Instructor tip#72 - Goggles - Do you have different lenses for both bright and low light conditions? Do you have a source for spare lenses? Rusty can set you up with Sportstar pro form.

Instructor tip#71 - Edge Control - Being in a countered position prior to edge change is critical for high performance success. But do you teach this to beginners? Try focusing on this when doing wedge turns demos and see how much better they become. Teach your students to steer into counter with drills like picture frame turns (holding the pole in the middle to make a picture frame around an object at the bottom of a trail and make turns keeping that object in between the poles) and moving the inside hand forward through the turn (versus moving the outside hand forward to ready for the next pole touch).

Instructor tip#70 - Alignment - Can you recognize alignment problems on the snow? There are times when the reason a student can not perform a task is that their alignment prevents them from doing so. As a professional, you should at least alert your students to a possible problem. One thing you can do is perform some simple on snow tests yourself. The first thing you'll need is a relatively flat run with no double fall lines. Do you know a place at your mountain like this? If not, you better find one or have the groomers make you one. Check fore aft balance by having the skier ski straight down the run with you looking at the skier from the side. If the skier has trouble keeping their toes, knees and nose in a vertical line, they probably have a fore aft problem. Check lateral balance by having the skier try to ski on one foot. If they have to move the knee laterally to keep the ski tracking straight, they probably have a problem.

Instructor tip#69 - Falling leaf - Falling leaf is a great exercise for groups with mixed abilities because you can tailor the exercise differently for different group members. It may seem weird, but you can even circle ski with this drill. For advanced group members, you can add different foci (e.g. standing tall, playing with moving weight back and forth, speed control, track width, stepping or hopping at stall points. tip lead) in addition to the sliding. For less advanced students, you can simple it down to basic side slips.

Instructor tip#68 - Freestyle - 360s - The secret to coaching freestyle tricks is to make small steps. As with all jumps, use the Approach, Maneuver, Takeoff and Landing method to break the jump into components. Find safe spots for practice. Practice 180s first on the flats. Then practice backwards skiing. Then practice a forward to backward 180 over a tiny feature. Don't be afraid to hike back up to repeat the jump if you've found a good spot for practice. Then slowly work the speed up (bigger jumps) or switch to a backward to forward 180. For the 360s, review the windup move on the flats. Help your student with hands on assistance to get into the maximum windup position, but teach them not to use all of this prewind to start because this can cause an off axis take off. Find a spot with a gradual lip and a long landing ramp for the first 360 and make sure the snow is soft! Watch the position of the head during rotation. If the student is underspinning, try two 180s with the head (on take off look the first 180, when the body catches up, look the second 180/landing). Check that for a light edge set before take off, but look for the skis taking off straight off the ramp (off center take off can cause an off axis rotation) and watch the hand position (close to the body or out) to determine the impact on spin rate. Also check for the shoulders rotating all the way to the end of their range before takeoff. This can cause a stall in the rotation.

Instructor tip#67 - Balance - How can you tell if a fore/aft balance problem exists? Simple - just check to see if the hips are over the feet. How can you tell if the problem is due to poor alignment? Not so simple. You might get lucky by checking the student in a standing position from the side. The really bad folks can not align toes, knees and nose without moving into an uncomfortable position. In general though, most instructors recommend an alignment check only after they've gone through entire bag of tricks and nothing has worked. It's important that once you've identified alignment as the cause of a fore/aft balance problem, stop trying to fix it on the slopes. Just accept that the skier will pivot their turns and focus on developing a smooth finish instead. 

Instructor tip#66 - Socks -How often do you check your beginners to see that they have not stuffed their pants into their socks? Have you experimented with different socks? Do you know what to recommend to your guests and where they can buy special ski or snowboard socks? For quality ski socks you want to see material blends that offer insulating, wicking and padding features. Spandex also helps with keeping socks form to the foot so that they don't bunch up or wrinkle and create hot spots or blisters. You also want to see an over the calf design so that the sock will stay put at the top of the boot.

Instructor tip#65 - Turns - When teaching this exercise, if your students have trouble holding the ski tip down, have them start just by tapping their ski tips onto the snow. Tell them to think about picking their knees up and forward. If your students have good fore aft balance, then skip the uphill ski and start on the downhill ski or just directly try the leapers. Another variation of this exercise is to tip the downhill ski into the turn when holding the tail up through the turn.

Instructor tip#64 - Turns - When a student wants to solve the "my left (or right) turns suck" problem, look first for physical problems. Ask about injuries, eyeball their stance on the flats to check for leg length differences and check the bottoms of their skis for improper maintenance or uneven wear clues. If that does not identify anything, then focus on turn initiation. Look for upper body compensating moves for lack of lower body movements. Realize that problem "causes" are often "compensations" for the weaker nature of the leg. Once the cause of the problem is identified, you must come up with a movement change that does not take away the compensation. When working on developing the new move, make sure to move to easy terrain. Try to use garlands to repeat the turn over and over again to lock in the practiced move. If you have the opportunity to use video, having the student see themselves making their turns in the good direction as well as the problem one is a powerful tool for getting them to use the good moves in their weak turn.

Instructor tip#63 - Moguls - Most students need to be taking their intro to mogul lessons on groomed runs working on their short radius turns. But 99% of people taking mogul lessons want the lesson in the moguls. If they just don't have the short radius turning skills, your main priority should be speed control. Keep them going across the hill versus down. Start them out one bump at a time then stop, then 2 bumps etc. The traverse straight across and use your legs for shock absorbers is a great exercise to get your students tired and down the hill. Take them into a turn up the hill to stop and your ready to teach them the old man's way through the bumps.

Instructor tip#62 - Stance - Rusty's favorite exercise for helping to develop a wider stance has his group pair up. Each pair should be positioned standing sideways to the fall line and uphill/downhill from each other. The up hill person should remove his poles and hold them together at one end so that his or her partner can hold the other end of the poles. The downhill person tries to pull the uphill person down the hill, the uphill person tries to resist being pulled down the hill. When the uphill person has their feet close together, they are easily pulled down the hill. When the uphill person spreads their feet apart, flexes their knees and squares their shoulders to the fall line, they can not be pulled down the hill. They can really feel the difference in power that comes from the stance change. A common ski instructor exercise is called railroad tracks. You set your skis shoulder width apart and keep them there making turns only by tipping the skis on edge. The objective is to leave only parallel pencil thin lines in the snow (i.e. railroad tracks) because no skidding is occurring. A variation of this exercise is "cowboy turns". This is when you set your skis wider than shoulder width apart.

Instructor tip#61 - Carving - This tip works especially well for skiing in crud and heavy powder. But it is also a key factor in making great turns on groomed runs as well. It's a great tip for those new instructors who are teaching their first upper level lessons where the students are not really all that far behind them in ability. Use it combination with tip 60 and you've got a full lesson.

Instructor tip#60 - Carving - Rusty has seen many different variations of this tip including "long leg/ short leg" and "lead change". Although this is the most effective variation that Rusty has seen, it is important to note that some of your students just are not going to "get" one variation of this top or another. If you see a student not doing the movement you ask for, it is probably because they don't know how to command their body to make the move. The key thing here is that the objective is to get many body parts to move simultaneously through a conscious effort applied to a subset of those parts. It does not matter much which subset you can get working. Once you start getting some results, then you can fine tune the "how" this happens. Rusty has had the "force the lead change to happen" help his skiing at one point, but he never could get the "let the outside leg get long" tip work for him. He could feel the outside leg get long on good turns, but he could not make the outside leg get long to cause good turns. But he has seen this work for others. When you are teaching this tip, watch for the emotional reaction of your student to clue you in on what is going on in their head. Be prepared to change the focus. And be very aware that once the student relaxes, they will go right back to their old habits. It takes a lot of practice to bring this move into your unconscious skiing.

Instructor tip#59 - Carving - There are all sorts of possible things going on when your student is not finishing his or her turns. They may be addicted to speed. They could be solving a skidding issue by simply just initiating the next turn. Although it is helpful to discover the real root cause, it is fairly easy to get students to finish their turns by just telling them and then showing them. Although this alone won't produce a permanent change, you are not likely to have any success teaching good turn initiation without a good finish to the previous turn. When you're teaching finishes, watch out for the "park and ride" syndrome. Don't let your students extend the finish by just waiting for the skis to come around (and keeping the body static). Rusty uses a hand shake drill to teach continuous movement. Instead of just gripping and pumping the handshake, you should steadily increase the pressure of the grip (harder, harder, harder, harder harder), then decrease the pressure (softer, softer, softer, softer, softer). Use the continuous movement concept to apply to edge angle and foot pressure and you will avoid the park and ride syndrome and get better turn finishes.

Instructor tip#58 - Steep skiing - You don't want to scare your students on the steeps. They're already scared enough. But you absolutely want to make sure that they know the safety basics. Before their first steep run, they need to know how to self arrest and they need to know how to pick a safe line. You can make your students feel more comfortable by letting them listen to your planning at the top of the run. Something like, "Ok - The snow looks stable. I'm going to turn there, there and there. No rocks or trees to avoid. If I get in trouble, I can stop over there. When I get down to the bottom, I can move out of the way over there.". even though you may be totally comfortable with the run and not even consciously thinking those thoughts, voice them out loud so your students can learn by example. If you tell them they need to do all those things, they'll most certainly forget something.

Instructor tip#57 - Turns - progressive movement - Two of the most common problems instructors see in this area are "z turners" and the dreaded "park n ride" syndrome. Z turners use excessive steering rotation to abruptly change the direction of the skis. You need to give these students edge drill exercises and work on large radius turns to force the movements to be stretched out. Park n ride syndrome is commonly caused by lack of range of movement relative to the speed of the turn. The skier is late engaging the edge in the upper part of the turn, skids through the middle as huge angles are quickly created, then only slightly reduces the angle after the edges catch and the change of direction is accomplished. The skier then shoots across the hill in a "fixed" body position. Park n ride can also be caused by thinking about initiating the next turn. You need to give these students exercises to develop more range of motion and earlier turn initiation movements (e.g. finishing turns going up hill, skate moves to initiate turns and lifting and tipping the inside ski).

Instructor tip#56 - Travel - Can you give your students travel advice for taking trips? What should they pack? Will you remind them to pack clothing around their skis to protect them? Do they know about special places to pick up skis at baggage claim? Which airlines are skier friendly? Did you know that there are companies that will ship skis to resorts? What's the best way to get cheap fares from your town to popular ski destinations?

Instructor tip#55 - Turns - Short turns - When introducing your students to short turns, watch first for application of the fundamental movements. Can you see flexion and extension occurring? Can you see lower body steering? Is the body centered over the skis? Next check for equipment problems. Are the skis tuned? Is there a boot fit problem? Check the students body position  in a static position, then consciously watch leg position relative to feet and hips through a turn. Work on drills to emphasize steering, edging, then finally bending the ski.

Instructor tip#54 - Turns - The "move the hip to the inside tip" tip should  be used for all types of turns from wedge turns to parallel turns. Use the pole touch to help initiate timing of the movement. Although you can use the "reach way down the hill" pole touch to get your students to break through the fear of moving into a position where the inside edges may catch, this move promotes bending above the waist and actually moves the hip in the wrong direction. This tip is a follow on to the move to reduce "extreme counter" to a slight counter. Look for students to finish the previous turn with steering to create slight counter and for them to be in a flexed position. Watch out for students attempting the move from the back seat - they will have trouble. Work first on getting those students to stay in front of the ski all the way throughout the turn.

Instructor tip#53 - Health - Dry skin - What can you do to help your students combat dry skin? Face them with their backs to the wind when you stop the group. Carry extra moisturizer and offer to the extremely dry folks. Offer the parched a squeeze from your Camelbak. Teach them to about caffeinated beverages being bad and which beverages are good.

Instructor tip#52 - Powder - Work extra hard with powder newbies to watch for signs of fear and to build a positive enthusiastic tone. Keep telling them about the "nirvana" that lies ahead once they "Get it". If they are having trouble with speed control, work on going real fast on groomed runs by doing straight runs on the same pitch as where the powder is. Then, when they go straight in the powder, they will feel the powder holding them back and start to feel more comfortable. Make sure newbies do not overturn in powder to control speed. Use angles across slopes as a way to flatten the terrain to get just the right pitch angle for the snow conditions (i.e. depth and heaviness). In deeper powder and steeper slopes, never get more than 15 feet ahead of your student so you do not have to climb back uphill to assist with lost skis, etc. If you must ski in front, stop frequently to avoid getting too far ahead. A "ski in my tracks" exercise can help when the snow is deeper than optimal because you pack the snow down and make it easier for the newbie, but they will tend to ski faster because of the packed snow and find it difficult to follow tracks because of the different speeds. Always carry extra powder cords or string to loan to your students. Emphasize slow motion turns by talking through your demo turns (e.g. faaaasssstteer, fassster, faster, slower, ssslowwer, ssssssllllllooooowwwwerrrr; wait, wait, wait, release, release, release;. flowwwwwwwwwww from one turn to the next. If the students are unable to make smooth, continuous turns, force them to make just one turn to a stop; then return to only making very shallow turns. If this still does not work, go back to groomed terrain to fix the "z" turns.

Instructor tip#51 - Frostbite prevention - Rule#1 keep your classes moving! Watch out for white spots on exposed skin. Remember that most of your students will not be as well dressed as you are. On cold days, remember to ask your students how they are doing. Ask them what they do to stay warm.

Instructor tip#50 - Conditions du jour - breakable crust - The theme for a breakable crust day is BALANCE, BALANCE, BALANCE. Work as many balance exercises as you can into the lesson. Work on focusing on patience throughout the turns. Stress a more even weighting of the skis. Turns must be continuous and progressive. Introduce breakable crust with straight runs through it. Be conscious of the different weights of your students forcing to ride at different depths through the snowpack. Flatten steeper lines with garlands across the  slope.

Instructor tip#49 - Steeps - Rule#1 - you can not teach someone who is experiencing brain lock. If you can't teach steep skiing on steeper sections of an easier trail, teach the the techniques first, then save the "apply" part of the lesson till the last run. Always have plenty of extra time to take the first steep run in case brain lock slows you down (you can always use hop turns to slow down a student who's going too fast. Rule #2 - you never be sure which of your students will experience brain lock. Some will do great on easy slopes then freeze and freak on the steeps. Some students that have poor technique on easy slopes actually do better on the steeps (something about survival motivation?). Rule #3 - if they can't ski straight down the fall line, they are not ready for the steeps. Rule #4 - make sure you are not forced to introduce steeps and bumps at the same time.  Rule#5 - keep an eye out for signs of fear - jump all over fear issues early, but don't describe them as fear avoidance techniques if you don't have to - do follow me exercises, extreme short segments (1-2 turns at a time), introduce distractions, etc. Rule#6 - Celebrate the end of the run!

Instructor tip#48 - Gear - Powder cords (Powder skiing). Do you carry extra gear when you are teaching and when you are on vacation? Extra meaning  stuff you can loan out to people in need. Picture this scene: you ski up to some helpless chump whose been struggling to find his ski for 30 minutes. As you smoothly come to a stop above him you hear the reassuring clunk of your ski bumping into his buried one. He offers to buy you a beer in appreciation for saving him, but then he spots your powder cords with a jealous eye. You pull out a couple of pieces of season pass string you stole from the ticket office and them  over. He ups the ante to a pitcher and nachos.

Instructor tip#47 - Goggles - Bolle sends a catalog to all PSIA members (? or just level 2 and up?). You can order replacement lenses from this catalog at a professional discount.

Instructor tip#46 - Tuning - Carry a plastic scraper and a pocket stone with you on the slopes for every lesson. If a student takes a hit, you can use the scraper to file off any loose ptex and use the stone to clean up major edge dings. The best thing about a plastic scraper is that it won't break a rib if you fall on it and it won't rip your pockets out like a metal scraper would. Carry an edge file in your gear bag/locker so that you can clean up any minor damage that you picked up during the day..

Instructor tip# 45 - Frostbite - Avoid situations where your students will experience frostbite while in the lesson by doing a clothing check during the lesson introduction. Look for poor quality gloves, wet clothing and lack of head gear. Carry a spare chemical heat pack on cold days. If you spot shivering, then start by providing more vigorous exercises until you can get the student to a place where they can get indoors.

Instructor tip# 44 - Technical knowledge - How much time do you spend building your technical knowledge. Stop in the local ski shops in the summer to find out what's new. Set a goal each season for areas to become more proficient in. Save some old equipment to practice tuning on (e.g. rock skis). Can you spot unsafe equipment on the slopes?

Instructor tip# 43 - Tactics - don't forget to teach your students about tactics. Show them how to find the flattest line down a slope. Teach them how to avoid ice and find soft snow by reading snow texture.

Instructor tip# 42 - Fitness - Quick, what are the two most important elements of fitness for the slopes? Balance and aerobics? Well, at least these are the two easiest for the general public to work on. So recommend these kinds of exercises to your students first. If your students complain that their quads are out of shape, try focusing on improving their technique to reduce the effort expended instead. Did you know that people tend to lose balance skills as they age? If you've got older students in your class, do some extra balance drills.

Instructor tip# 41 - Psychology - Instructors are pretty good at spotting fear or scoping out "significant other" peer pressure. Can you name 2 other psychological problems commonly seen in lessons? Rusty sees "collision fear" and "I'm only here because my parents made me" a lot. Do you have a bag of tricks for psychology problems?

Instructor tip# 40 - Equipment - Teach your students the advantage of having their own or better equipment by showing them how much faster your stuff is than their stuff is. Also, tell them how much less effort is required to turn better equipment. Let them know that there all kinds of equipments to match all kinds of needs.

Instructor tip# 39 - Environment - Know what the weather forecast is every day you teach. When you're really good, you'll make your own forecast when you think the weatherman is wrong or the weather on your mountain will be different from the "town" weather. Make a mental note of the weather and slope conditions when you are planning your lesson. In your mind, build a "watch out for..." list at the beginning of the lesson.

Instructor tip# 38 - Tuning - Instructors have to be on snow in early season when conditions are sketchy. We're bound to pick some dings when traveling over thin snow. It's expensive to get those dings repaired in a shop every time. Most ski schools have an area set aside where instructors can do their own tuning. If there is not a special area, the die hards will set up shop wherever they can, but Rusty recommends taking your gear home in this case. If you're doing PTEX repair at the mountain, please remember that there's one big difference between tuning and base repair. FIRE! Before you start, you should check out if is ok because the boss might get pissed if you start lighting matches indoors. If you have troubles doing your tuning, make a little noise. Instructors have a hard time watching people struggle on their own.

Instructor tip#37 - Helmets again - Set a good example and wear a helmet while you teach. The newer helmets do not interfere with hearing at all (eh?). Rusty's personal observation of beginner's reaction to helmet wearing instructors has been positive. The jokes about "dangerous" sports have been far outweighed by "that's smart" observations and (after one full season of experience) no one has been scared off by the helmet.

Instructor tip#36 - Taking care of equipment - Most instructors equipment care tips amount to little more than telling first timers to take their skis off before they walk on concrete or telling the little kids to put their skis on the rack instead of just leaving them on the snow. Sneaking equipment care tips in to your lessons puts you in to the upper echelons of instructors. How often do we tell our students to wax their equipment regularly? Have you ever told students with rental equipment to get wax to rub on their rentals for improved performance? Their are lots of opportunities to pass this wisdom on. Work 'em into your lessons and your students will be grateful.