The coach hired for 20,000 yuan can't even wear snowshoes
Reporter Investigates the Problem of Mixed Ski Coaches
● With the continuous optimization and adjustment of epidemic prevention and control policies and the ice and snow fever brought about by the Beijing Winter Olympics, many ski lovers have been crowded in many ski resorts recently.
The ski fever also drives the demand for ski instructors for beginners
● At present, domestic ski instructors have low entry barriers, uneven technical levels, and there are a number of "wild instructors" and other chaos. Some ski enthusiasts pay 20,000 yuan for a instructor who teaches them how to wear snowshoes. Wrong, it was later discovered that the instructor had not yet obtained the primary ski instructor certificate
● There are many posts on social platforms about recruiting ski instructors, claiming that they can take up the job with "zero basic" training.
In some ski resorts, veteran coaches give simple instructions, and newcomers can receive tourists after three or four days of practice and evaluation
● This industry urgently needs to solve the problem of scarcity of excellent coaches, solve the problem of systematic training of coaches, improve the coach qualification certification system, raise the entry threshold for coaches, and ensure the safety of skiing
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Our intern Wang Yuqin
"In the new year, the circle of friends is swiped by skiers." Yang Zixuan, a girl from Beijing, found that with the continuous optimization and adjustment of the epidemic prevention and control policy and the ice and snow fever brought by the Beijing Winter Olympics, there has been a lot of snow in Beijing recently. There are many ski lovers in the field.
The skiing craze has also driven up the demand for ski instructors among beginners, and it has almost become a "standard" choice for every beginner to go to the ski resort and hire a coach.
However, many beginners said in an interview with a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" recently that when choosing a ski instructor, they will "step on the pit" if they are not careful.
Zheng Fei, a Beijing ski enthusiast, told reporters that the instructor she hired for 20,000 yuan taught her how to wear snowshoes in the wrong way. Later, she found out that the instructor had not yet obtained the junior certificate of ski instructor.
From the perspective of industry insiders, the value and role of coaches are very important to China's ski industry, which is currently in its early stages of development.
However, at present, domestic ski coaches have low entry barriers, uneven technical levels, and there are a number of "wild coaches" and other chaos. In order to ensure the safety of skiing, it is urgent to systematically solve the problem of coaching talent training and improve coaching qualifications The certification system increases the entry threshold for coaches.
There is no shortage of wild coaches in the ski resort
Dare to teach without qualifications
Skiing, charming but dangerous.
In January 2022, the well-known French actor Gaspard Ulliel died in a skiing accident at the age of 37, and the topic of #雪道少局是奥科# also rushed into the hot search.
For ski beginners, it is especially important to choose a regular coach and learn standard postures.
Because of this, in recent years, it has become almost every beginner's "standard" choice to hire a coach when entering the ski resort.
However, this option may also be "paying for the pain".
In order to learn skiing, Zheng Fei recommended to join a so-called "professional" skiing group through social platforms, and finally chose a "senior coach" recommended by 4 group friends to teach herself skiing.
At that time, she didn't pay attention to whether this "senior coach" had coaching qualifications. She thought that so many people's recommendation must be good, so she spent 20,000 yuan to book a class directly.
She recalled that after two days of studying with this carefully selected "senior instructor", she found that it was difficult for her to understand the teaching content. Teaching, when talking about theoretical knowledge, such as shifting the center of gravity, he told me that walking to the left means looking to the left, and walking to the right means looking to the right, but he did not explain that looking to the left is to assist the center of gravity to move to the left.
Zheng Fei also found that she often felt leg pain and was injured from time to time while learning to ski.
For a while, she doubted whether she was suitable for the sport.
Later, a fellow snowshoe told her that she was wearing her snowshoes the wrong way.
"That's when I turned the focus of the question to the ski coach." Zheng Fei said, "After I kept asking, he admitted that he hadn't obtained a coaching certificate when he taught me."
Many beginners interviewed said that to learn skiing, the choice of coaches is very important, but when choosing a coach, if you are not careful, you will "step on the pit".
Last snow season, Yang Zixuan met a "responsible coach" who did not have a coaching certificate and taught "plowing the edge" for many days.
As a self-taught ski enthusiast, Yang Zixuan found a ski instructor recommended by a group of friends in a ski group last year in order to correct his skiing posture.
"The first day I taught the 'plow edge', I feel pretty good, and I mastered it well. As a result, I taught me a 'plow edge' for 8 days, and he said he was going to take the entrance exam, so he stopped I did, and I found out later that he didn't have a coaching license."
"I finally figured out why he told me that I was his friend when I met people at the ski resort, and didn't let me reveal the reason for paying for the study." Yang Zixuan said.
The netizen "Shanghai Meiya" was deeply touched by the unreliable coach.
In the process of learning to ski with the coach booked on the social platform, "The coach asked me to call him a nickname instead of 'coach', and deliberately avoided the magic carpet of the snow field where there are many regular coaches during teaching, and went to the intermediate Taoist teaching. I went directly to the intermediate course as a skiing 'Xiaobai', it was terrible! Before teaching, I repeatedly confirmed with him, and he swore that he was a regular coach."
Many interviewees told reporters that there are more and more "wild coaches" hired privately like this in the ski resort.
Joe, a ski coach who has been teaching for 5 years, told reporters that he has seen many "wild coaches" during the teaching process. Difficult because the ski resort is too big and there are so many tourists. They say it's friends guiding each other and it's hard to tell the difference.
During the investigation, the reporter randomly selected a private skiing lesson on an e-commerce platform, and told the merchant that he wanted to learn snowboarding. Regarding the qualification of the coach, the person in charge of the course said, "National vocational certificate must be obtained, two The coach has CASI (Certified Snowboard Instructor), and other coaches have trained in major ski resorts, but they didn’t spend that money to buy a CASI certificate.”
The National Vocational Certificate mentioned by the person in charge of the course is called the National Vocational Qualification Certificate for Social Sports Instructor (Skiing), which is just an admission certificate.
The reporter also noticed that when most coaches show their qualification certificates, they are usually photos, but there is currently no relevant website to find out whether the photos correspond to the qualification certificates, that is to say, it is difficult to judge the authenticity of the qualification certificates only by photos .
Lack of complete certification system
The level of mixed fish and dragons is worrying
According to industry insiders, the current regular ski coaches in my country can be divided into two categories: one is the coaches belonging to the ski resorts, and the source of customers for these coaches is all provided by the ski resorts.
The ski resort will also cooperate with the ski club to package tickets, accommodation, training fees, etc. into a package for sale, and the income will be converted to the coach as income according to a certain percentage.
The other type is independent coaches, that is, affiliated to the ski resort. The income of the coach mainly comes from the training fees of the trainees. According to the different conditions of the tourists and the environment of the ski resort, the ski resort takes 20% to 35%.
The industry insider said that no matter what kind of formal ski instructor, the basic prerequisite for teaching is to have obtained a professional qualification certificate.
According to reports, there is currently no complete certification system for ski instructors in China, and the most basic threshold is to have a national vocational certificate.
Ski instructor professional skill appraisal is divided into 4 levels: ski (beginner) instructor, ski (intermediate) instructor, ski (advanced) instructor, ski instructor.
Relevant examination information can be found on the official website of the provincial sports bureau.
"Although the gold content is not very high, after all, it is a qualification certificate for practitioners. With this certification, at least it is much better than the 'three-no coach' who solicits customers in winter and farms in summer." Han Wu, a part-time coach with 5 years of skiing experience, teased road.
Han Wu said that skiing in some foreign countries developed earlier and the skiing coaching system was established more scientifically. For example, PSIA-AASI in the United States has set up nine categories including skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, children's experts, and adult experts. Certification exam and has three difficulty levels.
According to reports, if a coach has a snowboard teaching qualification certificate, most of them are obtained by applying for foreign ski coach system certification. The most common snowboard system is CASI.
However, most of these certificates are expensive. For example, the examination fee for the most common CASI certificate is generally about 2,000 yuan abroad, but 8,000 to 10,000 yuan is required for domestic examinations.
The main sources of ski coaches are also different: retired athletes, professional coaches who have obtained qualification certificates, entry-level coaches for ski resort training, specially hired foreign professional coaches, etc.
According to industry insiders, due to the high cost of ski resorts, coupled with the limitations of teaching ability, coach training system and other factors, the number of top coaches is relatively small. Therefore, the mode of many ski resorts is to find part-time coaches and provide a little training.
This method of "master leading apprentices" has trained many coaches for the ski resort.
But this model also means that the level of ski instructors is often uneven.
The reporter saw a lot of posts on a certain network platform offering training for national vocational certificates and asked one of the relevant persons in charge. 4 days to 6 days, the pass rate can reach more than 95%.
The reporter also found many posts about recruiting ski coaches on social platforms. Most of these posts did not mention the requirements for qualification certificates, and some even clearly stated that "zero-based" training can be employed.
The reporter randomly asked the person in charge of a ski coach recruitment team and repeatedly stated that he had no certificate and lacked experience, but he said it was "zero-based free training" and "after completing the training, pass the assessment and go directly to work", and said that the general training is about one week. Check the basics of double board and single board, the content is simple.
Peng Kai, who is currently working in Shenzhen, Guangdong, was introduced by a friend to work as a part-time coach at a ski resort. In fact, he had never even played snow before.
After Peng Kai paid the deposit and food expenses to the ski resort, he began to receive training directly.
"After studying for two days, I felt that my coordination ability was too poor and I was not suitable for this job, so I decided to leave. The ski resort refunded the deposit and unused food expenses, but asked me to pay 1,000 yuan for training." According to Peng. Kai recalled that it was said to be training, but it was simply given by the old coach, and the rest was done by himself.
Some of the part-time coaches in this ski resort have practiced for three or four days, and some have practiced for a week, and then they can ask the so-called teaching team leader for evaluation.
Mainly evaluate the 4 items of plow brake, plow turn, back slip, and back slip turn. If the teaching team leader thinks it is ok, he will send a coach card to record the performance to the part-time coach, and then talk about reception matters, and let them go to work to receive tourists .
"This ski resort is relatively large in the local area, but only a few coaches have formal ski instructor certificates." Peng Kai said.
For such a phenomenon, Joe agrees - there are many practitioners in the industry and the threshold is low. It seems that anyone can do it, and it is indeed a mixed bag.
Many coaches become "Internet celebrities"
Urgent need to improve certification system
In the suburbs of Beijing in early January, even at the ski resort at 12:30 noon, the outdoor temperature was only zero degrees Celsius.
Zhao Qi, a 23-year-old ski instructor, wore skis, sat on a ski lift, took off his gloves, and stuffed three small buns into his mouth—this was his lunch.
When the skiing season comes, most of the coaches in the ski resort are like him "cooking food" without a fixed time and place, and eat some bread and biscuits to satisfy their hunger. "This year's ski season came late. I also want to make more money in the remaining one or two months," Zhao Qi said, not to eat too salty, to avoid drinking too much water and going to the toilet.
In Zhao Qi's words, a little-known "little white" coach like him can only increase his income by picking up more students.
After interviewing several ski coaches, the reporter found that for most ski field coaches and independent coaches, the hourly charge of ordinary coaches is mostly maintained at around 200 to 300 yuan, and the income has increased compared with the past. Coaches may only earn more than 1,000 yuan a month. Now the monthly salary of ordinary ski instructors in southern ski resorts is 10,000 to 15,000 yuan, and the monthly income of coaches in northeast ski resorts ranges from 4,000 to 5,000 yuan to 7,000 to 8,000 yuan.
The charges of ski bloggers on social platforms fluctuate greatly.
The reporter randomly selected a number of ski bloggers on social platforms to inquire about the charging standards for snowboard beginners corresponding to the coaches. Some ski bloggers with a large number of fans charge 3,600 yuan for 3 hours of one-on-one teaching.
Even with such a fee, because of the favor of snow lovers, some coaches said that they should book courses at least one week in advance.
Generally speaking, the coach's class fee is related to the number of fans.
Coaches with less than 10,000 followers charge about 400 yuan per hour, coaches with more than 10,000 followers pay about 600 yuan per hour, and coaches with more than 100,000 followers charge about 900 yuan per hour or even higher.
In addition, the reporter found that many ski instructors chose to post teaching videos or students' skiing videos on social media to gain higher attention.
Joe told reporters that most independent coaches will open video accounts on social platforms or various video platforms to output content, with the ultimate goal of gaining customers.
In his opinion, if you want to be an independent coach to earn this money, you must first become an "Internet celebrity".
Han Wu also agrees with the current trend of "Internet celebrity" for ski coaches.
He believes that these videos not only give coaches a platform to show themselves, but also help students compare, reduce time and money costs, and help students choose the most suitable coach.
Although there are more choices, on the online platform that lacks supervision, there are a lot of chaos of ski instructors without qualifications, random quotations, and high prices.
"The quality of coaches in the market is uneven now. There is no good way to identify high-quality coaches. It depends on word of mouth." Yang Zixuan said, but sometimes "word of mouth" may be packaged, such as the one she hired without a coach. A certified "responsible coach" costs 25,000 yuan for 10 days. In the introduction of others, it is also "full of teaching experience" and "excellent in technology".
Some netizens said: "Even if I paid 500 yuan per hour, after a period of teaching, I still feel like a 'kite with a broken string' without the coach." During the teaching process, the coach "pushed, pulled, and helped" Learning how to fall is often the first lesson for ski beginners, and it is also a very important safety guarantee in skiing.
However, many beginners are very happy under the "escort" of the coach. Leaving the coach means "stand still and dare not move again".
"The level of coaches is uneven, some instructional actions are not standardized, the charging standards are not transparent, and there is a lack of industry norms and constraints." Joe said that the standardization of the ski industry still has a long way to go. In addition to strengthening supervision, it also needs tourists themselves. Be vigilant.
According to many industry insiders interviewed, this industry urgently needs to solve the problem of the scarcity of excellent coaches, solve the problem of systematic training of coaches, improve the coach qualification certification system, raise the entry threshold for coaches, and ensure the quality of skiing. safety.