Fritz Stephenson Interview

Hello and welcome to the Global Skiing Podcast. Today I'm talking with a good friend of mine, Fritz Stephenson. And Fritz, I just want to welcome you onto the Global Skiing Podcast.

Well, Tom, really nice talking to you, nice to hear your voice again, and thanks for inviting me.

Yeah, no problem. You're on the other side of the world in Canada right now.

Yes, that's right. Unfortunately, we're not such a good winter.

Right, okay.

We do our best.

Yeah. So, I met Fritz a couple of years ago in Sun Peaks in Canada, and the thing I remember, I don't know if you remember when we first met, but I watched you come down a slope and, you know, I watch most people on the mountain ski, and this guy, you stood out as someone that obviously really knew how to ski well and I came up to you and I said, "Oh, hi, my name's Tom and what's your name?" And yeah, so it was just cool. I just remember that first moment of seeing you and knowing that this guy has got something about him. He's obviously done a lot of years, a lot of skiing and knows how to do it. So do you want to give us a bit of a background on yourself, sort of where you started?

Well, thanks. Thanks first of all that I stood out. You give me that credit that I didn't just stand out because of my accent. Yeah, exactly.

I didn't know you were Austrian, so that was a surprise.

Good, good. Well, uh, my history— I actually wasn't born in Eskidane. I was born, uh, in a small town close to Vienna, which is, which is called Schwechat, which is really close to the airport. So quite industrial, uh, city, you can say. But I was fortunate that my father was a ski instructor as well, and so he took me out like every weekend. We went to the mountains and I just skied any single time I wasn't in school. I just was out there and went out with my father. And I kept going and like every Austrian, I did my race club training. I was never really good in racing, but you just sort of have to do the race club thing. It's a very Austrian thing, traditional thing. And yeah, so I skied a lot and I did all my school, and most of the time I spent in Zell am See. Actually, I trained a lot in Zell am See. And after I finished my school and I did my army— we have to do in Austria— and then actually I worked on the airport in Vienna because it was so close, as a forwarding agent. So I was part of the export team, I was in charge of transportation for East and all that stuff. I did it for one or 2 years, and I remember I went on holidays, on summer holidays. It was in July, and I started surfing. It was in Greece, and I met a guy who was my surf instructor, and he was, uh, in winter he was ski instructor. And, uh, I was really impressed that, yeah, in winter I ski, in summer I surf. And, uh, he said, it's a great life. And I started surfing, and we hung out a little bit, went back I will forget, on a Sunday, on Monday in July, I quit my job and everybody asked me, "What are you doing?" I said, "I become a ski instructor." I had no idea how to become a ski instructor, where to work, what to do, and I quit my job and said, "No, I become a ski instructor." And after that, actually, I tried to find out, okay, what do you have to do to become a ski instructor? And yeah. Brought me to Zell am See again where I met my former boss and I did my Level 1 in November it was, and that's how I came to ski instructing actually. And then I did my Level 1, right the next year I did my Level 2, and yeah, so I went on and I became more and more passionate about skiing. In the beginning I became more passionate about alpine skiing because everything was very easy for me, Level 1, Level 2. Yep. Fell on my nose because of that, because I said, okay, I just ripped through Level 4 easily, but I was partying more than, uh, than actually training, and I didn't pass my Level 3 by far. And suddenly I realized, okay, you have to change something, you know. Okay, you put the path of the alpinist instructor in Austria, you know, or you actually train and concentrate on training and go for your Level 3. At that point, I didn't think about my 4.

Yeah.

And so I trained, concentrated more on that, and passed my Level 3. And then actually, '94 to '96, I did the school in Vienna for sports coaching and teaching, and I specialized in gymnastics and skiing. And actually, through gymnastics, I became a much, much better skier. I became— I improved by 2 or 3 levels, and suddenly I realized, wow, that's That's amazing, you know, just doing gymnastics can improve my skiing. Just understanding internal and external movements of biomechanics, of dynamics, improved my skiing by far and was a great experience. And that sort of changed a little bit my approach in skiing as well, and I trained differently And yeah, in 1999 I did my Level 4, and then I went on. I always stayed in the same ski school in between. I did some seasons in Australia, in Mount Bobo. Yep. Everybody who doesn't know Mount Bobo, you didn't miss anything because it's the smallest ski mountain in the whole world, but it was good fun. And yeah, then I worked my way in the ski school to become supervisor. I was a supervisor in the ski school of Zell am See, and I did some demo championships in Austria with the team, and then I swapped over to single demos. So I got really involved in the, in the ski instructor, in the training world, in the Yeah, obviously in the ski instructor world. And then in 2003, I got invited, uh, for the Snow Sports Academy. And at that point, Richie Berger was the head of Snow Sports Academy. And Snow Sports Academy is the provincial ski instructor association. And, uh, yeah, then I started actually to train properly with Richie Berger. And I stayed, we stayed about 10 years together as a team, as a great team. And yeah, after that, a lot of things happened and life changed. I became a dad and married, I married an English woman, and we decided to make a big adventure, can you move? And we moved actually 2012 to Canada. I started to work in the local ski school of Sun Peaks. We moved to Sun Peaks and yeah, here I am. We never went back to Austria and I got sort of stuck in Canada now. Yeah, that's a good story.

There's some bits in there that I didn't really know about. But yeah, what's interesting, so you— the gymnastics part you said really helped you improve your skiing. So with the gymnastics training, were you— was that all quite new to you? Like, had you grown up doing gymnastics, or was it something you took on?

I did a little bit of gymnastics when I was about 14 or 15, but never in a competition standard or competition level. Yep. And Yeah, I did many things. Like I said, I was fortunate and my father was quite sporty. He was a ski instructor, he played soccer, so I played soccer, I played tennis, I did a lot of all-round sports. And then when I did my sport coaching, yeah, we had the choice where we could specialize in one or two or three type of sports, and one of them was gymnastics. And it immediately jumped on me where I said, okay, yeah, I want to do gymnastics and I love skiing, and I thought, okay, maybe I can combine that. And yeah, I did— we did a lot of floor training, so we did a lot of floor exercises. We— I don't know all the elements in English. Yep, we did the horse Yes, the Pommel Horse, which was just an experience on its own because the first 2 weeks I was just on my nose, on my palm, on my knees, everywhere. Great, great. So, yeah, and throughout that I tried to combine certain things or to put certain things into my scheme.

Okay, can you remember any particular kind of things that you've found were cross-related, or like really you were like, oh, that's really gonna— well, that really helped my short turn or my edging or something?

Well, I think, uh, in general, first of all, I became stronger. I became much stronger because we trained 6 times a week, and so I became, uh, physically stronger. Yeah. And That of course helped my skiing quite a lot. I was able to, to angulate much more because I could hold this pressure. I was able to ski faster. Yeah. But also my understanding of forces, because we learned about forces and I could feel the centrifugal, centripetal forces on different elements in gymnastics.

Yeah.

And I tried to play with these forces in my ski. So I tried to, you know, incline much more, or how far was I able to put my skis on the edge. So I tried to play with that and try to relate it a little bit to gymnastics. Yeah. And actually, I became a stronger skier, but on the other hand, I became a much more relaxed skier, which was fun. Yeah. So it is really well together.

Yeah, very cool. That's very interesting. So, Fritz, when you really started to take training seriously, who were some of your mentors and why were they, you know, what sort of made them important and helped you? What were some of the characteristics?

Well, the first mentor, as I said, I started in the ski school of Zell am See, and the ski school was run by a guy named Albert Schmiedhuber. And ski instructors who are a little bit older, they maybe know this name still. He, you know, Schmiedhuber was named along with Kuppenhauser, with Professor Franz Hopliger. Quite really strong names in the ski history, not just in Austria, in the whole world. They definitely built foundations in skiing and these foundations will always exist. So, and Schmidhuber was one of sort of these three guys and I was fortunate to work for him. And what did I learn from him? Just the first thing I learned about him was leadership. He was a really, really great leader. Everybody who knew him had respect of him. And on the other hand, he was really loyal. So he definitely— because there was a time where I talked about, you know, first 3 years where, you know, the paddling part was more important for me than anything else. But he probably saw something in me where he said, okay, I keep this guy, he's good. And so he was really loyal, he was always supporting me, always in good and bad times. And he had a strong charisma, really strong charisma. And you know, he was a guy, he came on with his big Chevy, and you know, in Austria, somebody comes with a big Chevy, skiing with a big cowboy hat, you know, you always think, okay, 'What's wrong with this guy?' And it was just a characteristic. And then on top of this, he was a— in his time, he was a great skier, you know, it was an awesome skier. Never forget when we once went skiing and it was off-piste and he went down and everybody said, 'That's great powder,' because he just skied down. Yeah. And then I started and After the second turn, I double ejected because it was, it was breakable crust. And then we just all jumped down like, yeah, like crazy. And he was just screaming at us, you have to ski, don't jump like mountain goats. And it was just amazing, amazing feeling and amazing control of his body on his skis, always balanced and centered. So he definitely was one of one of my mentors, I would call. And then as I did my Level 4 course in '97 and '99, I had a break in between because I injured myself. I was fortunate again and I had two examiners, Kukanik Martin and Grigor Berndt. Everybody who knew them, they knew what, what caliber of skiers Dever. Yes, and I learned a lot. Uh, they completely changed my skiing again, especially, uh, Quaver Bernd, for example, with short turns. When I saw him skiing down, I never saw such short turns in my life with that equipment we skied on in those days. And so he just, uh, yeah, swapped my whole ski around as well. And then I go on the Martin, Martin in the Moguls. Yep. A lot of people know his videos from Japan, and, uh, you know, just amazing, uh, mentors. I didn't have them for a long time because it was just a part of the Level 4, uh, program. Yep. But definitely learned a lot and, uh, took that with me and, uh, and, uh, tried to improve these things I learned. The next 3 years after I did my Level 4. And then of course when I met in 2003, I met him before but I never skied with him at the Level 4 course, Richie Berger I met in 2003 and at that point Richie Berger was the head coach, the head coordinator of Snowboard Snow Sports Academy. Like I said, it was the Viennese Snow Sports Association. I met him and I got invitation and I started to become an examiner. Yeah. And then, uh, yeah, I actually, from that point on, me and we as a team started to train with, uh, with Richie Berger. And that was quite a amazing time, amazing 10 or 11 years with Richie Perra to get to know him, and he built a really strong team around himself. It was just amazing. We had guys in like Rotensteiner Hannes, Kusnik Hannes, Frank Dieter, all really strong charismatic skiers. And yeah, it was definitely, uh, Richie Berger was one of, one of my, uh, most important mentors in my, in my, in my ski.

Great. So like, um, to give us an example of, you know, the kind of training you used to do with this team, um, yeah, can you like, can you maybe explain some of the exercises or drills that you found really, you know, made a difference or really pushed like the limit of your skiing? Like, just, uh, yeah, like, how does— like, what are some things Richie Berger does and, and this team you're with sort of would do to, to really get your skiing going to the next level?

Well, first of all, I have to say, uh, Ueli Zuberger is a very determined person, so he's a very determined, focused, and precise person, not just in skiing, just in daily life as well. And every exercise actually he showed us, he challenged us, you know, every exercise was new, every year he came with new exercises and he challenged us every time with new things, so it was really great. For example, I remember when we started to talk about the movement forward-inward, forward-inward, that you commit into the turn, that where we say, okay, we really try to put the center of gravity to the inside of the drum, for example, with carving long radius. He introduced that to us, and I remember we did it, and he said, "Oh, you didn't do that." And we said, "Of course we moved forward inwards." He showed us a video. All we moved was in the universe, you know, just straight up, but never We never committed into the turn and said, "Look, let's try it." And I'll never forget, and people still talk about it, or other instructors who saw us training the team of Snow Sports, because suddenly a handful of guys were just in the snow, they were just falling down because we never experienced such enormous, enormous pressure on the body or so. Yeah, we experience the, the outer forces from a different angle, different way, and then we all try to push ourself. How far can you move forward in the— how far can you move or commit into the turn, excuse me, regarding to the speed. Yeah. And That was something I'll never forget, and there are lots of exercises out there where Ricci always pushed us and himself as well, yeah, to improve our skiing.

Yeah, lots of— so then, can you, like, what aspect of skiing did you find kind of the most drawn to? And enjoyable? Like, did you really enjoy going out and working on like long turns and this playing with this forward inward movement, or did you really enjoy moguls? Or was there like a particular element that you found you would, you know, you like either were drawn to or you saw as maybe a weakness, and that if you really improved that, that would make the biggest difference to your skiing overall?

I think I got, you know, I actually, how I would describe it, I got really drawn more and more into skiing itself. Long turns, short turns, moguls, and if you have a guy like Richie who is strong everywhere, you know, who is strong in long, in short, in moguls, in off-piste, off-piste terrain, who's always centered over his skis. Doesn't matter how fast, how slow he skis. It doesn't matter in what sort of terrain he skis. So I got actually drawn to each turn. It didn't matter if it's a long turn, a short turn, and we pushed ourselves as well. Like, with such a strong team, we went everywhere. We went everywhere. Of course, we always focused on certain times and certain things, but overall also chess, we trained a lot of chess with Richard. Overall the interest was in everything, it was maybe too much because I wanted to improve my long turns, I wanted to improve my short turns, I wanted to improve my moguls, you know, sometimes I got confused because I wanted so much soak in, rather than stay with one task. So, yeah.

Excellent. So then, can you give, because I know I've talked to people before that have trained in Austria, and they've mentioned crazy exercises, like boots undone, ones ski, no poles, icy moguls. Like, what do you remember as being the craziest sort of day of training where you just thought, this is just madness, like this is taking it way beyond what's normal?

Do you remember? Well, I remember, yeah, definitely. It was moguls, it was in Kaprun. And it was a double black diamond mogul run and what we actually did, because we trained GS, so I was on my GS skis, 188 I think it was, which quite a radius as we know, and suddenly Richi said, yeah, 'Let's go mogul piece training.' I said, 'Okay, let's ski down.' We said, 'Let's ski down and change equipment, you know, get some skis for moguls.' He said, 'No, we're not changing equipment. Let's go up with the Monte Carlo GS skis and train moguls.' And the moguls, they were like Volkswagens. Yeah. And we said, 'Okay, let's go up and you know, uh, that was probably in the year 2004, 2005. We knew, okay, Rich is great, but we said, okay, we go up and he definitely will go in the first gear. Yeah. And he will take it easy because he knows, okay, we're on the race equipment and, uh, even still wearing the race suit underneath. So, uh, and then we went up on this double black diamond and, uh we knew this run and Richie said, okay, we start off, try to find your rhythm, you know, just not much to say, you know, because he probably knew what's going to happen. Just try to find your rhythm, start in the second or third gear and work yourself into fifth or sixth gear if you're able to. And what we thought, okay, that's the the third gear. It was already— for Richie, he started in the sixth gear because obviously this man has 12 gears, not 6 gears. So, and he started in the sixth gear, swapping into the eighth or ninth gear, and we were just standing up there and unbelievable, unbelievable what we— what— yeah, how he skied down here. Yeah, but, uh, he skied it like with a slalom ski, or it doesn't matter what sort what sort of ski you would have worn, you couldn't see a difference. It was just fantastic to watch. And then it was actually us, it was our turn, and it looked a little bit like— I remember when we did it in Sun Peaks, you and me, we took a video, and it was just a laugh. It was a laugh because I was on my GS skis, and it started off a little bit steep deeper and I was just coming down and I couldn't believe it because I don't know, I could take photos coming down, I could take photos from the nature on the side because I was so slow. It was the same feeling I had then in 2003, 2004 on this double black diamond run and it was just, we were all over the place, you know, fits apart, fits together, and it was just really, really funny, really, really challenging. And there are probably other situations where he challenged us to the extreme. I can't think about them right now, but there were moments with Pecorinci, and there will always be moments where you think, really? And yeah.

And I remember you explaining, because I've been out skiing with you a few times and you're really good at articulating and speaking, like saying exactly what should be happening and really detailed with your explanations. And I remember you saying that's something that you, I guess, learned from him. Like he would spend like an hour just out of out of skis in ski boots, like walking through and explaining how the start of this turn should be happening. And so he would also not just do kind of the extreme stuff, he would really wind it right back down and like be like super magnifying glass style looking at how the turn works. Is that right?

Absolutely. Like I said, he was a very determined and precise or he is, you know, very precise and determined. And sometimes he would just stand 45-50 minutes and talk about skiing and just show a turn without skis on, explain it so that everybody can understand it. And his strength as an instructor, what we took on and tried to learn, is that he saw immediately the cause of the problem.

Yeah.

It's not, yeah, maybe this or that. It was just to the point, immediately problem, and he found immediately the exercise for that problem, which improved that problem, which improved his skiing immediately. And there's one example we had I don't know when it was, we had a Level 1 course and he took on a group of Level 1 skiers from Holland. So Holland doesn't have many mountains, as you know, and these were guys, they probably spent on skis 1 or 2 weeks and they failed already their Level 1, I think, 2 times. And so it was a group of 11 or 12 people young people, and in the morning we said, "Okay, who is taking this group?" And everybody stared at the floor, "Not me again," and Richard said, "I'll take it." And everybody looked at him and said, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm going to take this group." And he had actually 6 days with this group, and the first day he just spent on the beginners here. We saw him always, you know, between our runs. Normally we don't look very much at each other, we just focus on our group, but this particular week we looked at Richie and he was just spending time correcting shooting exercises with a counter-slope, you know, with these guys. And interesting, you know, and I tell you, after 6 days we had the exam. Out of 12 guys, 11 passed, and probably 4 of them, they would have passed level 2.

Right.

So he trained with these people, yeah, with such precision and determination, and yeah, he improved their skiing by, I don't know, by 3 levels in, uh, in 6 days. And I think that's, uh, that's his gift in the world where he's really strong at besides his ski, you know.

So on that skier analysis kind of topic, because I know, um, you know, you and I have talked about sort of the differences in the way, you know, the different systems like the Australian, the Canadian, and the Austrian system maybe analyze and look at a skier. Can you speak a little bit about how in the Austrian system, or how you've been trained to look at a skier? So when they're coming down.

Maybe before that, Tom, I quickly want to explain the Austrian system. Yeah. That we understand, okay, when I say, okay, this Austrian ski analyst analysis system. We as Snow Sports Academy worked with that, but other associations didn't work with that. And that's happening because in Austria, in Austria we have the so-called OSSV, that's actually the head of the provincial ski instructor association, and the OSSV is representing all the needs in political matters and abroad, especially to the EU. And the OSVSV is just responsible for the Level 4 educational program. So they, they're really doing their own thing that you just do the Level 4, and they're based on Aalberg and St. And that you are able to do the Level 4. Maybe as you know, you have to do an entry exam. And everything else until Level 4, that means Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, is concerning the 8 provincial ski instructor associations. So in Austria, we have 9 provinces, so one province doesn't have an association. Ski Instructor Association, which is far to the east, close to Vienna. But all the other 8 provinces, they have ski instructor associations, and it's really up to them what they do. It sounds a little bit funny, but it's really up to them what they do. So they, of course, you know, okay, for Level 1 you have to do, uh, I don't know what it is now, 14 days. Everybody has to do that. But what they put in these 14 days, it's really up to them. What they teach you, it's up to them. And it just comes together, okay, if when somebody is Level 3, he should be able to pass the entry exam of Level 4. But how you reach this goal to get to Level 3 is really everybody's concern. Everybody's concerned. And now you can imagine that there is a lot of competition going on in other provinces, you know, because it's all about membership, and Austria depends on tourism very strong. So you have Tyrol as a very, very strong ski instructor association, and they try, of course, to get all the new ski instructors into Tyrol. The same with Salzburg, the same with Vorarlberg. So competition is, is really, really strong, uh, in Austria, not just in racing, also on the, on the ski instructor basis. And therefore I say, okay, the Austrian Ski Analysis System was our system, uh, we created together and we worked with. And just to, for clarification, uh, how it works in Austria and why I say that.

Yes.

And well, I work— what we always did, the most difficult part, if you want to give advice, if you want to see, okay, where the problem is, always to see the cause of the problem, definitely cause of the problem, to see it as you know, as As we know, to tell somebody, okay, you rotate, it's easy saying, but what is the cause of the rotation? And very often it's not so easy to see actually that the cause of the problem. Yes. It's very deep. And where the problem is actually rooted. And what we do, or how I approach now, is Kia, doesn't matter what ability, The first thing is equipment. Where is he? Okay, is the equipment right? And not just with our clients, also with ski instructors. We know sometimes, a lot of the times, the instructors are under-equipped. Yeah. And I think Jonathan, in his interview, he already mentioned it, try to find the right equipment. That you can give the right performance, that you can train under the best circumstances. And that was the first thing when I look at somebody, okay, if the equipment is right. The same is with the boots, you know, if the boots are right, is the cause of the problem the ski boot? If the ski boot is too soft, we know, okay, you can't perform as a strong skier and so on. And then of course, and I really focused on that just the last 3 years, the poles. A lot of my clients, they ski too long poles from older days because it's still, you know, in some ski shops the opinion, okay, 90-degree angle, blablabla. And so I worked a lot on the poles and also on the weight of the poles. A lot of people, they underestimate what a pole can do to your skiing, how it can influence your skiing. And sometimes you get really, really heavy poles for these tiny people, and it totally influences your skiing. So A rotation could be caused by too heavy pole. Not just where, as you say, you rotate because of this or that, just because of the pole, for example. So really try to get the equipment right.

So quickly on the pole thing, because I know, I think we're on a similar agreeance here. Like you said, maybe a bit old school, the way that ski shops measure the length of the pole being kind of with, with your arm by your side at 90 degrees and you grab under the basket and that's the length of the pole. It's not really like that anymore. Like, what, how tall are you, Fritz?

Well, I'm, uh, 176. Yep.

And what length pole do you ski on?

My poles are 115 right now. And so I measure, that's my measurement, if I'm in my ski boots and I stand on the hard floor and I just take my poles with normal grip, it's about 10 degrees down. So my angle is about around 10 degrees, 10-15 degrees down.

And yeah, because I totally agree, and even if you were just skiing moguls all day, and you had the option with say an adjustable pole, would you make it even shorter?

I probably would even make it shorter. I probably would even go on 112 or 111 or even 110. I would make it shorter.

Yeah, cool. I think that was just a good thing that you brought up there because I agree that that's something that is maybe sort of stuck in the past, pole lengths. And you know, when you've got too long a pole, like you said, it's a lot more to swing. And also, if you're skiing dynamically and you're in quite a, you know, compact position when you are transitioning, when you are making the pole plant, then a long pole, you're going to have to kind of row like a boat, or aren't you, out to the side, rather than be able to just go straight through.

I remember when I started becoming a ski instructor, I skied pole lengths— what was it— 125. Yeah, and we skied on different equipment, we skied a different style. We never skied in such deep positions. Forces, how they changed, you know, with ski much different, much different positions now. And so we adjusted everything, we adjusted, uh, the skis, we adjusted our body, we adjusted boots, but we didn't adjust the poles. So therefore I say, okay, we have to cut down the poles as well to get this performance done, you know, that the pole actually becomes a help and not an enemy ask.

So yeah, sorry to get you off topic there.

It's fine.

So your equipment?

That's where I say okay, that's one part where I focus, okay, is the equipment right? And the second thing is, we should never forget, where I concentrate on is what's the anatomy of the person, of the skier. And it's quite a important factor in skiing because it depends how I teach somebody. For example, when I have bow legs or A-frame legs, especially with women, they have A-frame, they have the tendency to have A-frame legs, so to a certain degree I can get rid of these A-frame legs, but really just through wedging, through canting, you know all that we know all that stuff, how we can influence it. But it's just to a certain degree possible. If I'm done with these technical possibilities and I still have some body waveframes, I have to live with it. I can't get rid of the waveframe. And I can't say, okay, edge the inner leg or the inner skin more. Anymore, really try to get this apron because you will end up with pain, you know, or if somebody has lordosis, kyphosis, you know, it's something I have to live with, I have to deal with as a coach, as an instructor.

Yes.

And example, for example, in '91, '92, one of my first clients, he was a German soccer player, professional soccer player, and he had extreme bone pains. Yeah. Gellert Baski, old player, and weight training, all that stuff, he already of course had his boots pushed out as much as possible, but he had such bow legs, or bow legs, like you call it in English, he hardly could do a snowplow because he was nearly on the outer edges. So to a certain degree, you know, you were thinking, okay, how can I get this guy away from a snowplow as quick as possible because it's so anatomically incorrect and technically incorrect for this guy. So anatomy is definitely a part which I include in my, how do you say it, in my correction.

E-correction, yes.

Then so I work my way from down up, then these key joints we don't have to mention you know, the 3 key joints that they are bent or extended equally, you know, if one of these joints doesn't work. We don't have to go in detail, I think, with these key joints. Yep. Everybody knows what's happening here. The upper body is one of the parts where I focus on. Is that the cause of the problem? And I started also here in Canada working very strongly with the core, to include the core into my scheme, to include the core into my client's scheme. And it's quite interesting because sometimes, and I made this experience especially this year, for example in Moguls, we realized, oh, their approach, low-high approach, or how my clients approach moguls, I actually did completely the opposite because what they do, you know, when they approach moguls, they start to stiffen up their legs, they want to be strong in their legs, in their calves, and actually become loose in the core. So I said, okay, you know what, all we concentrate now, we just concentrate on a strong core and nothing else, just Relax your legs, it's always a comment, it's easy saying, but when I say, okay, just try to tighten your core on steep terrain, just tighten your core, and I have really good feedback through that, and core training through skiing, where you realize, oh, if I engage my core, I'm actually a much more relaxed skier out of my legs. I don't have to tell you about that because you're there. I'm not a pro in that field. No, it's good. It's the same, I can compare it, just try to stand on one foot, you know, for everybody, try to stand on one foot and really do it out of your calf and thigh muscles, that you really try really hard to tighten the these muscles, you will see it completely influences your balance where you're not strong. And then you try the same, you try, uh, just to engage your core muscles without even thinking about the thigh or the lower extremities, and you will see much more imbalance. Yeah, it's this, it's the same on a Swiss ball. I do a lot of training on the Swiss ball, on the Bosu, and if you want to be strong on the Swiss ball, you have to engage your core and relax actually your legs. And that's exactly the same way how I approach now skiing, that I say, okay, I try to be stronger in my core and much more relaxed in my legs. So this is one of the, uh, uh, problems I realized, that people don't engage their cores. But I think I think it's a problem which happens all over in normal life, you know, the core engagement. And of course, one of our— which is part of our analysis are the arms. You know, we always know that the arm position is a very personal thing. In Austria, you know, we always get teased because we hold our arms so high. You know, you know it from me. Yep. And in Canada, the arms are very relaxed. You know, the arms— where is the right place for the arms? The right place for the arms, I always say, is where it helps with balancing. You know, if you go fast, if you go slow, if they move forward, if they move to the side, if they're high up. The lower arm doesn't matter as long as they really help me with balancing. But when they're not in the right place that they actually help with balancing, then it could cause a problem or it could be the root of a problem. And just for everybody out there where it's okay, how do I find the right arm position? I don't feel comfortable. Just try different arm positions out. Just try them out, more forward, more to the side, higher, lower, and try to feel where you feel relaxed, where you feel relaxed in your whole chest, in your, in your, in your trapezius, in your shoulders, and where you can see, okay, where does it help me? And that's then the right arm position for you as a skier. Yep. And then the last thing is actually the head. The head is one of the root problems, you know, very often the root problem number one, that the position of the head is not where it should be, and that's the cause of the problem.

Yes, yeah, I remember that the day going out training with you And for the first time ever, someone had given me different feedback about my turn to the left— or my turn to the right, sorry— that I'd never heard before. And you mentioned, you know, when you are turning left and you're about to enter your turn to the right, you don't look into the turn. And, you know, I thought, oh, that's rubbish. You know, I'm always looking a bit ahead. and we looked at the video, and there was a remarkable difference in where my head was positioned and where my vision was focused turning left and then turning right. And trying it, I realized in the moguls it was the same thing. I would look into every turn really well if I'm going from turning right to turning left, but the other way around, not so good. And straight away, my mogul skiing improved as soon as I changed that, my vision and my head and my pressure on the outside ski changed and yeah, it was a real revelation to me. So yeah, do you want to maybe speak a bit more about the head and the vision?

It's quite interesting because the head, as I can remember, we never talked about the head. We never talked about the head. Was the last thing, you know, head, you know, head you included after upper body when it hurt. So it was the only time when you say, okay, yeah, I do something with my head because it hurts. But it's interesting because if you just think what the head is responsible for, and we're really not conscious of it anymore because it's so included in our body. Our movements. Just think about if you walk, if you walk around the corner, if you make turns, the head is always the initiative to make this turn when I walk, for example. And it's so automatized that we do it, that we do it automatically. And if you always, if you ever experienced, you know, when you just walk on the road and we guys, we can say it, we look after a beautiful woman, we turn around our head, but we try to keep straight, we change our direction, you know, for the women the same with hot guys, you know, so turn around and you change the direction because it changes your balance, you change the center of gravity, so the head I thought, okay, the head must do something because it influences so much, it influences our direction. And it's a sensory principle, I call it sensory principle, the point where you look, it leads your movement. The stronger you look, the stronger it leads this movement. For example, try to walk— easy example— try to walk and don't move your head and make a turn at the same time. You will feel, okay, of course it works, but it's stiff, it's not relaxed, and it's not round. Of course I follow my direction where I go, but it's It doesn't feel right, it's not round, it's not economic. And it's— if I just before I talk about this, if I try to make it more understandable and that people more think about it, take for example, and we talk very, very strong about it all throughout the last 40, 50 years with motorbiking, you know, it's a rule number Rule number 1, where I say, okay, when you tilt your motorbike, you always look at the exit of the corner. And the most accidents are actually happening when somebody makes a turn and he's not committed looking at the exit of the corner. He looks slightly different direction, he focuses a little bit more. If it's a left turn, he focuses a bit more to the right. Unconsciously, yeah, can cause an accident, very dangerous in motorbiking. And of course in skiing it's not so dramatic where I say, okay, if I not look in my turn very, very actively, I just crash. Doesn't happen, you know, but that's nothing to do with that. And so, and now if If somebody asks, "Yeah, is this— do I start skiing like that?" I say, "Okay, do I start learning somebody's skiing by just moving my head around left, right?" It's a no, absolutely no, because we still start skiing with our legs. And if the head is a cause of the problem, of a problem, then it's a yes. Then I start working with the head, so it's a yes and no answer. A good example for— I had from Tzelemse a client, private client, a woman, and she was slightly advanced beginner, so she was able to make stem turns. And to the right-hand side she was completely tilting to the inside with her whole body, so she didn't come away from her downhill ski, she just was hanging on her right leg. And I tried to do a lot of exercises to become, to get her into a neutral position, and then I looked and I thought, gee, it's actually her head, her head is in a complete wrong position. So when she initiated the right-hand side, her head completely tilted to the right-hand side. So it was like, yeah, really weird. Yep. So you can do 100 million exercises, you know, with poles, without poles, whatever is out there, whatever we know, but you will never get this woman in a neutral, in a nice neutral position unless you correct her head position. Yep. It's the same if somebody throughout the turn, throughout the steering, tilts his head to the inside. You can do all these exercises for a better angulation, he will always incline, he will always have his inside lead, and you'll never get him in the position where you want because of his head position. So in these cases I say, okay, I have to work on the head because it's the cause of the lead. Root of the problem. And so normally I say, okay, if the head is also root of the problem, I start from the bottom to the top, from the bottom to the head. And then as we become a stronger skier, then I start to include my head, then I talk to the head, talk about the head, and then I work my way from the top to the bottom. I reversed that system, which works really, really well. And just try out, everybody tries out as an example, where you say, okay, where should I look now? Normally I say the best, and I explained it with motorbiking, you should always look at the exit of the turn, that's the best position. And through that movement, when you move your head, you move your spine, and automatically you make a weight transfer. You make a— through that movement you make a weight transfer. Of course, this movement should be harmonic, you know, that we're not saying, okay, well, head and spine and hip.

Hip, legs.

It's one synergy. It's one syllable. I say, okay, head, and it just flows down, uh, like I explained it with walking. You know, we walk in the— I look in the direction at the same time I make my turn. And then what I do very strongly, it's key. So, uh, I look at the exit of the turn. And, uh, what I wanted to say, how to practice it or how to get that feeling, is the head important? Just try exactly the same I explained with their arms. Try to ski down and make a left turn, look at the outside of the turn, not at the inside. Very in extreme positions.

Yep, really exaggerated.

Exaggerated. Try to tilt your head to the inside of the turn, try to angle, have a nice angulation. You know, you will see it's really hard, and then you find out, okay, where actually, uh, where should I put where should I position my head or where should I actually look, where should I focus, that the head is actually helping me. And the coordination of that is in the beginning very difficult. It's very difficult because the head is all over the place, you know. I look into the turn, when should I look out of the turn? So it has to become a flow, you know, where I say, okay, I look strong into that turn and I'm moving in that direction. And then at the exit of the turn, I slowly start to look at the entrance of the next turn. When I'm at the entrance of the next turn, I already start to look at the exit of the, uh, of that turn. Yep. So that's coordinate, coordinative, really high. So in the beginning, it's Richard Egger exercise without skis. He loves to run around on the slopes without skis. And it's great, just run down the slope, no long turns, medium-long turns, and practice this. And you will see, oh, it's actually, even if you just walk here, you can feel the effect, can't you? You can feel the effect and the power of powerful thing which got me really when I, when I practiced it. And sometimes I catch myself, and I'm at that point now where I feel the difference very strong. I catch myself that I'm not looking actively into the turn, and suddenly I'm slow. I'm slow at the initiation of the turn. I'm slower at the top of the turn. Yeah, I don't build up enough pressure, and then I I realized, oh, let's look more into the turn, and suddenly I immediately feel the feedback difference. Suddenly I feel that pre-pression, and that's the thing that really got me where I say, okay, if you really, at the initiation, if you look actively into the turn, you know, you can try it out at home, you know, where you try to do stand sideways and angulate. We all know this exercise where we get the feeling like with angulation. Yep. And then just try to force yourself into the new direction and look in that direction, and you will feel, even if we're still creating or if we're still in a neutral position, what tension I, uh, I build up on the outer side of my body. Yeah. Throughout my chest, throughout my abdominals, throughout my thighs, throughout my shin. Yeah. And this is the direct transfer over my ski tips, over my ski tips where I build up so much pre-pressure already at the highest point of the turn, at the beginning of the turn, and I really nicely can take this pre-pressure into full pressure over the middle of the ski and then to the end of the ski. So it's, uh, This head thing is quite amazing, and who is doing it really, really strong is, for example, the skiers in Japan.

Yes.

And Paul probably can agree with me, and if you watch the videos of the competitions, they very, very strongly look into the turn. Also, they come in really strong through that, uh, high arc. Yep. And yeah, I'm a really fan of the headset and I get such great feedback even from my clients and they always realize when their conditions are difficult. Conditions are difficult meaning when I have slushy snow and I include my head into the turn with an advanced or expert skier, but they they always say it's so hard to turn in this slush. And I said, okay, try to initiate your turn with the head. And suddenly you realize, oh, it's actually much, much easier to initiate my skis.

Yeah, no, I like it. I still remember it was a really profound day when I learned about that, and I went back through videos myself skiing and could see it in all the turns that weren't so good. The head was, was not involved, and I wasn't really actively looking into that new turn. And yeah, it was a really great feeling. And I mean, I guess it makes total sense. Your head, I mean, is constantly trying to— like, your eyes are constantly trying to find a level horizon so it can get, you know, you know, the right information so you can be balanced. And if your head is kind of tilted, you know, inside too much, then your body is not going to really respond very well and balance well because it's getting poor information about that. And yeah, I know that with some of the clients I see coming into my body alignment practice, that's very evident, like the kind of shifts they have in their rib cage and their pelvis and their feet to accommodate their head being at, you know, a funny angle. But from looking out from their eyes, they look completely level. But, you know, my eyes looking at them, they're kind of all a bit crooked. So yeah, the head is, is huge. So yeah, thanks for going into heaps of detail about that. And I think it'll be really good for people to get out there and, like you said, exaggerate, you know, the, the differences leaning your head in leaning your head out, looking to the outside of the turn, looking to the inside.

And who is doing it, for example, very strong and we don't think about it? For example, the guys in the World Cup, because they look exactly in the right position, because they have to look in the right position. Because when he is at the top of the turn, you know, he has to look at the gate, you know, and as soon as he's strongly looking in the direction forward, inward. And when he is at the position of the gate, he already looks at the next gate. So he always looks through that, through this given direction, in the right direction. And very often we see this phenomenon when we set the brush gates with our clients. And when they say, well, it's really great, part of it is because they're looking in the right direction. I don't want to say it's just that, but it's one part that they improve in these sort of drills very well.

Excellent. Well, Fritz, it's been great chatting with you. I don't know if there's anything you wanted to say on the end of this chat, any parting advice for people working on their skiing or anything else you wanted to say?

Well, first of all, thanks again for inviting me for this broadcast. I think it's a great thing, you know, and it was about time, you know, to share. It's like an online Interski, I would say. It's a great tool for everybody, and you have such great technical skills such great characters you're hearing on the podcast, and, uh, it's really great to listen. Um, from my side, what can I, uh, advise for, for instructors who, who want to improve? All I can say is ski, ski. And it's quite easy saying, and don't ski, and don't think ski, because I hear so many times and, you know, people talk about skiing so much and sometimes we over-talk skiing and forget that we actually have to ski to become better. We need the mileage on the car that we actually become a stronger driver, a more confident driver. Of course, talking about skiing and thermophysics, that's my knowledge knowledge, you know, definitely should have that. But, uh, just that is not enough. So you have to, you have to ski.

Do it.

So do it, you know, go out, play there, you know, uh, play in different terrain, um, get uncomfortable, you know, uh, change your turn shapes, you know. I see it so many times, um, that we get, you know, on this run I just do short turns because I feel good, just a certain type of shotguns, don't change anything, just get out there and feel uncomfortable in your skiing. And that's what improves your skiing. Yeah. And, uh, or you hear very often, you know, moguls, it's always this big thing, you know, I don't want to ski moguls, I'm not good in moguls. And when I train out there in Zambix, wherever, I don't see anybody in moguls. Nobody skis it, so I have to do that. And one maybe last thing, just try different equipment, you know, just try to get out there, get away from whatever you ski. Ski long runs on GS skis, ski short runs on slalom skis. So play with the equipment as well and get uncomfortable in that as well, I think that makes you stronger as well. That's my advice for everybody out there.

Excellent. Well, again, thanks very much for giving us your time today, and perhaps if this keeps going well, we'll have another chat in the future and ask some different questions, but thanks again, Fritz.

Okay, thank you, Tom. Cheers! Thanks for having me.

This episode is brought to you by Carv, the digital ski coach. Now, one of the features I've had the most fun with all time is simply the fact that Carv tracks every single turn you make. I treat it a bit like Strava, so at the end of the day it tells me exactly how many turns I've done, and those numbers keep adding up across the season. So last season in Australia, I had a few days where I was doing nearly 2,500 turns, and my legs were tired, but it was really cool to try and have that number there motivating me, and I'm quietly working my way towards my 1 millionth turn with Carv. So the other metrics I've been diving into lately, and these are new for this season, are very unique, and these are turn corridor and turn radius. And I don't see many skiers using them, but they tell you a lot about the shape and flow of your skiing. So the turn corridor shows you how far you're traveling across the hill, or the time almost between apex to apex, and how long you're taking to transition. While the turn radius measures the actual arc you create once you start the turn. So these can be different. You can have like a very wide corridor, say 18 meters, but a lower turn radius, or the other way around. So when you compare the two, it opens up a whole world of experimentation, and it would be a bit like a race coach will set different types of race courses to influence a racer or skier to change the timing and mix it up. So I encourage you to look into this if you've got Carv and play with it and see if you can manipulate it, because it's only going to improve your versatility. So I keep my Carv on my boots every single day because you never know quite know when like a change in technique or a new ski resort or skis will show up in the numbers, and it's great at the end of the day being able to check that, or even after the fact. And I'm really looking forward to the day I open the app and I see turn number 1 million So if you want to explore your skiing in a completely different way, check out Carv, the digital ski coach. And thank you, team, for sponsoring this episode.