Crossover Training

CrossOver Training

You are required to have sufficient training in any discipline you teach. This ensures that you can safely assess your students’ skills and abilities while also delivering the premium experience that Keystone is known for.

The progression for is more similar than different. We ALWAYS start in the flats to ensure that skiers and snowboarders develop confidence and balance.

From there we can move to gentle slopes to develop skills needed to MOVE in the direction intended, meaning the tips/nose going into the fall line, with the tails following directly behind.

Then we can think about edge control and rotational skills. Without pressure management along the length and width of our tools, we don’t have balance and our students struggle. Remember, a progression is the development of new skills upon well developed old ones.

There is no shame in saying “we moved too quickly', let’s go back to make sure we’re safe and feeling comfortable”.

Reasons to Get Cross-Trained:

  • Keystone always needs more ski instructors

  • Make more money through likelihood for more lessons

  • Ski lesson tip better (rich people are more likely to ski)

  • Versatility makes your more marketable to any other resort

  • Get certified in both and you make more $

How to Get Cross-Trained
Snowboard to Ski:

For snowboarders learning how to teach skiing, this is a much more streamlined process. For skiers, skip to the next section. Here is a step by step process:

  • Signup and attend a Snowboard to Ski Crossover 2-day clinic

  • Get assessed on your own skiing skills - need to be mostly parallel and confident on skis to be able to teach skiing on the carpet

  • Your trainer will give you skills to be better at your own skiing

  • Learn the Beginner Ski Progression and be able to teach your peers

  • Get cleared by your trainer that you’re ready to shadow a real lesson

  • Shadow at least 1 real lesson by an experienced instructor (preferably PSIA-AASI Certified Level 2 or 3) so you understand the pacing and layout

  • Go lead your own ski lessons!

How to Get Cross-Trained
Ski to Snowboard:

A little more loosely designed but is manager dependent. Speak with your Location Managers about your intent to lead snowboard lessons. Shadowing is paid, but we often don’t need more snowboarders, so this is really time sensitive and need-based.

  • Shadow an experienced instructor, preferably a trainer, in a real lesson so you understand the pacing and layout of a great snowboard lesson

  • Follow up with that instructor to ask how they set it up, what worked well, what didn’t, and how they would do things differently

  • Repeat if necessary. Write notes. Understand WHY things work the way they do, and how that applies to your lesson in your primary discipline (confidence, balance, terrain choices, etc.)

  • Reverse shadow - Get someone to go with you on a lesson that YOU LEAD. That experienced instructor or lesson can give you feedback and help where necessary

  • Get clearance to lead your own and then….

  • Lead your own ski lessons!