Since its beginning, AISA has aimed to make the figure of the Aufgussmeister more and more professional, promoting, for this pourpose, the creation of training schools that were on the one hand autonomous in operations and management but which, under the aegis of AISA, had common addresses on the topics to be treated and homogeneous evaluations on the training of the various Meisters.
Four schools joined this project:
Professional Sauna Coaching
Aufguss.it Training School
Aufguss Italian Academy
Luigi “Perry” Silva Aufguss School
After an initial run-in period in which each school internally assessed the students, the AISA Board of Directors (which also includes the school directors), decides to set up an AISA Exams Commission in order to define and make unique for all schools the method of examination for qualification to the figure of Aufgussmeister after adequate training by schools and at least 15 practical tutoring at authorized structures and tutors.
The Commission has therefore drawn up an examination protocol as follows:
– A theoretical session that provides a paper of 50 questions (45 on what is present in the handout delivered to the course, on the Statute and on the AISA Code of Ethics and 5 extra questions on information and curiosities about the world of saunas); the duration of the test was fixed at 2 hours.
The questions cover the following topics:
01. AISA – Association and Statute
02. AISA – Code of Ethics
03. History of the sauna
04. Use of the sauna
05. Aufguss (typologies and techniques)
06. Aufgussmeister (figure, behavior)
07. Essential oils
08. Scrub and Hammam
09. Kneipp
10. Atmosphere (music, bells, etiquette ..)
11. Safety rules
12. Medical and first aid concepts
13. Legal notions
14. Music in the sauna
21. External questions
– A practical session during which the candidate performs an Aufguss in complete autonomy and the members of the commission evaluate its validity and correctness, assigning a score for each of these criteria:
Professionalism
Increase and distribution of heat
Ventilation technique
Use of essential oils.
To obtain the diploma of Aufgussmeister AISA, the student must obtain a score of 60/100 on both tests, under penalty of repetition of the single insufficient test.
The grade of the diploma (in hundredths) is determined for 60% by the grade of the theoretical test and for 40% by the grade of that practice (this indicates the importance that AISA gives to the knowledge that the Meister must have even before his skill in managing an Aufguss …).
Since 2016, the Commission has graduated 264 Meisters.
In the only 2019 it carried out:
9 exam sessions for a total of 17 busy days, involving a total of 61 commissioners and graduating 109 Meisters.
After the stoppage due to the Covid pandemic, the AISA Board decided to carry out the theoretical exam no longer in presence but through the use of an E-learning platform (Moodle).
This choice represents an important step forward to the correction activity simplification with the possibility of separating the theoretical sessions from the practical ones.
The questions have been completely revised to adapt them to the new platform (currently over 530 questions available), also introducing an assessment of the difficulty of the question.
Consequently, the algorithm for extracting the questions has also been revised in order to have questions that have not been used for a long time and, above all, to extract the questions with these percentages of difficulty: 50% easy, 30% medium difficulty, 20% difficult.
By decision of the Board of Directors dated 18/07/2023, the practical test is considered passed when both the Professionalism and Ventilation Technique criteria reach the sufficiency and the average of all the criteria reaches 60/100.
The current head of the Examination Commission is the advisor Graziano Barberini.
