“Adapt to the changing needs of the learner & Manage emotional and physical risk”
These are two of our teaching skill fundamentals. As professionals, when we are evaluated for certification and credentialing, we are asked to adapt the learning environment to individual needs while proactively managing physical and emotional risk to enhance student engagement – yeah, it’s a mouthful. And it’s important:
Sliding has inherent risk.
On any given day,
- These parks don’t see much sun early – the snow is generally downright crispy first thing and sets up that way again mid afternoon
- The flow pace through these parks is fast. UNCOMFORTABLY fast for the average slider with heavy traffic (on Saturdays in particular)
- There are younger peers my guys know from school – who have years more experience in terrain parks than them – who are throwing rad tricks beyond my guys’ current ability every week.
- There are guests who become increasingly impaired from substances as the morning stretches to afternoon. And tons of guests who don’t know the etiquette or culture or have the requisite skills to navigate these parks safely for themselves or others
- The features (metal, wood, and hard plastics) are unforgiving when you don’t execute well: especially as you tire and conditions degrade
- Sometimes these students’ ability to assess their own skillset is faulty
I had to constantly assess these risks. I had to adjust constantly AND do so in a way that allowed 3 things:
- Continued technical skill acquisition/progress toward short term goals
- Ensuring they had a good time
- Doing #1&2 in a way that also continued to build trust between us for long term progression
It was exhausting.
My prep started FAR ahead of each lesson: checking the weather, determining if there were any competitions going on, and taking the boys’ overall health and abilities into account.
On any given run, dozens of decisions:
- Which features should we hit vs session?
- What’s the best angle to block them from behind as we travel?
- How many demos versus spotting for them?
- How is the rest of traffic flow affecting the trail?
- What do conditions require adjustments for? Speed, approach, difficulty?
- Are they continuing to improve or tiring/losing performance?
Over time I learned their propensities for stamina and physical risk. I learned my own as well: I skied harder and faster all day with them EVERY day than I ever do recreationally.
The emotional risks took longer to uncover and mitigate. Teenagers are constantly on the brink: social standing, independence, social media, and peer influence are wildly complex animals to navigate (let alone while juggling the physical side of puberty and throwing in that under mature prefrontal cortex)!
I had to extrapolate and manage the social hierarchy of the friend group, the individual emotional and ego needs of each member, and adapt it for interactions with members of the public at large (because image matters), and even worse: had to adapt it for the interactions with peers of higher ability level (who were sometimes younger in age).
I had to manage my own too: rationalizing through impostor syndrome whilst also swallowing my fears/anxieties of the features and tricks. I am not a nubile park rat….I have a mortgage and a favorite stovetop burner!
Choosing activities that built trust while navigating this landscape, was a never-ending challenge. Some days I didn’t get it right. One afternoon, while hitting jumps, one of the Hs kept starting his spin too early (or one could argue without enough initial separation of upper and lower body). I didn’t step in early enough to correct and on one jump, the early spin engaged his ski while it still had too much contact with the snow. This caused the ski/snow to redirect his body from a straight-ish trajectory to one that hooked aggressively right – right off the trail and into the woods – while still spinning in the air!
Seeing him disappear from view towards a tree is a moment that will stay with me a very long time.
Thankfully, he missed the tree.
His laughter from down the embankment allowed me to start breathing again. Mistakes in this realm can have literal life and death implications. This lesson was not for the faint of heart.
Over time, more of my thought process for these decisions occurred out loud to help provide examples of problem-solving and risk analysis in real time to encourage mimetic learning and critical thinking.
Eventually, I started putting the onus on them: asking them to identify and name the risks…and to mitigate them with a plan. Over time, they started offering without prompting: way, way cool.
Given the nature of their goals, and the environment necessary to work towards them – this teaching fundamental was arguably the most challenging.
