London 10th-12th September 2010 Congratulations to Nicolas Church (from London) and Johnny Grootaert (from Belgium) who both passed their ICP Level 2 Certification this weekend in London! The ICP Level 2 exam is designed for existing instructors who want to progress to a higher level of theoretical understanding and learn to teach intermediate skaters. The skating level necessary for Level 2 is a significant step above ICP Level 1 and both candidates worked hard at improving their skill base and making sure their demonstrations were accurate and consistent.
The theoretical jump from Level 1 to Level 2 is also one which demands much more of the instructor who now has to deal with multiple ability levels in the same group and a syllabus of much more complex skills. The ability to spot the most important problem within a group of skaters and fix this with new exercises is not easy and this course gave the candidates wonderful opportunities to do this as they were teaching real intermediate and advanced intermediate level students.
I would like to extend my huge appreciation to those skaters who came on Saturday and Sunday to be guinea-pigs 
and receive instruction from Johnny and Nic. Their feedback was invaluable and directly helped the candidates to improve their techniques and communication. They were, I think, impressed to discover just how much is going on within a normal skate class and how much an instructor has to be aware of and in control of. When something is done well, we take the skills necessary for it for granted.
The atmosphere on the course was friendly, concentrated and focussed 
(with regular outbursts of laughter and jokes). I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and would encourage any ICP Level 1 instructor to take this additional step in their professional development within the inline skating instruction industry and take the Level 2 course in 2011.