Telemark Dev Team Exam

I wrote a little blog post about the Dev Team:

http://skiequalsmc2.blogspot.com/2014/06/psia-success.html

Here's the good part:

. . . if you're talking about professional ski instructing, you're talking about PSIA. I climbed the PSIA ladder to the point where I was a Level III in both Alpine and Telemark skiing. And after you reach Level III, what do you do next? Let's look at that part of the ladder:



Starting from the bottom, you can see that the next step is the "Alpine Educational Staff", where I have the option of Divisional Clinic Leader (DCL), ACE Team ("Advanced Children's Educator"), or Dev Team ("Development Team"), which has a further ladder to ETS and then to Examiner.

I actually tried out for Dev Team on the Alpine side in 2009. In fact, I wrote about the experience on the Epicski forum:

So I put together a sick run (heli in the middle, huge GS turns with my body way outside the skis, slalom turns with wicked rebound) until I got to the very end, where I hit some soft snow, somersaulted over the front of my skis, ripped my toepiece in half (the plastic itself), and bent my brand new skis.

So, that didn't go so well for me. I wasn't really bummed that I messed that run up, though. I was more upset because the people who did make it weren't really the greatest skiers I'd ever seen. Ace (who had also tried out) thought the same. We couldn't really figure out why we didn't get higher scores, but we chalked it up to youth (I was 28 and she was 27), imprecise skiing, and not really knowing anybody (all of the other candidates seemed very close with the examiners).

After that experience, I took a break from the Alpine ladder. I got my level III on the Telemark side in 2011, and it was an awesome experience. I didn't really know if the Telemark side was "better" (I've since realized that it is :-)), but I knew that I felt a lot more proud of my Telemark accomplishments than I ever felt about my Alpine accomplishments. After a couple of years of equipment dialing, I decided to try for the Dev Team on the Telemark side this past March at Killington.

The Telemark exams are different than the Alpine exams in general. Alpine exams are very strictly regimented and task based. For every task (short turns, GS turns through bumps, etc.), the examiner stands at the bottom with notecards and calls the candidates down one by one. The people trying out are evaluated and the examiner writes some stuff down and you move on to the next task. The Telemark exams are just better: more relaxed, more teaching focused, more group participation and cooperation, more skiing, more fun, and more Norwegian tele feasts:



This was the feast in a sidecountry cabin near Killington after Day 1 of this year's exam. I won't bore you with the details of skiing and teaching, but it's always stressful when you're in it. You never really KNOW you passed until they announce your name after everything is all over.

When they announced my name, I got pretty emotional. I don't know what it is when I pass the tele exams, but when the final scores come in, I really feel like I've accomplished something. The standards are ridiculously high. Great skiers and teachers didn't pass the Level III exam, just because they couldn't put it all together at the same time. I feel incredibly honored and humbled to make the Dev team, and the fact that I'm on track to be an examiner is still pretty unbelievable to me.

When you're climbing the ladder, you're always looking up to the people above you - people who have been there and have been doing this stuff for years an years. They've probably forgotten more about ski instructing than I ever knew. I am eternally grateful to the people who helped me along the way, and I wouldn't have gotten the warm feeling of accomplishing something difficult without them.

Thanks for sharing that, Matt!!! Hard work and dedication, that's what it takes, so to that I say congrats and rock on  

p.s. I liked the little snippet of your Alpine run too ...... anyone who has ever skied has blown up!! As long as nobody gets hurt they're always funny too!!! Gawd knows I've had my share

Thanks for sharing and Congrats.

From what I've heard the Tele exam and especially tryout process is so much more low key than Alpine.  Alpine tryouts are a pressure cooker that I don't want to repeat.

I tried out for DCL awhile back and just missed by one spot.  I had better skiing scores than 3 of the 4 that passed but I messed up the last teaching segment on new to the sport of all things.  Really I just chocked and had thought I already had it nailed.  I think they give priority for DCL to candidates from PA And a Western NY which is where the guys that made it were from.  If I would have made it I would have not had as much time to ski with my son so it ended well.

Lots of time and effort & money goes into this sort of thing. I have several friends who have taken a clinic or lesson from you (or at least I think it was you) and commented about how positive the experience was.

Got an email yesterday that said that Staff Training will be held at a Stowe in Early January.

I think I could get used to this lifestyle...

Nice!  Good to see commitment and hard work pay off for you....and great that the Gore freeheel scene has helped incubate high level talent!

witch hobble wrote

Nice!  Good to see commitment and hard work pay off for you....and great that the Gore freeheel scene has helped incubate high level talent!

+1

PeeTex wrote

I have several friends who have taken a clinic or lesson from you (or at least I think it was you) and commented about how positive the experience was.

I'm guessing it was.  I've heard this consistently.  Especially in relation to Glades and Glory or whatever it's called.

One thing I like about skiing with MC... he gives me very constructive advice when I ask for it and let's me suck when I don't.  Fun rules.