Guiding for Vision Impaired

What

Vision impairment guiding is a technique where a sighted guide assists a visually impaired person in navigating their surroundings safely. Guiding can happen off snow and also on snow while navigating the slopes.

Who

Almost everyone with a visual impairment will need guiding of some description. This will change depending on how much vision the guest has. Always use the visual impairment assessment to learn out how much vision the person has.

How

The essence of sighted guiding is developing a mutually agreed set of calls and techniques that you use. It is a team effort so good communication and mutually agreed safe decisions are important. Establish effective two way communication both on and off snow and do not deviate from established simple calls.

Off Snow

A person with a vision impairment will generally have a preferred way of being guided. Ask first!

A common method is having the guest stand beside you and hold your elbow only mentioning obstacles if the person you are guiding needs to take some action to avoid them.

In many cases simply moving your elbow in or out will guide the person effectively. Common phrases to use are steps up/down, last step, step up and over, ramp up/down, handrail on your left/right, door on your left/right, seat etc. When reaching a seat, place your hand on the back of the seat so that the person you are guiding can reach down your arm and locate the seat for themselves.

For more information watch the video below from Blind and Low vision New Zealand:

On Snow

If the student has ridden or skied before they may have a preferred way of guiding, If you are not comfortable with the techniques they use, negotiate with the student to find alternatives that work for both of you. Calls must be instinctive and cannot be confusing for either the guide or the rider.

When entering terrain for the first time, orientate the student. Use fixed sources of noise such as lifts and cafeteria decks as reference points. Describe the slope steepness and width, the snow condition, and the number of people around. Keep any unnecessary descriptions to a minimum.

On the flats you can guide with the use of a pole or your elbow. Common calls that are used for moving around are step left/right/forward/back, tip (of board/ski) left/right, slow down, stop.

The clock system is also commonly used on the flats whereby a change of direction is indicated by the time on a clock. 12 o’clock is directly in front, so for example, “turn to 9 o’clock” would indicate a 90 degree turn to the left.

Once a person is sliding, an emergency stop call has to be established. This needs to be loud, different from your regular slow to a stop call, and must be instinctive for both of you. Some examples are STOP NOW, DOWN, and HALT.

Practise a safe way for the student to stop abruptly after this call to minimise the risk of injury. Remind each other of this call from time to time.

Turning

Guide from the front if someone has partial vision so they can use you as a reference. Guiding from in front, beside, or behind are all OK if someone has no vision.

When establishing your guiding method with a guest it is important to have 3 main pieces of information in your communication:

• “AND short AND short AND short (3 short turns), AND turn, turn, turn (1 medium turn), AAAAND loooooong (one long turn).”
• Teaching cues and terrain changes can also be incorporated into the calling such as AND rise rise, sink sink, AND twist twist, STEEP turn turn.
• Other calls used on the slopes are straight, hold, slow, traverse. These can all be repeated to continue the task.
• Continuous pole tapping, clapping, or whistling helps the student to locate your voice or position.

Students with better vision may only need guiding calls in challenging situations preferring just to follow the guide. In all circumstances when you are guiding from in front your goal is to maintain a constant position and distance, relative to the student, that is within their field of vision. The tone and cadence of your voice will carry a huge message so if you want your student to remain calm keep your voice calm and steady even if you are freaking out.