At the invitation of my friend Angelo Ross who is on the Alpine Education Committee for PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America), I had the opportunity to recently ski with Kathy Brennan who is the new CEO of PSIA Eastern Division. Kathy is an accomplished skier and on the staff at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. She is traveling the east from Maine to North Carolina listening to ski area management, snow sport school personnel, ski patrol, and industry suppliers all on the subject of how to make the organization better. Kathy is dedicated to promoting PSIA as an education platform and to be a true partner to all of the entities within the ski industry in the East.
Along with being an Examiner for PSIA and staff member of Waterville Valley, Kathy has been named as the new CEO and will have a full plate of responsibility. Hearing her vision for the organization and her mission to improve the relationship between PSIA and ski area management and to make them aware of the educational opportunities for those who teach their guests, was quite impressive. I asked her what her response was to the comments that ski lessons are extremely expensive and that the quality of the instruction does not often meet the financial layout by the guest of the area. Kathy said that her mission is to make ski area management aware that if they support the education of their instructors, they will get a better product to their customers.
Personally, I am a lifetime member of the organization seeing that I have passed my 40 year mark as a fully certified Level III instructor. Although I do not teach anymore, I still like to see what is happening in ski instruction and Angelo’s invitation was a welcome chance for me to sit in on a clinic that Kathy organized. You can instantly tell how competent a skier is by the shape of their turns, their balance and edging skills. As I followed Kathy during the clinic, I was impressed at how comfortable she was on skis in any conditions and how I could learn something from her. We had numerous discussions on the chairlift and when we had a chance to follow each other, she had some pertinent commentary on my skiing which I will work on this season. I told her I have been watching the World Cup and was anxious to activate my inside knee more during the execution of a ski turn. Gold Medalist Debbie Armstrong refers to it as “driving the inside knee” but my friend Mark Hutchinson, former race coach at Stowe, says differently. He says at our age we aren’t driving anything. We are putting our body position and our knee position in place to succeed. Our ski race knee driving days are over. LOL!!! Kathy understood and helped me understand that as a taller skier, it was important to create those edge angles. She showed us some drills where we could instantly see that if our upper and lower body were not truly separated( a flaw to many taller skiers), we would compromise our turns for success. I learn something new every year and breaking some age old habits is tough. But after 60 years of sliding on snow, there are still things to learn and I am not too far gone to try to keep up with the modern technique.
It was also interesting to see how pressure control, edging, and rotary movement are common to all three disciplines of snow sports. Our group had telemark skiers, alpine skiers and snowboarders. All in all a great day on snow with the new CEO and my friend Angelo Ross. It was great to ski with him as well. An accomplished skier and PSIA luminary in his own right. Follow his podcast- Chaos and Company on You Tube. No matter what you do, there is always something to learn each year. Take the time to research the latest equipment and technique. You are never too old to learn. Thanks for reading and think snow.
chroniclesofmccloskey 