The Game - What you Do

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1. Full Engagement
Once you know what you are going to do and where you are going to do it, you start doing it! Safety, fun, and learning are foremost. This is the time we help create ‘memorable experiences’; this is the time that ultimately is about ‘life balance’ and engaging in the lifestyle that are the snow sports. This is the time that we spend together, but ultimately also within our own selves as we “Do It - Feel It- Be It”.

Full engagement refers to the whole spirit, soul (mind/emotions/will) and body. The more successful both your guest/s and yourself will be, depends on full engagement. Research the literature and online and learn about what this entails. Explain what your goal regarding full engagement:

2. Oscillation
In our world here on earth, there are rhythms in every living thing: we breathe in and out, our heart pumps, the tides flow, the sun rises and sets, we are awake and we sleep, we run and we rest, we concentrate on study and we relax, we play and we relax. As you spend time with your guest, executing your ‘plan’ and adapting, learning to sense when to change, to stop, to start will help you develop into a master instructor. If you are not aware of oscillation in human behavior, the challenge now is to become aware of it.

3. Energy Management
Often when we speak of energy management in snow sports, we only think of pacing in regards to the physical realm. However, learning how to manage our energy within our beings is a critical aspect to nurturing full engagement with maximum performance with ‘flow’.

If you are scratching your head now regarding the previous sentence, add this to your oscillation challenge - research, ask and learn.

4. Flow
Learning how to use enabling language, enabling non-verbal language, creating an enabling environment to produce maximum performance, ‘brilliant’ (thank you Weems) skiing/riding, ‘flow’ is perhaps the ‘holy grail’ of snow sports instruction.

Olympic bump skier Shannon Bahrke Happe (the pink haired young lady) relates how she would prepare herself for a competition run. As she would stand in the starting gate, she would first look up and gaze at the mountains, then down on the crowds, scanning for her parents, then finally at the course and go. She was in the moment, with her whole being, she could flow.

Curious about ‘flow’? You know what to do.

5. Adaptation
While you are with your guests, you will need to be adept at adapting your action plan to your goals, or even adapting your goals to reality. This is where the ‘art’ of what an instructor does comes into play - and literally it is often ‘play’ (play energizes - it releases and even creates energy).

Consider the above mini-discussions about full engagement, oscillation, energy management, flow and adaptation. What is your response? Thoughts? Plans for yourself? Your guests?

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