Thanks so much for posting. My daughter is trying out for Dev team this year. Super helpful - I was a race coach and am soooo confused about PSIA skiing! Appreciate this vid a lot.
Glad this was helpful. Tryouts are tricky because there isn't a standard. It all depends on who shows up, how they perform, and how many spaces are open, budgeted for, etc. Some years they will take 4 or 5 new dev team members and others they will take 19. Due to a high number of examiners in the their 60's, in recent years they have been taking on more dev team members in an effort to build the examiner pipeline in preparation for a high number of retirements over the next 15 years. Here is my track record to give you an idea of how my skiing stacked up against the field: At the 2012 DCL tryout, my skiing came in 8th among 50 participants At the 2015 Dev team tryout I came in 15th among 29 participants, but I bombed my skiing coming in 18th in the skiing (they took 12 that year) At the 2016 Dev team tryout I came in 10th on the skiing among 34 participants (they took 19 that year) At the 2017 ETS tryout I came in 5th out of 19 participants and I came in 8th on the skiing. They only took 3 that year At the 2019 ETS tryout I came in 12th the skiing and overall out of 29 participant. They took 10 that year. At the tryout in this video, it was a combo ETS/Dev team reup. They didn't publish our rankings but I suspect I came in around 14 or 15 because only 12 made the ski cut to go onto day 2. I maintained my Dev Team status, and that cut line was around 16 people. So in summary, if you ski at a similar level to what you see here, you should end up in the top 20 at a dev team tryout but not in the top 10 among a typical gang and it just depends on where they draw the line whether you make the cut. If they take 20, you're probably in. If they take 5, probably not. Not sure if they have changed the scoring, but something to remember is that your wedge turn run counts as much as your bump run. Where some racers or ex-racers get hung up at Dev Team tryouts is they score well on assessment activities like performance shorts and dynamic medium radius turns, but they often ski wedge, wedge christie, and basic parallel with too high of an edge angle and too fast and they lose easy points there. Many of the Dev team tryout participants that come in 1st or 2nd also make the Eastern Demo team and go to national tryouts.
About the extension of the legs, putting myself in your boots, I feel that I would be pressuring the skis at the top of the turn, not lightening them. Then, further in the turn, closer to apex, when flexing is happening, I feel that this is when lightening is happening. Anyway, at a course last year, an examiner said I should extend my new inside leg a bit at turn initiation, quite opposite to what you were advised. Earlier, I had been asked to not pop up. I had trouble reconciling the requests. I resolved it by making a movement towards the direction the skis were traveling, towards my pole plant. That allowed me to extend the new inside leg briefly, in a different vector than up. I did it with early hip adulation, just a little. The examiner asked how that felt. I felt more pressure at the tips of the skis at turn initiation. He didn’t say whether I did what he wanted and I didn’t ask.
Right on. When I was referring to getting light at the top of the turn, you are correct that it happens closer to the apex or in the top third of the turn of the shaping phase. When I extend both legs before edge change, yes, there is an increase in pressure at that moment, but then the skis are light as edge change is happening and then at some point around the apex of the turn pressure builds again. But by shortening the new inside leg to make the skis flatten and tip to the new edges, you can start to extend the new outside leg which will build more pressure on the outside ski earlier in the arc from the initiation phase through the apex of the turn. This allow you to redistribute the pressure throughout the arc instead of experiencing a spike in pressure from appex through the completion phase of the turn, which can also lead to the loss of grip in the bottom of the turn.
I appreciate your honesty in evaluating your performance. I am a long time ski pro PSIA Level 3. I admire your persistence but don’t let PSIA define your value as a skier, they’re not the end all be all of skiing, more of a rag tag bunch of wannabes. Certification is necessary as a professional instructor but the organization itself is greedy and inconsistent. You’re a good skier.
Thanks so much for posting. My daughter is trying out for Dev team this year. Super helpful - I was a race coach and am soooo confused about PSIA skiing! Appreciate this vid a lot.
Glad this was helpful. Tryouts are tricky because there isn't a standard. It all depends on who shows up, how they perform, and how many spaces are open, budgeted for, etc. Some years they will take 4 or 5 new dev team members and others they will take 19. Due to a high number of examiners in the their 60's, in recent years they have been taking on more dev team members in an effort to build the examiner pipeline in preparation for a high number of retirements over the next 15 years.
Here is my track record to give you an idea of how my skiing stacked up against the field:
At the 2012 DCL tryout, my skiing came in 8th among 50 participants
At the 2015 Dev team tryout I came in 15th among 29 participants, but I bombed my skiing coming in 18th in the skiing (they took 12 that year)
At the 2016 Dev team tryout I came in 10th on the skiing among 34 participants (they took 19 that year)
At the 2017 ETS tryout I came in 5th out of 19 participants and I came in 8th on the skiing. They only took 3 that year
At the 2019 ETS tryout I came in 12th the skiing and overall out of 29 participant. They took 10 that year.
At the tryout in this video, it was a combo ETS/Dev team reup. They didn't publish our rankings but I suspect I came in around 14 or 15 because only 12 made the ski cut to go onto day 2. I maintained my Dev Team status, and that cut line was around 16 people.
So in summary, if you ski at a similar level to what you see here, you should end up in the top 20 at a dev team tryout but not in the top 10 among a typical gang and it just depends on where they draw the line whether you make the cut. If they take 20, you're probably in. If they take 5, probably not.
Not sure if they have changed the scoring, but something to remember is that your wedge turn run counts as much as your bump run. Where some racers or ex-racers get hung up at Dev Team tryouts is they score well on assessment activities like performance shorts and dynamic medium radius turns, but they often ski wedge, wedge christie, and basic parallel with too high of an edge angle and too fast and they lose easy points there.
Many of the Dev team tryout participants that come in 1st or 2nd also make the Eastern Demo team and go to national tryouts.
About the extension of the legs, putting myself in your boots, I feel that I would be pressuring the skis at the top of the turn, not lightening them. Then, further in the turn, closer to apex, when flexing is happening, I feel that this is when lightening is happening.
Anyway, at a course last year, an examiner said I should extend my new inside leg a bit at turn initiation, quite opposite to what you were advised. Earlier, I had been asked to not pop up. I had trouble reconciling the requests. I resolved it by making a movement towards the direction the skis were traveling, towards my pole plant. That allowed me to extend the new inside leg briefly, in a different vector than up. I did it with early hip adulation, just a little.
The examiner asked how that felt. I felt more pressure at the tips of the skis at turn initiation. He didn’t say whether I did what he wanted and I didn’t ask.
Right on. When I was referring to getting light at the top of the turn, you are correct that it happens closer to the apex or in the top third of the turn of the shaping phase. When I extend both legs before edge change, yes, there is an increase in pressure at that moment, but then the skis are light as edge change is happening and then at some point around the apex of the turn pressure builds again. But by shortening the new inside leg to make the skis flatten and tip to the new edges, you can start to extend the new outside leg which will build more pressure on the outside ski earlier in the arc from the initiation phase through the apex of the turn. This allow you to redistribute the pressure throughout the arc instead of experiencing a spike in pressure from appex through the completion phase of the turn, which can also lead to the loss of grip in the bottom of the turn.
I appreciate your honesty in evaluating your performance. I am a long time ski pro PSIA Level 3. I admire your persistence but don’t let PSIA define your value as a skier, they’re not the end all be all of skiing, more of a rag tag bunch of wannabes. Certification is necessary as a professional instructor but the organization itself is greedy and inconsistent. You’re a good skier.
What a nice thing to say! I really enjoyed reading your comment.