So this week Vail is hosting a PSIA Cert 2 exam. We have 70+ candidates on the mountain in groups of 8 or 9 skiers plus an examiner for each group.
I was working today and my assignment was to ski the frontside groomers...greens, blues and blacks. I LOVE days like today where I can spend hours mostly doing drills. So I was practing one footed releases, two footed releases, phantom move with lift tip, foot pullback, NSPP, etc. One of the runs I was skiing was Cappuccino, which is a decently steep blue tree run. I was practicing my super phantom turns, skiing as SLOWLY as I could. About 2/3 of the way down, there was a group on the side--obviously Cert 2 candidates.
Since I was in my red jacket, I skied to them to say Hi, welcome to Vail, how is is it going, etc., etc. After some chitchat about me teaching as well, the examiner, who had watched me coming down, said " nice turns. Can I make a suggestion?" Sure, I replied. "Widen your stance!" he said. OK..got it...thanks, and skied off.
Amusing isn't it... "nice turns", but widen your stance to make them better??? Now admittedly, he did say widen it by only three inches, so some credit to him.
Now I am SO torn....do I listen to HH, or do I listen to the gods of skiing...the PSIA examiner? Hmmmm, need some help here...
Vailsteve.