EP 20 Everything SPI 01
Professionalism & Risk Management

01:10:45

Spencer Huffman and Szu-ting Yi both are AMGA certified Rock Guides and SPI Providers. They co-taught an SPI course back in October 2023 and found that their teaching style was quite compatible and complimentary. Therefore, they decided to do this podcast series, Everything SPI, to create supplemental material related to the SPI programs. Hopefully it will help their past and future students and potentially anyone who is thinking to enter the field of climbing instruction.. 

Show Notes:

Related resources:

Episode Intro:

Dear guests of the Female Guides Requested Podcast, happy Wednesday and Happy New Year of 2024. This is Ting Ting from Las Vegas. I am very excited to announce a new series, Spencer Huffman and I are creating, which we call Everything SPI. SPI stands for Single Pitch Instructor and is one of the certification programs the AMGA, American Mountain Guides Association, offers.

Both Spencer and I are AMGA certified Rock Guides and SPI Providers. We co-taught an SPI course back in October 2023 and found that our teaching style was quite compatible and complimentary. Therefore, we decided to do this podcast series to create supplemental material related to the SPI programs. Hopefully it will help our past and future students and potentially anyone who is thinking to enter the field of climbing instruction.

Spencer and I both have deep roots in climbing education. We have over 20 years of field instructing experience and are confident that we can provide valuable insights; we also recognize that the field of climbing instruction is dynamic and we can’t possibly know everything. So, if you have any questions, feedback, please reach out to us and help us improve. Thanks! And now please enjoy the very first episode of Everything SPI with Spencer and Ting Ting.

Things We Talked about:

  • Why do Spencer and I (Ting Ting) started this series, Everything SPI
  • Professionalism – what’s the definition of professionalism?
  • Work place etiquette
  • Representation
  • Is guiding or climbing instructing a real job?
  • Yes it is, and what’s the job description?
  • What’s the benchmark of this job and how can we make it better?
  • Providing our customer a good experience
  • Can you tell someone is a guide? From their looks from their personas?
  • Guide’s voice? Instructor’s voice? What does it mean and how to use it?
  • Risk management
  • What’s risk?
  • Likelihood and consequences
  • What kind of risk are we managing in the climbing environment
  • What tools do we have to management risk?
  • Explicit risk versus implicit risk – and some examples
  • And more …