flipside 0 Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 I'm sure this Q has been posted many times, however... I'm probably an intermediate level snowboarder wondering how you other sliders out there got a snowboard instructor's license. Think it would be a good way to improve my own style and possibly open another area in which I can work in Japan. I know the gaijin instructor positions are pretty hard to come by, but you never know. Not even sure about levels of instructors licenses. Sounds like a great lifestyle. Slide on. Link to post Share on other sites
jared 0 Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 It depends how serious you are. If all you want to say is that you are a "snowboard instructor" then you can go to Canada for a week or so and to a rather touristy course. Serious ski/snobo schools wont touch you but you may be able to impress those that dont know. You may get away with this cheap and easy qualification in Japan and definately with some of the shoddy operations running in Niseko. I Quote: (("Jared, you have done a few days snowboarding haven't you? Could you take this group of beginners?")) If you were more serious you might do a longer training programme and get either Canadian stage 2 (which is a real qualification) or any other country's stage 1. To get NZSIA stage one in NZ there is an 8 day course with 6 days training/assesing you and 2 days of more tests. If you don't do a pre-course with someone elce, like the rookie academy, your chances are pretty grim. There is about a 50% pass rate and most of the people have done prior training. You end up being fairly competent though and its all good fun! try http://www.rookieacademy.com/ Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 When I was at University there was a group that I joined that trained us as instructors and gave us a free season's pass if we agreed to instruct on the weekends for 8 weekends. It was a cool group of people, otherwise it really woudn't have been all that worth it. Link to post Share on other sites
flipside 0 Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 Jared, cheers mate. Thanks for filling in a few blanks. So basically I must go to the major snow countries (NZ, Canada, USA, Europe) to do these courses. I'm sure there are a lot of phonies out there. Main thing is to look out for the qualification standards, I guess. Sounds like a lot of cashola $$$ would be needed, huh? Thanks again. Link to post Share on other sites
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