A couple of days ago I instructed a developmentally disabled girl named Heather. Though Heather is close to 40 yrs old, she has the maturity of an 8 yr old. She is the happiest student I have ever taught, and perhaps the most joyful person I’ve ever met. She is also full of love. In two hours with Heather I met more people on Mammoth Mountain than in the entire six weeks I’d been here previously. She ran (and skied) up to strangers and told them she loved them. She threw her arms around all of the men she saw and said, “Hi Cutie, are you married?” If their reply was “No.” she informed them that they were her boyfriend. She told the lift operators that she loved them and insisted on trying to squeeze in hugs before the lift-chair rounded the corner to scoop us up. She sang the entire way up the chairlift and as she skied back down. At first I was concerned how people would react to a stranger running up to them, professing love for them, and hugging them (boundary violations?). But I was inspired by the warmth with which people responded. In the Disabled Sports office I heard a few people commenting that it hardly seems like a disability to go through life being ecstatically happy and full of love.

Lately I’ve had a funny expression running through my head at odd times, “There’s a new sheriff in town!” Where did that come from? I don’t know, but I crack myself up each time I say it to myself. I was thinking about what other funny expressions there are that I could add to my silly internal dialog.

In 16 hours I’ll begin a three-day-long exam to become a certified ski instructor through the PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America). The exam is for Level 1, which will certify me to teach beginners. The exam has several components. One is the demonstration of skiing skills to Level 1 standards. Another facet is the ability to do movement analysis, showing that we can properly assess a skier’s form in order to determine what movements we’d want to teach them. We’ll also be evaluated on our ability to do teaching presentations which simulate real-life lessons. We will need to do technically correct demonstrations of the skills a beginning skier would learn. And, lastly, we will hand in a written exam. 

Among the content we should understand is how humans develop from childhood to old age (so we can ask of our students what is developmentally possible and appropriate), the biomechanics of proper ski technique, the American Teaching System  (a 9-step flow for conducting lessons), and theories of learning styles (so that we teach to a person’s particular learning style).

In preparation my friend Zach (who also works at Disabled Sports) and I have been attending clinics and study groups run by experts. The training has been invaluable in making us better instructors.

If I pass this exam, I’ll turn my attention to preparing for exams at the end of April for Level 1 certification in Adaptive Skiing with a specialization in Cognitive Disabilities.

Below are just two of the interesting sights one can see on the Discovery Chair (Chair 11) at Mammoth on any given day.

In the photo below my colleagues are getting ready to load a skier in a bi-ski onto the chairlift. Skiers who cannot use their legs use mono skis or bi skis. This is a bi-ski (since it has two skis on the bottom of the chair).

A few chairlifts up from this is a ski patroller riding the lift with his dog, King, who is an avalanche dog. The photo isn’t great, but you can just see the dog and his boss cuddling as they ride up the mountain that King would soon come bounding down. Dogs riding up chairlifts are a really cute to see.

It went from Spring to Winter in a matter of hours here in Mammoth. It’s been storming all day and there is tons of powder.

After building this igloo, they drove a snow cat (tractor)onto the top of it to be sure it was really strong.

Brrrr…. it’s cold again. That’s great news for snow conditions.