J.F. Beaulieu Interview

Okay, hello and welcome to the Global Skiing Podcast. Today I've got JF Boulliot from Quebec, Canada on the line. JF, welcome.

Thanks, Tom. How are you?

Yeah, very good, thanks. So just to give everyone a bit of an idea about JF, he's a very well-respected skier and coach from around the world, and just to list a few of his qualifications JF holds his CSI Level 4, he's also a CSI Level 4 examiner, CSCF Coach Level 3, he's a 2-time demo team member, he's ski school director of Mont-Saint-Anne in Quebec, he also attained his full cert French certificate, and is one of the lead trainers for Rookie Academy in New Zealand. Pretty highly credentialed, well-respected, and very talented skier. So glad to have you here for a bit of a conversation today, JF.

Yeah, I'm really glad too. Thanks, thanks for having me, Tom. This is really nice, and thanks for the initiative. It's really interesting, and I think those discussions are going to help us to go further. And I'm really glad to have this discussion with you today.

Excellent. So I mean, you've listened to the other interviews with the other two guys. Have you noticed, have people sort of talked about these interviews over from where you're from? Has it brought about a bit more of a discussion on, you know, maybe people seeing skiing from different perspectives?

Definitely. It's really interesting like to hear those guys talk about skiing and it just makes the world a little bit more of a kind of a smaller place, if you wish, everybody just realized that everywhere around the globe people are training to get better and it's just great to have a guy like you trying to connect us together. I think it will raise our understanding with those discussions and will ultimately raise our level.

Absolutely. Starting a little bit from the beginning, do you want to just give us a quick intro as to where it all began for you? Like, how come you're so obsessed with skiing nowadays? Where did it all start?

When I was younger, my father was, like, as a true Canadian, I was playing hockey from 5 years old until 8 years old. My father was the coach One day my brother went on a ski trip with his school and came back home and asked my parents to go skiing. So the next week our neighbor just bring us skiing and like fell in love with it right away. It was like my father asked me, like at the end of that day, I had to choose between skiing and hockey, and it wasn't really long, honestly. The next week my father bought a pair of skis for me, and I think like I kept them in my bedroom for a month. Like I was totally obsessed with it. And honestly, I'm still a little bit like that. So it's just good to, just good to chat with some guys like you and like chat with Riley a couple of months ago, and hopefully like talk a little bit with Paul by email, but hopefully we'll get to talk about skiing a little bit together. But it's so nice to be able to exchange with people like you and like these guys.

Yeah, so on that question, what have you found has maybe opened up some new doors or changed some thoughts in the way you look at skiing from opening up these sort of global doorways and cross-association sort of pathways?

Honestly, I think if we want to bring our sport further, we need to associate ourselves with health professionals—kinesiologists, physios, psychologists. Like guys like you who has knowledge of the human body. And everything I do now that, like, I think is giving good results has been discussed and exchanged with health professionals. I think this is what we, we need to do in order to push the sport.

Mm-hmm. Yes. So I know you As well as Riley, you've had a personal injury that kind of, I guess, made you take a step back and look at how you were using your body. Do you want to talk a little bit about that injury?

Yeah, well, when I was 18 years old, I had a bad ski crash and I lost my spleen and nearly died in the hospital. And when I got out of this adventure, I started to meet some health professionals and started to get more, a little bit more advice on, like, on the ski side and on the health side. But honestly, those professionals along the way really helped me to develop my skiing the right way. So like this injury is like, I'm really glad to be alive, this injury is following me every day like it's giving me a lot of problems with my back and it's when I ski high performance for long periods like it's always very taxing on the body and I'm training year-round in order to be able to do a couple of turns a day at decent speed because for sure like my body is never 100%, but those people who helped me to get better changed my life, changed my health, but also changed my skiing because I've been fortunate enough to be treated by an osteopath who was on the French national ski team And for sure, when she's treating me, we're always talking about skiing and everything. All the concepts she's bringing are always like— I always try to do the relation with skiing. And it's the same with, uh, like the kinesiologist who's following me. We have a lot of discussions about health, about how to get stronger, but also how to connect this on skis. Yeah, okay.

So what are some exercises, tactics, like you mentioned, all year round you're working on this sort of stuff so you can get out there and ski, I guess, safely and happily without pain. What are some of the things, like is there a routine you do every day? That helps keep your body in good shape?

Yeah, like the first element I'm working really hard on is core strength. So every day, just to make sure that I— like engaging the core properly and making sure that this area is nice and strong. It's the anchor, it's the middle of the body. And it's where everything starts. The second element I'm working a lot, I discovered the Foundation Training, which is like a bit of yoga moves and a lot of decompression of the spine and a lot of stretching of the posterior chain. So this is another element that really helps me in order to stay healthy. On my side, I'm quite a stiff guy. I really need to improve stretching, so I'm using that foundation training in order to improve my flexibility. It's the only way I can improve the strength is by increasing the flexibility.

Yes, yep, they go hand in hand. And so, I mean, for some people listening, I think there's still perhaps a view of the core of your body being just sort of the abdominals, but do you look beyond the core being just the sort of the abdominals, that look of, you know, a six-pack and that sort of thing? You mentioned the Foundation Training. Do you, how do you view your core as the anchor?

In fact, this is part of a discussion that we've had together a couple of weeks ago. For sure, I'm trying to— it's 360 degrees, the core. It's not the front side or the back side of your body. I really try, like I've discovered that all my posterior chain needs a lot of stretching and a lot more work. In order to achieve the work I've done a little bit more on the front side of my body. So like the kinesiologist is trying to balance things out on the front side and the back side of the body in order to be a little bit more functional in my movements. And like I'd like to hear you, Tom, on this one over here. Like maybe you can talk tell a little bit to us about what you do in order to work your core effectively.

Yeah, okay, well I guess in the past I was someone that thought core strength came from just crunches and leg raises and everything to do with the front of the body, I guess because of how society has shown a strong core being this image of strong on the front of the body. But in recent years through study and just out of own personal interest, I've found that it is far beyond just that front part of the body. And so the way I train my core now is by challenging it, I guess, in, like you mentioned, 360 degrees, so lots of different planes of motion. Because I guess an interesting thing to think about is when many people go and train for their sport, say skiing, say it's rugby, any of those sports where you're moving your body in such a dynamic way and there is no set pattern movement, I guess, that you can always rely that your body is going to be put through. You need to— when you go to the gym and train in a different way where you're training set patterns where it's linear, so you are just doing things like squats or lunges in a front plane movement, so you're just training your body to be strong in certain lines of movement rather than kind of flow, rhythm, random movements, then your body, you're not really cross-training for that particular sport. So, when I try and train my core for all the activities I love doing, skiing, kitesurfing, rock climbing, then I try and figure out where does my body or where does my core or perhaps not trust my limbs or the extremities of my body to go to. So, say for instance, I'm standing centered, balanced on both feet, and then I just pick up my left foot, so I'm completely balanced on my right, and say my body doesn't really understand how to balance or the space it's in when my, the center of my body moves, say, on a clock face, to 130, so diagonally forward and right, staying on that right foot, just for instance. So, say I move my core in that direction and I find I'm unbalanced there, then I spend some time trying to figure out why, where in my body is that imbalance coming from. Is it my ankle joint is not used to allowing my core to move in that direction because perhaps an old injury, or perhaps even, you know, rock climbing, my pinky toe's been squeezed in this rock climbing shoe for the last week, and so it's sore there, so I need to do some work to get my body comfortable moving in that forward right direction. And perhaps on my left foot, it's the opposite. It doesn't like me going in, say, what would it be, 7:30, kind of moving my core in that direction for whatever reason. So, you I use things such as a slackline, just balancing on all sorts of objects, sidewalks. So, I can even do it when I'm walking to work, all that sort of things. I'm just trying to find all the angles and variations I can put my body in, figure out where I'm not that comfortable with, and then work on training my body to be able to move in that direction. And for me, that's where I start to feel my core strength come on, because I think the core is important, but I think the whole body is really important. So, yeah, when you start looking beyond that, so focusing on training individual parts of your body, so not doing that, but then seeing how those those parts form a whole, then I think you really start to be a lot more free in the way you train and the way you move, and you don't feel as though you're confined to certain movements. So for instance, in the gym, you're doing squats and you've been told by your trainer to always keep your knee inside of your second toe, so it doesn't— sorry, just in line, so it doesn't track inside of your second toe, because, you know, that could cause knee injuries. But if that sort of psychology stays with you, so if you're always afraid of your knee going inside of your second toe, then your body will, you know, when that naturally needs to happen, say in a ski turn, you're turning right and your left knee needs to move a little bit inside the second toe to engage that inside edge, and your brain is going, "No, no, no, you shouldn't do that." Then, so you move from somewhere else, so perhaps the spine or the neck or wherever it is, or, you know, to stop that happening, then you can— that's when I think you can do some damage. Rather than having the freedom of, "I can put my body in any position and know that I'm, you know, comfortable with it because I've trained all these different variations. Because it's amazing how, how powerful the brain is. You tell it something, or a previous experience like your injury of your spleen, and whatever muscles, you know, were around where that— when that operation happened, where, you know, they cut in and did some work, then they're going to hold some kind of memory to do with the pain and that and that trauma, and then not— your brain is not really going to allow you to move into that area and that space because of that associated trauma, and it's all up in the head. And so if you can start to train that and get your brain to understand, to be a little bit more free and adaptable, I think that really translates to a lot more freedom and and fluid feeling when you're out doing whatever physical pursuit you're into. So does that make sense?

Yeah, that's really interesting and it's along the lines of what I've discussed with everybody who's been helping me so far. I try to— most of my training in preparation for this season, New Zealand season, or like Canada season, is always outside and it's playing and it's trying to develop things and not trying to do like 100 crunches a day. It's not what it's all about.

No, no. Yeah, I mean, have you found there are areas, you know, I mentioned these kind of areas of unknown with your body where, you know, someone, maybe a personal trainer, the osteopath goes, "Okay, see if you can do this movement," and almost there's a disconnect? Have you found that? Definitely.

Honestly, everybody who's been working with me, they are asking myself, like, they're really surprised how not flexible I am, and I'm really, I'm not really like, uh, able to do the movements they're asking. And I'm working hard on it because I know that those movements are going to take my skiing to another level. So this is why I'm— they have all my attention.

Yes. So, you know, we talked, um, a little while back about this idea of tensegrity. Yes.

What's your, uh, thoughts on this idea of tensegrity? Honestly, it's been— I've discussed this with a few people around, and honestly, I think it's a very, very interesting concept. And I've been trying in my skiing to use a little bit more my whole body to create the balance versus isolating certain parts. And I start to understand a little bit more now that there might be a piece of the puzzle that is not on the sweet spot, but it might be a result of something like not in the area where you would like to work on very often. And this is after like a couple of discussions we had together. You really got me thinking and I always look forward to our discussions because I'm always learning a lot.

I guess for people who don't know, this idea, tensegrity, is sort of a mix of these two words of tension and integrity, and like a tensegrity structure is one that nothing moves isolation. So this, this, this structure is tensioned together through— I guess you could almost think of it like stretchy rubber bands holding solid firm members in place. And none of the solid firm members actually touch each other. They're all held in their position through the— through this tension. And so a basketball is a perfect example of a tense integrity type structure. So you push on one area of the basketball and the whole basketball adapts to this pressure being applied on it. So it will stretch and move. And so, yeah, I guess in terms of human movement, if you think of the body as such a structure that all of the bones inside the body, if you think of them not actually touching each other, so that no bone is actually physically in contact, but is held, is more held in space through all the soft tissue, the muscles, the ligaments, everything around it. So the bones are actually floating inside this tensional structure. Then you can understand that if you, say, one side of your torso, your upper torso, you take tension out of, then you would probably, uh, if with this tensegrity structure idea, you would have to be putting tension into the opposite side to take up that slack. So you can't take out tension on one side and it just be negative. It always adds somewhere else in the body. So in skiing, for instance, the, the how much tension you've got tension you have driving forward with your outside arm, or how little tension you have driving your outside arm forward, can totally change how easy it is for you to take weight off your inside ski and be completely balanced on your outside ski. So even though you could be thinking this whole time about your, say, your right foot turning left, being completely balanced and just concentrating on the foot and the hip, being in the right position and the muscles being engaged there. It could be just because your right arm up in your upper back, you haven't put some tension across that to help take some tension out of your left hip to be able to, you know, balance that position on that right foot. So it's just a really interesting way of looking at skiing and any sport, in fact. And thinking about it being more of this tensional balance relationship as opposed to totally isolated structures of, okay, if I just work on my foot, how my foot's moving, that'll change everything. Well, you've got to understand that you change something in your foot, the muscles working and balancing your foot, and that's going to change all the way up to your neck and to your hands.

And so when you understand that, yeah, I think like What you're saying, Tom, there is super interesting and it makes me think about the discussion we had about Usain Bolt, like the sprinter. Like when you were talking to me about like when these guys sat down together and look a little bit, analyze how come that guy was running so fast. Yep. And there were some like some stuff, for example, like you need to have your knee aligned with the second toe. That was part of the stuff they thought was important, and they ended up realizing that Usain Bolt is not doing that at all. And I think like Usain Bolt is a tensegrity model. That's a great example, the way he's using his movements to create some leverage. Like, just talk to us about this a little bit.

Yeah, so, I mean, I guess if you're not constrained through thinking of, you know, I guess typical thoughts of how the body should move and ideally be, you know, loaded in a biomechanical way, if you're free to play with, you know, putting your body in these different positions, positions, you may come across finding your own way of creating power and strength. And so, for instance, with that discussion of Usain Bolt, when he comes out of the blocks, the starting blocks, and he's pushing forward, his knee that he's driving forward, as you say, is pushing back on his left foot and his right knee is coming up forward. The right knee comes right up forward and across his torso. So, it's almost sitting up in line with his back leg. And so, Michael Johnson and one of the coaches is watching this and going, "See, that's wrong. He's driving his leg across his body instead of straight ahead," which is where they want to go. What I guess, if you maybe look at, look at how he's winding up this tensional structure of his body, if he drives his outs, his, that, that right knee across the left, to the left, he's actually creating rotational tension as well as fore and aft tension in his right glute. And that right glute is the next muscle, one of the biggest muscles that is going to fire when when he plants his right foot down on the ground and push forward. So when you stretch a muscle, a bit like pulling back a catapult, if you pull back that muscle before it contracts, it's got far more contractile power than if you don't pull it back. Like you only pull the catapult halfway back and then let it go compared to pulling the catapult right back. Then, so Usain Bolt flexing his hip, which is gonna stretch his glute. He's also rotating his hip internally, inwards, which is an opposite movement to what the glute does. So he's also putting rotational stretch on the glute. And then he's also adducting it, or bringing the leg across his body, which is also an opposite movement to what the glute wants to contract and do. then he's putting this part of his torso that is the next part to fire and propel him forward on this maximum catapult-type loaded position. So then it's got no option but to just contract and fire him forward. And then once he's going and moving, boom, it's just this constant tension, boom, boom, boom, boom, loading, unloading. So what I—

What I hear is the guy is like using his body and using a lot of creating levers everywhere with his body. And if we compare to skiing, to me there's two guys who are doing this very well is Henrik Kristoffersen when he won that slalom. At the start of the season. Like, the guy, you can really see him hitting those gates but using the whole body to generate some power on the outside ski. Like, sometimes it's to the extreme, but I am really inspired by Henrik Kristoffersen.

Yeah, he almost looks like he's sort of really gracefully running down the mat, like he's propelling himself so fast forward. Exactly, exactly.

And, uh, the other guy that I'm extremely impressed— like, that run at the World Championship was in GS was incredible. Like, it's Ted Ligeti. Like, he's using his body like it's— if you would freeze frame in him, it's not always perfect but he's using his body like from the tip of the ears to the toes in a way that he's generating some flow and some power on the outside ski more than anybody. So like, I'm really inspired by those guys, and this is a little bit what I've been, I've been trying to play in my skiing. It's not to, to look perfect, but try to use a little bit more the full body In order to improve the balance motion.

Yeah. So on that, have you been— are there any like exercises, drills, or is it more kind of mental imagery you're thinking of? Or— because I know like for instance Riley's sort of playing a little bit with this and he says he goes out some mornings and is almost like a floppy ragdoll. So he's just really loose.

Yeah, like that's number one. Like, I totally agree with Riley on this. Like, number one is loose extremities in order to use the extremities like a whisk, if you wish. Yep. But if you want to be able to use those extremities like a whisk or a catapult, you need to anchor the middle of the body. So like, that's critical. If the anchor is strong in the middle, you're able to control the extremities better and to really maintain some looseness with the extremities. So no, no particular drills necessarily, but more like I'm really inspired by that concept. And I've just had a super interesting discussion this weekend with a good friend of mine, Alain Zubereuil, and I'd like to have your input on this. Tom Gellie, the guy is osteopath, is very good at what he does, and he's also like level 4 working on, like, working on his skiing and trying to get better. And he had this concept about— he was talking a lot about the central axis of the body, and he says he's trying to do two things. Because just before that he asked me like what I was playing with, and I was explaining to him that my goal was to ski in suspension in all the situations. And he talked to me a little bit about this concept of the central axis. He said his goal is to make sure that as the outside leg rotates in his internally rotates, he's trying to internally rotate the opposite arm in order to create some leverage in order to suspend a little bit that central axis and ultimately bend it. So he's kind of creating some like internally rotation with the right leg and internal rotation with the left arm. In order to suspend and improve the contact on the ski. So I'd really like to have your input on that.

Yeah, right, that's very interesting. I guess one thing that I've discovered lately has got to do with the, I guess maybe more ankle and wrist, so the extremities of the leg and the arm. In such things as walking, which humans, that's basically the basic movement we're really designed to do, you know, evolving from 4 legs onto 2 so we could walk long distances and hunt and travel far. So, your same side wrist and ankle pronate and supinate, or at the ankle to kind of internally rotate, at the wrist internally rotate, and then externally rotate, externally rotate at the same time. So your right foot, as it pronates, your right wrist pronates at the same time if you are, um, really kind of walking well. And so yeah, that's interesting what he's saying in terms of that, because I guess that's what he's saying is almost opposite, if I just do that at the same time. But then that's not to say it's wrong, because perhaps at his arm, so right near the shoulder joint, it could be doing exactly what it's doing to make the wrist pronate. So yeah, I think that's an absolutely really cool idea, and I played with a similar thing just over in Japan this time, just trying to coordinate my arms with my legs and realize just how huge an impact it made. And I guess getting away from that feeling of, you know, when you first train to be an instructor, keep your upper body quiet, keep your arms still, do not move them. And that's still very kind of ingrained, I realize. And even getting some video of me actually being looser and more active with moving the arms, it actually looks like they're quieter and more still, which is— Definitely very interesting. Yeah, very interesting.

So if we come back to Kristoffersen, like you look at him in slalom and is definitely not trying to be quiet with his upper body. Like, he's really involving the whole body in the turning process. And this is a little bit what I try to go towards right now, like not trying to limit my power by trying to like fix certain parts of the body. I really try to discover a little bit the levers, levers that you can— how you can use the body to maximize the power on the outside ski. And I found like that central axis concept from Alain Zuberey, like we've played with it this weekend, and honestly, uh, I think there's some, uh, some, uh, still some testing to be done with that. And still, uh, in order to teach it properly, uh, try to come up with some external references in order to facilitate the learning. Like he was talking about, just simply lifting the inside pole off the ground as you're increasing the edge. Yep. Just like, just that makes a huge difference and free the body up to move inside and really try to like it was, uh, like bending that central axis a lot more, uh, naturally.

Yep. So yeah, I mean, I guess along that, that idea of inside arm, outside leg, I mean, you— a lot of fitness people now talk about this, um, kind of posterior oblique sling, or basically from your opposite shoulder to opposite hip. So left shoulder to, to right hip. Shape, you've got some huge muscles that the fibers of those muscles run in the same direction. So, starting from the top of your right— sorry, the top of your left shoulder, you've got your latissimus, the big lat muscle, which most people seem to focus on using in something like a chin-up. But this muscle, it goes from your left arm across your back into the, the big sort of fibrous area of your lower back called the thoracolumbar fascia, which is a big dense, very strong sort of area. So the fibers go into that part and then crosses over your spine down onto the opposite side glute, so onto the right-hand glute. So there is a complete relationship of when your right glute contracts in running or in a lot of sports, and if your left latissimus contracts, they both work as this one diagonal line that goes from one side of your hip to the opposite shoulder, like a diagonal sling. And you've got one on the other side, so you've got this X that goes across your torso, kind of crossing right over that central axis point of the belly button. So if you're involving— yeah, if you're involving this, this X alternating stretching or lengthening and then contracting, then you're getting this, uh, this really nice sort of whole body sort of rebound suspension action working. And when you get it across like areas such as like your Achilles tendon is another area that, that is a densely, densely fibered area that, uh, basically you can get almost free energy out of. So rather than a muscle, but more like the tendon and this, this dense fascial area, when you load these dense fascial areas, someone described it to me as like a, like a resonating board. They, they load up and really sort of almost sort of, as you, as you stretch and load them, they push— the fibers push out against this kind of fascial tissue and load it up really like a tight drum. So when, when you let go, it's not just muscle contraction that's helping you propel energy or movement forward, but this, this resonating drum feature is contracting and exploding. So you're using that thoracolumbar fascia through these— the glutes and the latissimus right in the middle there. You're loading it and stretching it and, yeah, getting that center axial point to kind of load up and propel you forward. So yeah, that's cool. I definitely now agree with what you're saying with what the osteopath is talking about.

And you know, like, after that we talked about a little bit more how to make it accessible for the people because it can be a little bit like technical, but, and in internal also. But when we just started to play with like making sure that the inside pole doesn't touch the ground, and he was even talking about like kind of pointing the handle towards like the down the mountain, if you wish, just to make sure that you internally rotate a little bit like all that inside arm. Yep, and he was asking— he was telling me that like that internal rotation of that inside arm really pulls the spine up, and, uh, this is the concept of suspension. Like he says, you're gonna gain some balance on that outside ski not by coming down towards the ground but by creating a suspension. So this concept, honestly, I've been playing with that for the last couple of years, but now I'm, uh, every discussion we've had together, I realize how important it is. I'd like, I'd like you just to describe—

just while I just thought something for people to maybe think about is, you know, when you see like Kristofsson or Ted Ligeti come out of a GS turn and they have so much speed across the hill, this sort of slingshot movement, and a lot of people you know, talk about this bending the ski and that sort of thing. And yes, bending the ski is part of it, but you can even yourself, you go and grab a ski and you flex it with your arm, and if you're pushing just with your arm, you can flex that ski, then even you just standing against it, it's not really going to be the ski that's really holding the load and this tensional energy. It's got to be coming from somewhere else. And it's got to be coming through this tensional structure of your body. So the more you can load every fiber, the more when you choose to time the release of that, the more it is going to fire you. So that's great. Yep.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And this is exactly what I try to play with in my skiing, is like the timing of bending that body in order to feel some propulsion. To, to connect with the, with the U-turn. I'd like you to go a little bit deeper on your side, like skiing in suspension for you, what does it mean and how do you develop it?

Oh, right, well, um, for me, I've like, I've— this is my first summer off skiing in in 9 years. It's the first time I've had quite a bit of time to, I guess, play around with some skiing-type movements, but not on skis. So for me, when I went over to Japan to ski in suspension, I did a heap of training and exercises and play in my body before I went to try and feel, I guess, different different positions or different, yeah, ways my body is loaded in order to simulate how would I get out of, say, being in a very low compressed position, which, you know, being in the moguls, big moguls, you're in after you absorb a bump. So, you know, where am I really feeling that I've got to be in order to get my whole body to want to pull me out of this compressed position with the least effort possible. So I guess I'm playing a lot with not being on snow because I don't have snow around me, but it really paid off in terms of going over and skiing in Japan. I could really feel— I just felt a lot more free, loose, not as constrained in terms of the way I should be skiing, but more the way I feel I ski, rather than thinking it too much. So, yeah, lots of training, I guess, outside of skis, walking, jumping, side-to-side movements. Yeah, does that answer the question?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, I was like, I was listening to Paul Laurence's interview you've done a couple of days ago, and he was talking about that Japanese, like, going down as fast as he could, down as he could down the hill. That's really inspiring. And honestly, if you want to ski at those sort of speed, you need full range of motion. And this is where you really see the power of skiing in suspension. As soon as you compress at those sort of speeds, like, if you try to load the ski by shortening the leg, you're just gonna get yourself launched and you're gonna lose snow contact right away. So this is an element that I really liked about Paul's interview and that really inspired me. Like, the next day For sure, I went straight down the hill and tried to ski as fast as I could. And honestly, that's what it's all about. Like, that's so fun. Love it.

Yep, yep. If you never put yourself in that position, you'll never know how to react to it, right? Definitely. So yeah, I think that's a very cool concept. That's really pushing, um, the limits of suspension in your body.

For sure. And also, you know, the, uh, when you ski at those sort of speed, like, it tells you the truth. There's a lot of ways you can ski at slower speed, but at those sort of speed, there's not many ways that will work. So you could, uh, like, you could do anything you want on nice snow at slow speed But if you, like, if I would build the perfect interski team, for example, I would make them ski with a bar. Let's say they ski with 100 pounds on their shoulder and they're doing like, they're skiing down the hill with that bar. Honestly, I think we would see a lot more similarities with our skiers because they need to deal with that load and there's not 100 ways to deal with the load in the turn.

Yep.

So this is why, like, you look on the World Cup, those guys, when they're turning, like, in the pressure zone, they— there is less and less difference. Like, those guys are going faster and faster. There's more and more similarities. So, uh, like, I like the idea of skiing extremely fast in order to test a little bit those concepts and to get good feedback from the forces.

Mm, yeah, absolutely. So I know a lot of this is high-end skiing kind of talk, but you've been out there training your instructors and CSIA instructors this season. How have you gone with perhaps playing with these different concepts? Have you found it difficult to, you know, communicate what you're trying to get at, or have you found that it's actually been kind of, um, I don't know, a little bit enlightening for them to maybe think a bit outside the box?

Well, I think the most important is to bring the concepts progressively. So for example, at our ski school, what we've been talking about in a snowplow turn, for example, is not trying to overload the outside and trying to compress over the outside leg. I'd rather see the instructor working, uh, getting the inside leg a little bit shorter gradually in order to suspend a little bit the inside half of the body and to create a smooth contact, a progressive contact. So what we're talking about now, which is extremely expert Honestly, I'm working exactly on the same lines with a beginner in a snowplow turn, not trying to compress on the outside leg but maintain a little bit more length on that outside leg and trying to gain, uh, try to assist a little bit the steering. I try to combine the steering of the outside leg but a shortening of the inside leg at this at the same time. So to me, the concept of suspension, it's at low end as much as it is at high end.

Yes, yep, excellent. And have you, um, how have you found people have responded? Have you had some, like, people have some aha moments or some, uh—

Definitely, it's, it's a lot more natural way to ski, trying to, uh, get the inside leg shorter and build some balance in suspension versus building some balance and compression, it plays a lot on the feeling of people. You're compressing on the outside leg, you block the action, you have a lot of this outside ski skidding a lot and a lot of tension in the body. Skiing in suspension helps the people to ski a lot more natural, a lot freer. It's easier to gain some some flow and some rhythm. So honestly, I've seen a lot of smiles and a lot of good results with the concept. I'm really, really excited about it.

Yeah, I guess it's just got me thinking about that. So say you're getting someone to focus on that inside leg shortening and flexing to allow the inside half to be sort of suspended. If you then take the next step step further of the, the next turn. So say you've shortened and suspended your left leg, the next turn, in order to be in a strong position to deal with forces, especially if you're starting to go faster, that outside leg is going to need to be extended to be in a strong position. So previously, if that previous turn you allowed it to suspend, then it is in a loaded position. It doesn't want to stay bent like that, just like we don't want to stay seated all day, we want to get up and straighten out. You bend that leg before the next turn, and you really bend it, then it is going to be far more active, almost self-active in extending and lengthening, and I guess allowing the center of mass to be much further over and inside the start of the new turn, whereas if it is is kind of perhaps a little stiff, you're not allowing it to shorten in that previous turn, then it is going to be far less likely to want to extend and travel out away from you. So, you asked me what things am I trying to do in suspension, I'm trying to, in skiing, I'm trying to think about one step back. If I'm working on a particular movement, I take one step back What would I need to just 1 second or half a second or, you know, a few meters prior to this movement, what would I need to do? How would I load the body so that it has no option but to do the opposite thing and move into the position I want it to be in for that point? So I go back a step and go, how would I suspend it in order for it to be extended? And get into that next position. So that's really cool. I think, uh, as a progression, I guess you could then go to talking with the person, okay, now notice that this shortening that we've worked on is now really helping the next stage, this lengthening, strong extension part of the turn. So yeah, definitely.

And you know what's the beauty of what we're talking about? We're a bit of a, like, a freak sometimes, like But this time what's interesting about it is we can adapt this, and someone who's just starting to do snowplow turn can use the same concept of the guy on the World Cup. It's just like to bring it progressive, but it brings a lot more leg independence, it brings a lot more suspension precision, full range of motion. Very fluid approach, no blockage. Yeah. So honestly, I, I see that a lot in the Japanese guys, and I'm quite happy to see Paul getting involved a little bit in those technical championships because I think those guys are doing some really nice things, and I'm inspired honestly by, by what they do. Yeah, definitely.

So I've got a question for you. So if you could have tomorrow your ideal day of ski training, how would it look like? You know, you'd get up, would you, what would you do? What runs would you do? Would you do some exercises? Like, how would it go, the ideal day?

It's funny, it's funny you ask that because, you know, I've been working in this industry for quite a while now, and you know what I told my girlfriend lately is, hey, it would be so nice to go with a bunch of friends skiing powder with fat skis and just having fun and skiing and laughing. That would be the perfect day for me, honestly. As much as everybody who knows me know I really love technical stuff but I've never had a ski holiday in powder with friends, and honestly, I gotta admit, I was a little bit jealous when I saw your pictures from Japan. I said, wow, honestly, I would really like that. For sure, I'm from Eastern Canada, so like, it's a little bit harder snow, and we're always skiing with a bit narrower skis, but it's always tempting to ski on softer snow a little bit, and skiing powder with a bunch of friends, there's nothing like it.

Yeah, good, good response. So I guess we're probably getting close to the hour mark here, we should probably wrap it up, and what I was thinking, if you could give some advice to you know, some budding instructors, budding technical skiers, people really trying to work on breaking through that next level, what would it be?

I would say ski with your heart, teach with your heart, and try to test stuff, ask questions, stay open-minded, and don't just try to repeat what you've been told and try to make up your own mind and try to be part of what's coming next a little bit versus just trying to listen to what the trainers say and take it for granted. Test it and come up with your own solutions. I think it's a lot more exciting. This is what I've been doing for the past few years and now I get to exchange with guys like you, which I appreciate so much. So, I think it's just to be a little bit more— like take responsibility a little bit for your development. I think it's a lot more fun this way. Excellent.

All right, any final things you wanted to say in this podcast before we wrap it up?

Well, honestly, like we said, you've been— it's been nice. Like, those discussions, like, have been really nice. I really enjoy, and I hope we'll keep doing it. And this one is on tape, but like, I had a nice plan and I didn't talk about anything from my plan. So let's chat another time, and like, it's always, always good to exchange with you. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, excellent. Well, thanks very much for your time, JF, and yeah, we may have to reschedule another talk in the future. Thanks a lot, Tom.

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps. And to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls. Which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of Turn Tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.