New Zealand has some very talented park riders.
New Zealand has a Park and Pipe course to educate instructors on how to teach in the park.
This course is somewhere in between Canada’s park 1 & park 2. In order to pass this course one must be able to spin clean 360’s both directions on a med jump, as well as over a side hit outside of the park. A rider must be able to show a Boardslide on a box with the board reaching 90 degrees in orientation with the box.
Their were many parts of the teaching style that I enjoyed. One in particular is how they incorporate the Environment into their teaching. For example we were hitting a medium jump and practicing our Shifty’s. We were asked to point the nose of our snowboards at the trees on the side of the run. This is a very simple idea but the visual cue did help me to get the most counter rotates that I could.
The Kiwi’s refer to a straight air as a primary movement. The next step was to add a shifty, which was referred to as a secondary movement. In order to pass their level 2, one must ride over a medium jump and incorporate some sort of secondary movement like a Shifty or a grab.
When teaching park, they believe an instructor must keep their student in the “sweet spot”. In order for a student to be in the sweet spot the instructor must balance safety with fun and achievement. Their teaching methodologies state that in order for a student to be successful they must be; comfortable, confident and committed.
In order to be successful with the park and pipe certification the candidate must be efficient at analysis and improvement. On the hill the evaluator shows the candidates a video of a student trying an unsuccessful trick with a cell phone. Students partner up, imagine that the rider on the video is the their partner and are tasked with going about giving their partner the feedback that they think they need.
Overall it was a great session that I really enjoyed and will start to incorporate some of their ideas into my own lessons.
Breen Trott