About the Author
This article was written by June, an experienced snowboarder and AASI-certified instructor with years of riding and teaching experience. She works with developing riders on fundamentals, edge control and turn shape. She also helps riders progress into more advanced riding, including carving. Her advice is based on first-hand teaching and extensive time on snow.
I think a lot of people assume the point of earning an AASI snowboard instructor certification is to perfect your own riding. I certainly believed that going into it, but after completing the Level 1 pathway I’d say personal riding skill is actually the simplest part of the exam. What matters far more is how you teach and how you analyse movement.
My Level 1 involved three days of training followed by two days of examination. Riding is obviously part of it, but you’re not there to show off. For the riding assessment, you strip away the flashy stuff and demonstrate the most basic movements as clearly as possible, while showing that you understand the six fundamentals of snowboarding.
The Riding Assessment Is About Clarity
One thing that surprised me was just how precise the riding demonstrations need to be. On my first day I was wearing fairly baggy snowboard pants, and the examiner pointed out that they were obscuring my alignment. I switched to more fitted pants the next day.
That sounds like a small detail, but it shows what they’re looking for. Your posture and movements need to be clear enough that somebody watching can see exactly what your body is doing and how that affects the snowboard. You’re not trying to make your riding look impressive; you’re trying to make it easy to understand.
The aim is almost to present the movement as clearly as a textbook. Each candidate gets two attempts at the riding assessment, and most people in my group passed on their first attempt.
The Six Snowboard Fundamentals
AASI breaks snowboard movement down into six fundamentals, and you need to know them properly because they underpin both the riding and Movement Analysis parts of the assessment.
The six fundamentals are:
- Controlling pressure along the length of the board by adjusting your center of mass relative to your base of support.
- Controlling pressure across the width of the board by adjusting your center of mass relative to your base of support.
- Regulating the magnitude of pressure created through the board-snow interaction.
- Controlling the board’s tilt through a combination of inclination and angulation.
- Controlling the board’s pivot through flexion, extension and rotation of the body.
- Controlling the board’s torsional twist through flexion, extension and rotation of the body.
Written down, they sound quite academic. They become much more useful once you start applying them to actual riding, because instead of simply thinking that somebody’s turn looks wrong, you start asking what their body is doing, what that movement is doing to the board and which fundamental it relates to.
That way of thinking becomes especially important in Movement Analysis.
Movement Analysis Changed How I Watch Snowboarding
For the Movement Analysis section, you need to connect movement in different parts of the body with what the board is doing and the trace it leaves on the snow. You then need to work out what the problem is and choose a drill that could actually help the rider fix it.
I practised this constantly on chairlifts. I’d watch somebody riding underneath and work through the same questions in my head: What do I observe? How are they moving their body? Which fundamental does it relate to? What’s the issue, and how would I correct it?
It sounds simple until you actually try to do it. Spotting that somebody’s riding looks a bit off is easy. Explaining why it is happening, using the right terminology, and then deciding what you would ask that rider to change is much harder.
For example, you should be able to explain how ankle and knee flexion or body rotation can affect edging, pivot and torsional twist in the board. The examiners aren’t necessarily looking for one magic answer to every problem, but your reasoning needs to make sense and you need to be able to connect what you see in the rider with what is happening at the board.
I still find myself doing this from chairlifts now. It has probably changed the way I watch other snowboarders more than anything else I learned during the certification.
Teaching Is the Real Core of the Qualification
The teaching section is where the qualification started to make the most sense to me. Being a proficient snowboarder and being an effective snowboard instructor are two different skill sets. You can be a very strong rider and still struggle to explain a movement in a way that makes sense to somebody else.
The teaching assessment is randomly assigned, which reflects what actually happens when you teach. You can’t predict whether your next student will be confident, nervous, quick to understand something or completely stuck. Part of being an instructor is being able to adapt your explanation and your lesson to the person in front of you.
The examiners are looking at more than whether you know the right drill. They assess your instructional decisions, behaviour management and interpersonal skills as well. That includes practical things such as where you position the group, whether your practice area is outside the blind zone of the run, whether you are watching uphill traffic while students traverse, and whether you are keeping track of the rest of the group while one person is riding.
Those details are easy to forget when you’re concentrating on technique, but once you’re responsible for a group on a mountain they matter just as much.
Another thing I underestimated before the certification was how much good instruction depends on the relationship you build with the student.
Snowboard instruction is both teaching and service. You need to communicate clearly, remain patient and create an environment where somebody is comfortable trying something, getting it wrong and trying again. A technically perfect explanation isn’t much use if the student is scared, confused or no longer enjoying the lesson.
I try to give encouragement frequently, particularly when somebody is struggling. If they need correcting, I’d rather give them something positive first and then one clear thing to work on than dump five technical points on them at once. Sometimes turning a drill into a simple game works better than another long explanation. And when somebody finally gets a movement they’ve been fighting with, a high-five genuinely goes a long way.
The point isn’t to demonstrate how much you know as an instructor. It’s to work out what that particular student needs from you.
Passing Level 1 Doesn’t Make You a Master Rider
One honest takeaway from the whole process is that earning the certification does not make you a master snowboarder. It means you have passed a standardised assessment and reached a milestone in your progression. It isn’t the finish line.
I still have runs where I don’t get something right immediately. The difference now is that I have a better framework for working out why something feels wrong rather than just repeatedly trying it and hoping it sorts itself out.
That framework is useful even if you have no intention of becoming a full-time instructor. Most recreational riders improve largely by feel, which is completely normal, but learning to look at your own riding objectively can make it much easier to identify what actually needs changing.
What I Took Away From AASI
I went into the certification expecting it to be mainly about improving and proving my own riding. What I came away with was much more about observation, analysis and teaching.
The biggest shift for me was learning to break movement down: looking at what a rider is doing with their body, understanding what that does to the snowboard and then thinking about how I would change it.
It has changed how I watch other people ride, but it has also changed how I look at my own snowboarding. Rather than simply thinking that something felt wrong, I’m much more likely to stop and ask why.
That, more than anything else, is what I got from doing AASI Level 1.
