball’s spring training heralds the upcoming arrival of another hot summer, or football practice promises the cool clarity of October afternoons, getting the ski and snowboard teams back together on snow always means one thing: the sliding season has returned!

This year, more than a foot of fresh snow in the middle of the training session put an exclamation point on that sense of breathless anticipation for all of the possibilities to come. And it coincided perfectly with the spirit of focused urgency that seemed to radiate amongst the teams. Inspired by their success at the 2011 Interski in St. Anton, rooted by the history they helped celebrate at the 50/50 in Snowmass in April, and aware that this particular group’s four-year collaboration is coming to an end, each team seemed especially committed to defining their lasting contribution to the PSIA-AASI membership, while also setting the groundwork for the ideas they think the next teams will end up working on.

“All of the energy that came from having such a great season last year really carried into this season,” said PSIA-AASI Executive Director and CEO Mark Dorsey. “It started out with putting the bow around Interski, and what we accomplished there, and what we learned, and then quickly became about setting the stage for the future with the Strategic Education Plan.”

Dorsey said that continuing to establish a national level of consistency of education was a key element to the conversation being had amongst the teams. As was PSIA-AASI’s commitment to embracing new technology such as rocker, with several ski supplier/partners who attended Team Training offering kudos on Mike Porter’s super insightful “All Rocker Isn’t Created Equal” article in the Fall 2011 issue of 32 Degrees.

After several busy days of filming and completing voiceovers for the Movement Matrix, the PSIA-AASI Adaptive Team got to enjoy the new powder and new technology at the same time, testing out how the latest rockered skis impact their mono-skiing.

“At one point, Bill (Bowness) and Geoff (Krill) were the only ones on the snow, and everyone else was inside fine-tuning everything they had been working on,” said PSIA-AASI Professional Development Manager Earl Saline. “They had already put so much time into their filming, that the powder day was one of their first chances to really dial their equipment in.”

Saline said that the PSIA Alpine Team focused on keeping their content “fresh and current,” and honed in on the importance of stance and how it relates to every style of skiing. Meanwhile, the AASI Snowboard Team “knocked it out of the park” with their focus on both instruction and terrain elements in teaching three to six-year-olds how to snowboard.

“This was the last Team Training session for this team, which added urgency,” said Saline. “It’s a group that really came together around Interski, focusing on what they felt were the most important things to present, and what was meaningful to the membership back home. That common focus really created crossover and unity between the teams and this week allowed them to focus on their individual disciplines, which motivated them all to keep delivering.”

—Peter Kray