How To Pass The CASI Level 4: Fail Your Way To The Top
This started out as an outlet to write down a few thoughts about my time spent working on the CASI Level 4 and somehow found its way into some kind of auto biographic advice column. Classic.
Nothing you read below will help you better understand snowboarding technique or how to structure a lesson. What it might do is give you an insight into how to manage receiving results or plan your training.
I don’t believe my story is all that unique. While it was fast and the lack of experience definitely played a part, I imagine all those that have gone through the process will find a lot of my feelings resonate with their own experiences.
Hopefully you each find something of value.
It is through how we manage failure that the greatest steps in our development are made possible.
As coaches we know this. We use teaching models built around trail and error calling them guided discovery or reflective learning. We train our eye to break down movement patterns, to search for inefficiency and provide feedback. We put our students in environments where they can have fun experimenting, challenging their skill sets to the point of failure to help them discover their own limits.
Yet when it comes to our own teaching, we seem to forget.
Everything we do is a skill. It is all learned. It can all be improved, and failure is the key.
Working towards the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors Level 4 I failed a lot and I failed hard. I’d highly recommend it.
One thing I truly loved about the CASI certification experience was the rollercoaster of emotions it put me through. Confidence and anxiety, hope and disappointment, relief and ecstasy. I think that’s partly what is so great about the pursuit of excellence in something you’re passionate about. The validation of the victories is equally as rewarding as the lessons from failure. Even if it doesn’t always feel this way at first.
Where this all really started was my first season instructing which I finished off by passing the Pedagogy component of the Level 3 (what I suspect may have been a consolation for being so close as to not walk away empty handed and discouraged). Even still, I was gutted.
It’s not that I had never failed anything before. Yet to spend nearly half a year thinking, training and working towards something, only to fall short despite being confident in my own performance, is brutal.
But we move on. It only makes us better.
It’s a funny thing being tested on your ability to both perform and teach. As you develop these skills it becomes clear that, while at the time you may have felt confident in your delivery, looking back it is easy to see just how far off you were.
Finishing the Level 3 at the start of my second season teaching I was stoked!
Three weeks later I began training for the Level 4. I’m not sure what to do with myself without something to aim for.
For those not involved in CASI or snowboard instructing, the Level 4 is hard. Of the roughly 6500 active members of the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors, there are less than 90 with a level 4 certification. For most it is a multiple season, multiple attempt endeavour that follows 5-10+ years of experience within the industry. To make it more challenging, there are typically only two exams per season, one in English and the other in French.
It is pretty fun though.
You get to freeride, carve and ride terrain park. Then spend time helping and learning from your peers as you try to improve their riding and develop their teaching skills. A group of people in red jackets and dark lenses also spend the whole time judging you. Writing in little notepads, showing no emotion. But it’s best not to focus on that part.
I have always felt if you are going to commit your time to something, why not try and be the best you can be. Since it seemed that this snowboard instructing thing was something I planned on doing for a while, this meant the start of my third season teaching was the perfect time to take the Level 4 course. I am sure I probably learned a lot in those six days immersed in snowboard theory, with the buzz and excitement of my peers also nerding out over physics and biomechanics. Looking back though, I think most of it just went straight over my head.
This was particularly evident during my first attempt at the exam later that season. Fifteen minutes into my pedagogy (instructor training) exam I turned to my evaluators and explained that I had basically covered all I had planned. To which I was told I had 45 minutes to go, so keep going. I can tell you now, spending three quarters of an hour making shit up as you try and improve the teaching of a group whom have a combined 40+ years teaching experience. All the while feeling the utter disappointment radiating from the two people there to critique your lesson. Is not all that pleasant.
It is however an exceptionally good learning experience. There is nothing quite like spending a year of your life passionately dedicated to improving, only to watch your plans implode, leaving you with unequivocal evidence of just how far you have to go. It’s not all bad, you have gained not only the knowledge of how the process works and what to expect next time. But also a clear idea of how and where those failures happened. It is the failures that are the key. Without them, without that experience, we are just training for the sake of training. You can’t know how you will perform when the pressure is on, when it all counts, if you never put yourself in a position to find out. I won’t however deny that it is absolutely devastating to begin with.
I finished this first exam unsuccessful in passing any of the three components. I was shattered. I knew the Pedagogy was a flop, the advanced lesson could have gone better for sure, but I had felt good about the riding. I had finished the riding component of the exam feeling like I had showcased close to my best. To be told that wasn’t good enough is hard, particularly when it is something you are so invested in.
Exam number 2 followed another full season of training. Backlining as often as possible I ended up heading to the exams having done 300hrs of “full time” work, over 150hrs of training sessions, every other day freeriding and broke. I was confident in the improvements I had made this year. My understanding of what was expected was greater and I was starting to feel more comfortable talking to more experienced coaches as peers. Taking on the feedback from the previous exam to tidy up the riding I put most of my focus into the park and corridor turns as those were the two aspects I had fallen short.
Frustratingly, as is often the case when given feedback on something specific we find ourselves hyper-focused on fixing that one small issue. This can ultimately be detrimental to other aspects of our riding as despite improvement of the initial feedback, the neglect we have shown other areas of our skillset becomes clear when put under pressure.
These results hurt.
While managing to improve on the previous attempt in both my lessons, now able to make it at least half way through each session before falling apart, looking down at the riding feedback crushed me. I had now successfully ridden at the standard in all 6 tasks, just not at the same time, falling short by just one point. This was made worse by the way the results are announced. That and hopeful confidence.
When you go through the exams, a few things often happen. You are surrounded by like minded, driven individuals and become somewhat of a team for those four days. You get assigned your groups and in most cases an instant unspoken agreement is formed. Everyone is here for the same reason, we all want to be successful at the end of the day, so we become each others best students and greatest cheerleaders. (There are obviously exceptions to this, people are people after all, each with their own way of processing stress and anxiety. Sometimes the greatest challenges come from the group dynamic or unexpected personalities). In general though, each lesson taught is followed by kind words of encouragement or stoke from the group, often out of ear shot of the evaluators (who have continued to show zero emotion).
This good natured enthusiasm does a terrible thing. It gives you hope. You know that lesson you just taught didn’t go as planned. The milestones you thought you would hit came too early as the challenge level was too low. Questions asked received blank stares followed by a stretched “I hope this is what you’re looking for” answer from your new team mates. But some things went how you wanted. The pace was good, you got three laps where most were getting one or two. Fun terrain made the lesson feel enjoyable as we are snowboarding and it tends to do. You managed to get some improvement in the weaker member of the group, the one who had come just for the experience. All of these things, with the help of that so thoughtful encouragement, allow you to see past the negatives and for a moment you start having the thoughts “maybe I’ve done it, maybe I’ve shown them what they needed to see”.
The results are announced as following: Partial completion (1 component), Partial completion (2 components), Full completion (3 components). Anyone not congratulated at this stage now knows they were unsuccessful and are handed their results/feedback.
What this all does, is create the perfect environment for a soul crushing disappointment. Particularly when you have the previous year to compare to. If there is one thing I was sure of it’s that I felt good with the riding, I know I did better than last time and the weak spots in my riding went significantly better this year.
Sitting there in a room full of people shitting their pants. Fingers crossed I was more successful than last year.
The first round comes and goes.
Huh…I wasn’t that confident in my pedagogy, maybe I passed both the ride and the teach!
Second round comes and goes.
Holy shit, have I done it? Am I about to become the youngest person to pass the level 4? I can’t believe this is happening.
Third round comes and goes.
They didn’t say my name. I had gone into this rewards ceremony content in the fact that I may leave with just the one piece of the puzzle and ended at a total loss for words, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
It wasn’t so much the results that got to me, it was the hope that something incredible was about to happen. This was without a doubt one of the biggest lessons of this whole process for me. I truly believe that at this level of coaching, you know. You know when you’ve done what you need to. We spend our days analysing peoples riding, teaching lessons, training and watching our peers. The standard while not always a clearly defined line, feels right when you get there. The lessons work, your peers and evaluators are engaged, there is genuine buy in to what you’re saying. People want to get better, that’s why we are all here. When you teach a lesson to the level that this group of highly experienced, highly motivated instructors finds rewarding, you know it. If it doesn’t feel that way, if it hasn’t gone how you pictured, that’s okay. You just aren’t there yet.
This year changed my approach to how I wanted to solve this puzzle. I spent the following season hugely focused on my riding. I had been close two years in a row now, this was the most attainable of the three components. My teaching was going to improve organically, going to training, getting more experience, planning more lessons, refining those I’d already tried.
But I was going to pass my Riding.
Learning from the mistakes of the previous year I put an equal amount of time into each of the Riding tasks and entered competitions to get better at performing under pressure. I had been riding near the standard for three seasons now, Above standard was the goal now.
The day of the Riding exam my third year I felt good. All I had to do today was ride my snowboard and show everyone how much fun it can be.
After watching the evaluators demonstrate the Corridor task, each showing something wildly different, I dropped into my first run aiming for something in the middle. It felt good, fun even, something which snowboarding confined to a vaguely marked out 8 meter corridor rarely does. The first lap of the Carving task I felt like I was riding on rails, the board had so much grip big turns or small, It felt like I could almost lie down and it would be there to support me. Everything was going exactly how I wanted.
Second lap down the Corridor felt even better than the first, I was stoked. Standing there waiting to drop in to the Carving task I was feeling great, my adrenaline was high, things were going to plan. I drop in and it starts the same way, I link 4 big pencil lines down the steeper aspect of the slope before timing a fully committed, over confident dive into the next toe-side turn perfectly with a small roller. This leads me to a moment where time slows right down. I am now horizontal, airborne, with my face six inches from the ground. I hit the ground with my face first and slide a good ten meters before getting back to my feet. All I can hear is the closest evaluator (I think Luc) shouting “Keep going!” So I do.
It’s the first morning of a four day exam, I’ve pinned my hopes on being successful in the riding component and on the second lap of the day I’ve managed to throw it all away. The riding is marked as an average score of the two laps which combined has to be six or greater, to be successful in passing the component you need a six or greater in all six tasks.
I took a moment and decided that since I had already failed, for the rest of the day all I could do was go out and enjoy snowboarding. The pressure was off, the expectations I had set for myself would need to be achieved at a later date.
The Rhythm change task was okay and I don’t think anyone ever really knows how they did with the Intermediate turns, I undid my boots and bindings and felt like I slid a lot so I guess that’s good.
The Freeride was in some pretty huge bumps and I felt a little lost trying to find a line that I liked. I carried good speed and found a couple doubles which were fun and led to some interesting recovery moves.
Freestyle was the last task of the day, just another day riding park with some friends.
The Advanced Lesson and Pedagogy went better than previous year. My expectations of myself were higher and I definitely didn’t meet them. The content didn’t progress the way I had planned but my main focus to keep the pace high, get great mileage and keep everyone stoked was achieved.
Trying to learn my lesson from the Results Ceremony the previous year, I went into this one with zero expectations. I had a huge crash in my riding exam and neither lessons went how I had hoped. I was excited to get the feedback and chat with the evaluators after to see where I could improve for next year.
I passed the Riding.
Pressure off, riding for myself, everything had clicked. I had done well enough in the Carving on the first lap, leading up to and after the crash that it didn’t matter.
I was absolutely ecstatic. Not only was this unexpected achievement validation for the last three years of training but it was also going to save me a few hundred dollars not having to pay the full fee for the exam again!
Season four I spent more time planning lessons, thinking and discussing them, writing and rewriting, practice teaching than any of the previous years. I knew what I needed to do and everything was starting to make sense. With the confidence that my riding was above where it needed to be I let it guide the kinds of lessons I wanted to teach. I would work on something in my own riding, mostly in how to increase performance or efficiency. If it was relevant to me how could it not be relevant to everyone else? This allowed my lessons to flow and the discussions to become more organic because everyone was actively feeling what I was feeling and able to build from it with me. This is partly why I was unsuccessful passing the Advanced Teach this season, I had grown accustom to training with a strong peer group where the standard of riding was high. When faced with a significant split in my exam group I wasn’t able to manage it effectively. It doesn’t matter if one of the people in your group is stoked because they can feel and try the movement you’re working on, if the others are lost. Ultimately snowboarding is built around simple movements and how you apply them is what makes them advanced. I missed this and I wrapped up my lesson feeling frustrated with myself for failing to adapt in what I could see wasn’t working.
Luckily the Pedagogy exam was rad. I used spinning on large jumps to develop my peers ability to teach their students to self analyze, by training them to self analyze themselves. It was like self analysis inception and it was beautiful. It was the kind of session you finish and think “I’d absolutely love to do that again”.
I don’t believe it’s cockiness in saying going into the Results I knew I had passed another component. It goes back to what I said earlier. When it happens, you know. Just as I knew the Advanced Teach wasn’t there, I won’t deny I didn’t let myself get a little hopeful for a miracle, that they didn’t see what I had felt was a train wreck.
Two down, one to go. My final season training for the Level 4 was very different to the rest. I knew what I needed to do. I largely felt that I should have finished it last year and only had myself to blame. It wasn’t a lack of understanding or teaching skills that let me down. It was the inability to adapt to multiple skill levels due to an overcomplicated movement. I think I did two practice lessons the whole season. I mostly did my own thing and used training more to keep engaged with my friends progression and as support for my training partner. The final training session of the year before the exams was a Pow day and all I remember doing is dropping cliffs with Dan. It was exactly what I needed.
The final time I taught in a CASI exam ended up feeling like three lessons in one. It started the same for everyone, yet the different skillsets had it flow into three separate progressions and teaching styles. One student needed to isolate the movement being worked on and spend more time consolidating it in an easier environment before moving on, another to build on the initial movement in small steps to keep progressing and the last greatly benefited from being challenged to find ways to apply it in unique situations to create variation in their riding.
It felt great, I embraced the split rather than fighting it. I allowed each student to take what they needed from me to progress and made my life easier by choosing a simple movement that could be applied in a variety of situations.
Getting the results was a huge relief. More than anything it was validation that all the training and time was worth it. It was made even more sweet by the fact I got to share it with two of my best friends.
This whole process was a wonderful journey from which I would learn so much about myself, the sport I love and how to achieve big goals. Having gone through the experience and watched many others striving for the same goal, there are a few common things I’ve seen that create success:
You have to want it for you.
The process of turning the idea of teaching people to snowboard for a living into talking about snowboarding for your career is hard. The money you spend on courses, travel, accommodation and the time you take off work to train, will greatly out pace the potential wage increase most resorts will offer once you’re successful. For the majority of instructors the level of riding and teaching required will feel largely irrelevant to their client base. If you’re at the stage of your development that taking the next step to becoming a level 4 is the goal, it likely wont open many new doors beyond what have already been opened. It can be frustrating and at times may even have you contemplating pick up skiing.
You are going to get significantly better at what you do though. You will ride better. Think clearer. See more.
Every lesson you teach will improve because the more you understand about anything, the easier it is to explain simply.
You need support.
What helped me the most was three levels of support.
Mentors — the trainers that guided my riding and teaching, offering feedback and teaching me new concepts.
A training partner — the person to bounce ideas off, push each others riding and offer support during exams.
Significant other — Someone who likes you enough to listen to you ramble on about lesson ideas and point out when it doesn’t make sense. I found it extremely helpful to have someone with a ski instructor background and a little knowledge of snowboarding listen to my ideas.
Often when we talk shop with people in our training bubbles they let us get away with massively overcomplicating explanations because they’re also thinking through all the little background details as you go.
We will say shit like “The goal is to use flexion/extension of the lower joints on the rear leg through the transition and into the new turn to increase edge pressure at the tail of the board allowing us to carry more speed through the top half of the turn resulting in a better arc to arc”.
“So you want me to push with my back foot earlier so I have more grip?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said”
There will always be a split.
In the Level 4 more than any other level you will have splits. Splits in both the riding skill and technical understanding. If you take my own progression for an example. As a student in my first exam I was riding below standard and had absolutely no idea how anything in snowboarding worked. My final exam I had been riding above the standard for three seasons and had passed the Pedagogy meaning I was confidently able to improve the teaching skills of instructors at the highest level. Put those two people in a group, throw in another somewhere in the middle and welcome to your lesson!
You may have students a couple seasons out of their level 3. Some that have had extensive training at a resort like Whistler Blackcomb. Some that have had no training outside that of the course earlier that season. You will have veterans with 20 plus years of teaching experience. Students that can spin large jumps, onto and off of rails. Others who are content with their one 360 in the small park. Ex-Olympians or World Cup athletes. Head trainers. Seasoned evaluators and some who have never run a course. Someone on their first exam or their 8th. Maybe you end up with some KASI carving machines, or even a hard-booter.
Looking back at the nine lessons I taught in exams I can put a face to each one of these.
This should be at the forefront of your lesson plans. It doesn’t matter what you’re planning on teaching, but it has to be relevant to anyone.
Get outside your comfort zone.
The reason I chose to follow the path I did, while expensive and often discouraging, is that I have always learned best through experience. Without taking that step to try something, knowing full well that I may fail, I find it extremely challenging to progress. I have to put myself in situations that make me uncomfortable. Ones that encourage me to perform based on instinct and training, where failure will lead to learning and improvement.
One of the most common flaws I noticed in my peers who were unsuccessful around me was that they just didn’t ride fast enough. You are trying to show expert performance, without riding at an expert speed the forces just aren’t there. You end up having to move more than you should, compensating for what you’re missing. That or you feel comfortable and appear static as you cruise down the slope.
If you don’t train (and I’m not saying always) at or near your limit, it’s going to be a very slow process increasing it. Passing an exam should mean riding at 90% and showing more than you need to.
This also often leads to lessons that fall short. The dreaded “solid level 3 lesson” feedback. We aren’t able to cater to the higher level riding because we don’t have enough mileage in that zone ourselves.
Everyone you teach is already an accomplished snowboarder. Have them work on something basic at 70% of their maximum and good luck finding things to improve on or creating any real buy in.
Write things down.
Passing these exams consumed me. I was always thinking about snowboard technique, how to structure lessons, concepts for improving advanced teaching skills.
Every day I would write down something new. At the time I lived a 20 minute bus ride from town, each afternoon on my way home from the mountain I would pull out my little notebook and start writing. Coming up with a new plan based on something I had done that day. Rewriting an old idea to fine tune it or make it relevant. Sometimes it would come out as a full lesson plan, other times just some ideas for a goal to achieve.
Hundreds of little lesson plans that looking back, are mostly terrible. They all however had potential.
Learn from the failures.
No lesson is perfect. There is always something you could have done to get more performance out of your riding.
There is and always will be room for improvement. Recognizing this, taking the feedback given by those who know more and adapting is what creates success.
It is very easy to get wrapped up in “passing” a test.
The people whom have the most success in the long term are those that see the passing marks as the minimum required to be successful. I want to be able to deliver that minimum standard on my worst days. I want to be tired, stressed and anxious, put on my snowboard and ride to the standard that is expected, fully aware that I can do much better.
The system is not rigged against you. There are no easy evaluators and hard evaluators. While ultimately any scoring is subjective, a strong lesson or a solid run is universally seen as good.
Take the criticism for what it is, a rare opportunity to get some external insight into how you can improve at the thing you’re so passionate about.
Hope this helps.