What's interesting and actually a little frustrating, though, is that it's not entirely clear to me that those movements I describe aren't actually scales and arpeggios. I admit a bias against the certifying group's methods, the vast over-intellectualizing of the endeavor. I have enough musical training that I strongly believe in the value of theory, but I've noticed time and again that people sufficiently committed to theory begin to lose themselves in it. It's as though they forget that practice almost always guides theory, and when it doesn't--for example, 20th century serial music--the result might be intellectually satisfying, but lacks the aesthetic and intuitive grace that drove progression in the field in the first place.
Clearly, I need to be careful here. If I allow my bias against intellectualizing kinesthetic skills to blind me to practices that form the foundation of skiing technique, then both I and my students miss out. On the other hand, if I buy in and begin to deliver lessons built on theory, I risk losing access to what has been my driving focus as an instructor, which is to deliver lessons to my novice and beginning students that get them to experience skiing as fun.
Maybe that's my takeaway from the past few days. It's been interesting, and maybe I learned a lot--we'll see--but I haven't really been having fun. By analogy: too many scales and arpeggios, too much theory, and nowhere near enough music.