Manny Osbourne-Paradis - The art of gliding, collecting helmets and deleting $#i7

What do you think it takes to be one of the best gliders in the world in ski racing? Well, on today's show you're going to find out from Manny Osborne-Parady, 4-time Olympian, multiple World Cup winner, and now dad and ski coach. So I got to meet Manny in Quebec recently and sort of do some skiing with him and, and sit down and chat and get to know this guy. And I gotta say, I, I thoroughly enjoyed it. He is a really entertaining guy, he skis fantastic, and he's just got a wealth of knowledge which I was lucky enough and you're lucky enough to hear from. So as well as learning about the nuances of gliding, maintaining speed on a flat ski, because he's from the speed discipline in ski racing, you'll hear his thoughts on deleting too much information. So, when he works with people, sometimes it's actually about getting rid of stuff than giving them more, which is a fantastic approach, I think. You'll also hear from him about the massive collection of World Cup skiers' helmets, and these are top-level athletes like Marcel Hirscher, Michaela Shiffrin. He's got a massive collection of signed helmets, which is pretty cool. You'll also discover that he recently did his Canadian Level 4 instructing certificate and went through that process after sort of coming to a point where he'd had an injury, pretty serious one, to his leg. And you know, what is he going to do? So I think that part is fascinating too, him going from the world of ski racing into the world of instructing and, and what he learned from that. I really hope you enjoy this episode with Manny Osborne Parady and you get some great takeaways and it helps to improve your skiing. Just one final thing, if you've not heard of Big Picture Skiing, Big Picture Skiing is my project, it's my company, it's what I do, it was born in the COVID era, and the idea is to bring every bit of information that I have learnt over the years as a ski coach to you in video format, lessons on bumps, carving, equipment, Basics, drills, everything. The things that I find really help others improve when I go and ski with them, I turn those into videos and I make them really digestible and easy to understand, so you can go take that information and improve your skiing. So if you haven't checked it out, please do, bigpictureskying.com. We also have an iOS and Android app now, which makes things much more easy to use, download offline, screen cast to your TV, lots of other cool things. So yeah, thanks for checking it out, and thanks for those who already subscribe to Big Picture Skiing. And as a thanks for listening, you can use the code PODCAST at checkout, and that will take 25% off any subscription. Let's get started with this show.

Hey Manny, so I found out from you, you have the largest collection of signed World Cup skiers' helmets that you're still building. Is that correct?

Yeah, man, that's correct. I do know of one other person. His name is Greg Marocchi. Shout out to him because he's also put in some time and effort into collecting a helmet collection. And I think his is pretty vast. It's definitely nowhere near the size of mine, but I have some unfair advantage as I'm friends with most of the racers. Yeah, it was something that started, I was at Marco Buchel's house one time just between Wengen and Kitzbühel, and then we had a day and I had stopped over at his place and he had this beautiful helmet that he had gotten painted and he had just gotten a new one. And he was like, check out my new helmet. And he's showing me like his new helmet. It's great, all that stuff. And he's like, what do you think? It's kind of better than my old one. And he showed me his old one, which was also super sweet. And I was holding it and then he like, he took it and he literally, I handed it to him and he chucked it in the garbage can. And I was like, oh dude, you're throwing that in the trash? And coming from Canada, we like cherish goalie helmets. Like NHL goalie helmets are like a huge thing. They're the biggest collector cards in hockey cards. And it's like a real thing. And they personalize paint their helmets. And I, it was kind of through the era of like all the racers all of a sudden started painting their helmets. And it started with Fritz Strobl. He painted the Uvex green helmet. He had his like his signature shiny, shiny green helmet. So I was like, oh, I'll have your helmet. He was like, what do you want my helmet for? I was like, I don't know, just sign it. Let's just see. And I went around and I started asking a couple other racers and like next thing you know, I had like 20. And I hadn't gone home from Europe yet. I just like asked some guys, I'm like, hey, do you guys have helmets? Hey, you wanna sign those to me? And they were like, yeah. And so then I had to start like asking my teammates and stuff to be packing helmets in their bags 'cause helmets take up a lot of room when they're just multiple helmets. So yeah, and it grew from there.

And the collection is how many?

Man, I would have to dig into my closet 'cause they're deep in my closet. There's not, it's gotten, I mean, when I was racing, there was nothing like where to put, you know, I was building a trophy case instead of a helmet case.

Like that photo you showed me, is that all of them or?

No.

Oh no, what?

No, no, no, no, no, no. That was just, I put them out at one point 'cause I was like, I need to track what racers I have helmets from and which ones I don't.

Like there's Michaela Shiffrin, Marcel Hirscher.

Oh, it's everybody. It's everybody. It's, uh, okay, so yeah, so sorry, I should like get into it a little bit where the criteria to be, uh, in your helmet, in the helmet, um, you have to have a World Cup podium.

Okay.

You just need one, but you have to have one. Uh, I think that there's probably only like one or two people that only have one. For the most part, I have the best racers. Because you had to have your helmet painted. I didn't just take a helmet. So for your helmet to be painted, you were top 15, top 10 in the world, and then, you know, the helmet companies and yourself would go and get it painted, personalized painted and stuff. You know, Kildee, he still hasn't given me one because he didn't have a painted helmet for a long time. And he kept being like, here's my helmet. I'm like, dude, you'll get a painted one. And I actually bugged him at Lake Louise this year because I was like, okay, Dude, you're pretty good now. I mean, you've won the overall and all that stuff during this pandemic time, you know. Maybe it's time I bug you for a helmet.

Yeah, okay, cool. Um, so I mean, starting off with that funny thing, on, on to some more like sort of into you, what you've been up to lately. The pandemic hit, you had an injury. Can you just tell us what that injury was? And then what the decision was, why you decided to go and do your Canadian Level 4 instructor certificate. Injury.

Yeah, so I mean, the injury was super unfortunate, as all injuries are. I was at Lake Louise, it was the first race of the season, and you know, I was skiing really fast. And you know, one of the issues with skiing really fast is you you can crash. And I've noticed that in steps through the racing, my racing career and other people's, is as they start getting faster, you almost, you need to be able to ski at that new speed that you have for a little bit of time to get, have that be your new reference point of speed. And I was skiing very fast and, uh, and I just hadn't quite locked in that new speed that I had where it was where it had become safe. I really saw that and I crashed in the first training run, unfortunately. And yeah, almost lost my leg. It was a Shatzker 5 break, which pretty much destroyed my tibia plateau. And yeah, 13 surgeries later, they rebuilt my bone and they put a hip, I got arthritic hip in my leg and then they took the rest of my bone and ground it down and created bone cement with that. And then went in and packed it all around and then later attached my meniscus. And I don't know, I'm skiing today. How's it going?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like, yes, seriously well. Okay, so you were telling me on the chairlift, And for context, Manny and I here, we've just finished day 3 of this sort of ultimate ski congress that Ognjené and Warren Jobbitt organized. And so we've had some time to chat over some drinks and in the car and stuff. Yeah, so, so you then, what, what you were like, what am I gonna do? So you do—

yeah, so I do my level 4. Uh, it didn't start out obviously like I'm I'm gonna do my level 4. I actually really didn't know that how many levels there even was in, in ski instructing or anything, but I knew that I had a long— I— when you're racing, uh, well, first let's, let's back up a little bit. I almost got back to racing.

Okay.

I was very close to jumping back on the tour. I was strong, I was feeling good. My knee was— had a couple screws that were bugging me and I went in to get the screws that were bugging me out of my knee. And when they went in, they noticed that I desperately needed meniscus surgery. So they did that while I was under. And when I woke up, it was like, oh, you're not going to Europe in like 6 weeks. You're now like 6 months to 8 months not skiing anymore. And that was like, okay, now I'm gonna miss 2 ski seasons. Okay, that's the, you know, coffin shut for sure. Uh, then pandemic hit, you know, trying to rehab, trying to do all that stuff, trying to get the physio, the adequate physio and the training and everything. It just— it was a rehabber's nightmare.

Yeah.

And so that was just kind of— that was it. And so I had to make the decision, and, and, uh, uh, it was kind of— it was pretty easy decision to make at that point. I mean, it's it was, the writing was on the wall and it was already kind of a far stretch to get back. But, you know, as when you're an athlete, I mean, you deal with, you know, issues that you have to persevere and, you know, you just keep your head down and you do that. You know, you don't question the if or you don't question, if you can achieve something or how possible it is, you just always have the mentality that it is possible. And if nobody else has done it, why can't I? And so I, you know, I just had my head down and I just kept training and rehabbing. And, you know, I got pretty close, luckily, because once this other surgery, I mean, like every surgery, you're back to square one. So, but I had a lot of muscle mass, which has helped me throughout this whole process. So yeah, then I, um, I don't know, I was looking around, I was like, oh yeah, the coaching certifications, those are cool. Um, but like, I don't know, I don't really want to coach. I don't need to stand on the side of the lines of any race course, and I don't really want to travel as a team anymore or whatever. And I was just thinking, what kind of incentive, uh, do I need to just get back to skiing? And I thought, man, like, what I actually need to do is I need to find the love of skiing again. And what's that look like? And I was talking to a buddy and he said, well, why don't you do your ski instructor? And I was like, oh man, like what a novel idea for a racer and everything. And so I phoned up the head of CSAA and I was like, hey, what does this look like if I wanna do, you know, my level 4, you're starting in an academy, can I do that? And he was like, You totally can, but there's also all these other levels that you have to do. And I got more information and things looked— things were looking great though, because, you know, it's internationally recognized. It's like very cool. As I talked to more and more people in the ski industry, I mean, I'm so entrenched in the race part of the side of this world that I didn't really know this, like the ski school side, and just how how dominating it is in every market in skiing, and plus just how many great skiers there are in our country that are in this, in this, uh, like they've gone down this, the ski tech, technical skiing, ski instructing route to get to being a good skier, all-around skier, as opposed to the, the racing route of things.

Is that what you're sort of getting at?

Like there's this whole batch of people you didn't Yeah, I had no idea they existed. I mean, we're still, I mean, all week this week, you've been like, people, everybody around here yammering in names. Oh, you know this person, he's been around for 40 years. I'm like, man, I know nobody. Like, what are you talking about, right? So then, yeah, I chatted with CSIA and I thought, okay, this is what a great opportunity, middle of pandemic, like got me out of the house. We were able to travel out of our little bubbles in Canada to like the next ski resort to be training outside and all this stuff. And it was going to get me out on snow. And I, um, I, I showed up to— I didn't have to do my Level 1 exam. I'm not even actually sure if there's an exam for Level 1, or— okay, so I showed up to the days that I had to learn how to put kids' skis on and stuff like that. And, uh, and I quickly recognized, you know, this is just— the way to do this is obviously to be open and learn. And it just kind of— I think lots of people just assumed as an athlete I I would just be better, be above all of this stuff. But I feel like that's what I learned most as an athlete is you're always around experts. People know so much more about everything around you other than you just know how to go fast on skis. So you actually put your tail between your legs all the time so you can gain information and gain knowledge from all these experts around, right? I did it, you know, maybe a little different tail wag when you're just hanging out putting kids' skis on, but that was okay. And I did, I passed my Level 2, did the Level 3s, but I didn't do the exam because I had a Level 4 training camp during that. So it was, I had, I guess I had a little bit more, what would I say? So, so I had a little bit more pressure in my Level 4 examination because I was the only one there that if I didn't pass, I also went back down to a Level 2. You know, at least everybody else got to be Level 3s at the end of it.

Yes.

And man, what an amazing— Level 2 was like eye-opening. I did it actually with One of the instructors was a buddy of mine in Invermere, Will Comrie. He was such a great instructor and I had such a wicked group of young ski instructors that still rip it up at Panorama. And man, they're like, okay, like, let's slide the turn. I was like, okay, like thinking I've got this. I was horrible. Like I'd like to—

your body was just— it just was not tuned over these years to slide and skid and steer a turn, right? You just— it was so ingrained to not do that.

Yeah, like, I'd like to say, oh, I hadn't slid a turn in like 10 years or 15 years. I had like never slid a turn. So that was crazy. So that was like a crazy 4 days at the, at the Level 2, and I was like, man, I might not pass this. And we went into bumps and I'm looking at bumps like, again, hmm, I don't know, like last time I ripped through bumps I was like 12. So what am I doing here? You'd be much happier just straight lining, straight lining through the bumps.

You can deal with that fine.

No problem.

But choosing a little slow path that someone could follow. Not.

Yeah, it was definitely like a paradigm switch in my reality of what skiing is. But I tell you, like the end of the 4 days, I was like, whoa, man, I love skiing. Like this is, I don't have to go fast. I love skiing. And I, you know, and I figured it out what I needed to do. And yeah, it's not difficult. I mean, I had the ability to figure out the new balancing points and the edging and all of that stuff. And then, yeah, the Level 4 exam was amazing. I mean, you know, I'm kind of drawing out the story, but this is like— Where did you do it? Well, so right now it was 4 locations. So I did one, there were 16 days. And so I did 4 days at Lake Louise, 4 days at Panorama, 4 days at Sunshine, and Oh, it might have been 12. Might have been 12. Yeah, I think that's— man, I was doing so many courses because I had to do all these other ones too. Yeah, but, uh, yeah, so I trained all, all winter. I mean, not, not like every single day like I would with racing, but, you know, I went into the bumps, you know, learned how to ski bumps, like, and, uh, and yeah, really did work on, on sliding the turns. I went up and did morning sessions with the ski instructors and Learned a lot from different, different ski instructors at Panorama. So much knowledge, wealth of knowledge with a bunch of the level 4s, a bunch of level 3s that helped me get through my TD, and just like, just a great group of individuals that were like around helping me ski. And they kept saying, well, oh man, I was gonna go skiing with you. I thought, what am I going to teach Manny, you know? And I'm like— and then, and then we'd get into a great conversation. I could offer them some tips on like the top of the turn and what, you know, how to, how to really generate speed in through the arc. And then, you know, they would, you know, we'd go to the bumps and we— it was like really awesome. Like, we, we, um, it was really collaborative approach of really figuring out like what two different worlds could collide and create a better skier.

Yeah, very cool, very cool. Hey, so, uh, today this is day 3 of this coaching thing. We've been swapping groups of people around And we've been laughing about it, you know, what did you do today with your group? And you're like, you told them to like get rid of some stuff, you got too much stuff in your head. And I think that's something that a lot of people that get into the ski instructing game and or later in life pursue trying to become a better skier, like how did you get to that point today? You're like, actually the benefit for these people is to show them how to get rid of that sort of stuff.

How did it go?

Can you speak to that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, so I'm not teaching that often and I knew that this was the group that is now in the Elite Level 4 Academy in Canada. And I saw them first run and I was like, no, these guys are not, this is not, I actually, I looked on my phone and looked at the list and I was like, oh, did I maybe get a different group? These guys aren't the ones in the academy. And I was skiing down, I looked at my phone, I was like, oh snap, like, uh, something's go— like, these guys have too much information. They were static, they were rotating, they were all staring at their skis. They were like, they had like 6 drills in their head. And we got to the bottom and I'm like, oh man, like, not that I had too much of a plan because I really wanted to know what these guys were up to, but you know, they couldn't even at the top before we even did our first run they were having a hard time vocalizing even what they were working on. And, you know, I was asking them what their strengths in skiing— what, what's the foundation? Like, what if you need to go back to the root of your skiing? Like, what, what's that look like? And they're like, what are you talking about? You know, I'm like, oh man, we're confused. Like, so we went up to the top and, and we just talked. I talked like as an athlete, you know, you have experts everywhere coming around and trying to persuade you to do something new and innovative. And you're always like, you have to, you have to be open-minded and take that information because it may be life-altering. But it's up to you to filter that through and figure out, is that information worth keeping or am I throwing that out or do I save it for another time, you know? And so, you know, I took an analogy of like, if I have— when I was an athlete, I had like 3 hours of training, you know, you have 3-hour gym session. So you say it's perfect because it's, it's tangible metrics with, with exercises. 3 hours it takes it. So somebody comes to you and is like, hey, this is a new innovative way of training, or what's going on and all this stuff, and, or a new exercise, doesn't matter if it's your trainer or somebody else or whatever, you're like, okay, well, so I have 3 hours of of training, what does that replace? And most of the time, like 99% of the time, they're like, well, can't replace any of this, you have to do this. And you're like, okay, so I don't need your garbage. Like, that's a great idea, but like, yeah, my plate's full. Yeah, right. Find me something that replaces the foundation in my skiing.

Yeah.

Or that way in the gym. So I was like, let's, let's start deleting things. So literally I had them like dancing, we sang, we like, we went and had fun. Skiing, and we did some buddy system stuff where we watched each other skiing. We started talking about how, how, what, what we're doing well in our skiing, and, and then complimenting each other, and then holding each other accountable for the next couple runs so we could continue doing that. And, um, you know, I brought, I brought up, you know, stories of just, of, you know, where, well, we talked about, we did this talk the other night where it was the confidence competency loop, right? And I'm like, you have to build confidence. Right now you guys are in your examination year and you guys are working on competence. You guys are continually trying to create more skills. Where I was like, I had to have a talk with them. Like, you guys already have the skills. The skills are there. You already made this Level 4 Academy. You had a ski off. You're good enough. You pass the ski off. You're good enough to be in the level 4. So what are you doing trying to create new skills? All you can do is refine, like, by a percentage or two. And the refinement only happens if we build confidence. So actually, you're not even here to learn new skills. You know the skills. You're only here to build confidence. So what are we going to learn? How do we build confidence? And we're building confidence through you know, repetitive skiing, becoming fluid in our skiing, learning how to pressure the ski in different terrain, becoming free in our mind, you know, like getting that, that all the skills to work intuitively. And then once you work intuitively, I started saying, hey, listen guys, we're not— now we're not focused on anything. When we don't focus on anything, granted, okay, I said, listen, you get one cue And the thing is, in the queue, you get to focus on that one thing before you start the turn, okay? Or before you start skiing down the hill. So visualize that, use imagery. What does that feel like? How does that look to you? Really use it. Then think about it for a sec, then go ski. Because what we need to do is adapt to the terrain and adapt to a bad turn. If you do a bad turn and your ski washes out, or you pop, or How quickly can you fix that? Well, you can fix it by the next turn if you're not full of junk trying to ski better. You can adapt, right? So now you have to— okay, how can we be proud of ourselves for adapting quickly? Because we don't know what we have to adapt to at the start of the run. So if you think that you're going to prepare at the top of the run, well, you don't know what you're preparing for because it hasn't happened. Yeah. And it might be different. It might be icy over the slope, or it might be bumpy, or it might be something. So the "it" that you're adapting to, we don't know what it is. So it's how quickly can we adapt to that terrain and how quickly can we be aware of that. So it was like clearing our minds so we can be better at adapting to our circumstances, either our skiing or the terrain or the light or whatever. Once you do that, that's how you build confidence. Once you build confidence, why don't we go back to video and stuff like that and see how we're skiing? And the confident version of you will likely only have like 1 or 2 things it needs to work on. And now you really know what skill you now need to add into your skiing instead of just chucking the kitchen sink at it. So that's what we worked on today. I mean, that was a long thing, but that's what we did.

Yeah, I, I I thought that was really cool. Like, at first I was like, you lazy so-and-so, like, you know, but then I was like, actually, and I spoke to one of the guys and he was like, it was just what I needed. Like the delete, delete, delete, delete, delete thing. Like we all know in our day-to-day lives, like, you know, people come up and offer you this new thing and, you know, this extra thing and you just, you can only take on so much and So I think that's really sound advice for a lot of people probably listening that are in the same kind of boat and they're struggling to get to that, what they want to achieve next. And it's a great approach, that confidence-building thing. And yeah, I wish I was in your group.

Yeah, you touched on it today.

Yeah.

Yeah, because in your presentation at the end of the day, you were talking about surfing and everything, and you had said, you literally verbatim, it was so great, you said Well, I didn't want to work on any skills or anything because I've tinkered with those quite a bit, that I'm just working on staying present and following the terrain and going over the terrain. And I was like, well, yeah, that's what we're trying to do. So you're in the confidence building cycle. Yeah. And you're learning right now, you know, like, and for the most part, that's where we should be. We shouldn't be in the opposite cycle.

Yeah.

Right. So it's one thing when we have— but this is where these people came here to be coached, but they're all instructor-based, right? So now I'm not trying to preach here because I'm new at all of those things, but what I'm seeing is that they're so used to getting somebody for 4 hours or 3 days or whatever, and they have to give them information, right? Where when we show up to a 4-day event where there's good skiers teaching good skiers, Well, that's now, that's now a coaching approach. So we don't need to just give them the, the, our side of the information they already know. We need to refine the information they already know and create into more of a competency loop and with confidence where it's actually their intuitive skiing. So we need to just help them create it to be more intuitive. So that's Yeah, like that's kind of where I, I feel like the coaching side of my skiing really pays, pays dividend here, where definitely it's, it's the two sides where I, I love that back and forth. There's always a time and a place for both.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

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Cool. Hey, sort of, uh, so now, like, like switching gears, or maybe not even switching gears, you, you mentioned you asked them, what, what are your strengths? And they didn't even know their strengths. What was— I know you, you've mentioned it, I, I didn't know this, that you were the best glider in the world at, at one point. How, how does that look like? I mean, obviously you just fast on a, on a, on a flat ski. Is that a fair— yeah, sort of description? How would there be two things you could teach me, or maybe encourage me to go and do, if I wanted to be a better glider? And, you know, do you think that would help seeing my skiing? Do you think that would help my skiing? Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, being the best glider in the world, um, you know, is up for debate. As always. I mean, when I was— when— I mean, I was winning lots of gliding sections, so it's pretty— it's— I have a fairly good argument. Yeah, during the time that I was winning a lot of the splits, I'd have to give my, my teammate Eric Gay a lot of credit because he would— we knew when we were gliding and we were skiing the best, we were like 1-2 in most of the gliding sections. But there were guys like Walkhofer right at the beginning that was also quite good at gliding, and Denarius came in through there. There were a couple guys here and there, but consistently I would have to say like Eric and I were in the top, and there were 2 years for sure that I was, yeah, I was unbeatable on the flats. I mean, I literally, I could be like 32nd on the pitch and then win the flats, which also, which means that I won the flats with like 37th amount of speed coming off the second, you know, like, so. You're like, wow, that's, that's uber fast, you know.

So, but how, how, like, have you got like Princess and the Pea feet? Do you just like feel the snow that you know, like, how to like not create as much, like, how does that even work?

Yeah, there's a couple, there's a couple tricks.

Yeah.

Um, a lot of racers just inspect and then inspect the flats, just like like, I'm just going to breeze through it.

Oh, this is flat, don't need to look at it.

You really have to look at the smallest little inclinations in the snow, and you always want to run a flat ski. So let's just say, for example, you use a course—

give us a course—

a course where, like, okay, like in Garmisch, um, the, the second flat area, like, you've kind of gone I don't know, it's probably, we're like maybe 35 seconds into the course. It gets quite flat for a long time. So you do a little hop and then there's 2 gates that are pretty much straight. So we're gonna go like 150 meters, you know, 500 feet straight. But there's probably a tiny little bit of slope that's canted to the right there. Uh, it's not much, but I would say that it's a couple degrees. It's probably more than a couple degrees because outside and whatever, but it's— you wouldn't really notice it unless you stopped, paid attention, truly paid attention. So if I want to run a flat ski down that slope, then I need to actually run my ski pointing up the hill, right? And I actually have to ski a little bit sideways.

No way.

To the point that—

No way, like kind of almost like the most minute side slip. I mean, it's not really, but yeah.

So like in that 100 meters, I would probably aim, you know, a meter to the left.

Is it a little bit like a golfer putting in a way?

Yeah, absolutely. So I would aim my skis and I would drift sideways, but we're talking like 1 meter to 100 meters. So like, you know, it's—

Yeah.

But you would drift your skis, um, to, to the point that you want to get back to in a straight line. And that's— it takes a lot of guts, but it's also— it's, it's because it's sketchy because you could catch edges and stuff. You got to run a flat ski kind of sideways like that too. So that'd be like one way. Uh, the other way is you, you have to make really sharp turns, and people kind of get lazy on the flats and they make a little longer. But you can cut off lots of distance on the flats, but you can only cut off the distance at the top of the turn. So lots of times, like, let's just say I'm going straight towards a gate, I would, I would never ski towards straight towards the gate, which lots of people do in the flats. I would ski aiming maybe 2 meters out, 6 feet out, and then I would actually like visualize as I'm coming to the gate that I'm going to ski kind of behind the gate. So I would do a sharp turn into the gate.

Yeah.

And so you give yourself the depth on— like, it's like a glider's version of the depth.

Yeah.

To ski just like into it.

Yep.

And you cut off quite a bit of distance because after the gate you'll, you'll save a lot of elevation, and then you have a lot less late pressure And through that, then what you can do to the next turn now is do what the same thing that I was telling you, where you would aim to a different point and then ski sideways down to it. So you gain a little speed, you cut the distance, and then you ski sideways down to the next point.

Did, did someone teach you this? Did you intuitively know it? Did you have a coach that was like, hey, this is—

you need to start paying attention to this?

Like, why were you doing it and not others?

Um, well, I don't know what everybody else was doing. I have no idea. So, uh, it actually happened— I was a good glider. I was always very good at finding the bottom of my skis. Um, just, I found it, and you don't need to like wiggle your toes or anything. You just, you just need to find the bottom and then have a very good tuck, like be comfortable skiing in a tuck that is fast. So like lots of wind tunnel testing, you know, lots of like being in a, in a tuck position. And then when you're scared and you're skiing and you're doing— get maintaining that, that position that you know is the fastest. It's easy to, to be lazy on that.

Yeah.

And you know, just with jumps and terrain, like always making sure cognizant that your hands and stuff are very close to you. That I learned easy for Darren Rouse. Darren Rouse did that like He was the man at keeping so compact going over terrain, staying in the air, his landings. He was always so good at staying compact from being in the air to his landings. He was super cognizant of that. So I would watch him a lot. I learned a lot from, I mean, Darren, I mean, D Money's man. He's like, he's so good at skiing already. It was like one that you had to watch, but he did all the little things that lots of people got lazy at. So I would watch him a lot, and he would help me too. He was such a great mentor throughout my whole career. I mean, he didn't have to talk to me. I was just a punter when I started on the World Cup, and he always gave me the time of day and was a really, really great ambassador to the sport and for helping me, and just, he was always great. But he did that really well, and I don't know where it was, but I know in Chamonix, which would have been one of my first— well, the first World Cup I ever went to. There's a turn, and unfortunately I blew my knee on that turn actually too, but there's a turn, it's a left-footer, it's quite close to the bottom, and you go through compression and you come up the hill. And I watched Walkhofer one time go up the hill, and because you literally go up a hill, I was like, why is he skiing way up the hill, and then it kind of basketballs and then gets down to the gate. He like skied way up and then skied over, and it's blind, so I was like, oh, he must have just screwed up or whatever. I had no idea because you can't— normally it's not so steep of a side hill, but that one's a bit steep of a side hill, and I was just like, oh, interesting. And I was like, well, that would make sense to kind of ski it sideways, so I did that. And I went up the hill and I skied it sideways and then I won that split by like something stupid like 2, 2.5 tenths of a second. And I think it was my first World Cup. And I was like, "Oh, that worked." Because it's uphill so now you have an edge going up a hill and then landing on a side hill with a long flat section. But if I aim to go up straight up the hill to the higher point, I now go up the hill without edge.

Yeah, gliding.

And then I land flat and I ski sideways down to the gate. Now I've not put the edge in the snow for like 60 meters of skiing, 70 meters of skiing, with like a kilometer left of flats to the finish area. And I— it was so fast that I was like, oh yeah, okay, well Whenever you put your edge in snow, it's slow. So it's always figuring out like how you can do it without putting your edge in the snow. So yeah, maybe that's how I learned it, I don't know. But it's— I've— when I look back, I always think, oh, that's, that's this the turn that I think I learned how to become a good glider to one of the best gliders.

Yeah, reading the terrain really well in, in terms of keeping that ski flat to glide.

Yeah, and just learning how to generate speed in your tuck. Most guys can do it, but you know, for whatever reason, I was, I was a lot really able to do that well.

Yeah. Is there, is there in your opinion much difference between like the speed guys and the, I guess, the tech guys, the slalom GS guys, in terms of like— what I want to ask is, is the maybe the camaraderie or is, is there a difference there in like the attitudes of say the speed guys versus the attitudes of the slalom tech guys at World Cup events, that sort of thing? Or is it— are they all— are you all kind of friendly? Can you speak to that? Is there anything?

Yeah, we all, we all get along. We're, we're friends. You give me a 14-year-old kid, I'll tell you if they're a speed skier or a tech skier though. You know, right off the bat.

Yeah, yeah.

90% of the tech skiers are one kind of personality and 90% of the speed skiers The speed skiers are a bit more like sloths. Like, we can go fast, but like 2 minutes at a time. Just like actually, like the actual personality. We're like very calm, collective, forgetful, kind of there, kind of with it, but not really. We were totally— I mean, you have to forget. You forget the dangers. You gotta forget. But like, I don't know, we're just the group. And now I don't want to like sandwich us all right into that, but we're all of a somewhat version of that. Where the tech skiers are like fidgety, a little bit more like A-type. They work on their equipment, guys. They love working on tweaking things. And they just, they just, they don't sit still. They get up, they move around, and it's just, they're just, that's what they do. So when we're in a hotel together, like, we don't really hang out because they freak us out. Like, when the tech guys come in, like, when the Canadian tech team would come into our hotel and the speed guys are there and we're all like laying around watching Netflix doing nothing, and these guys are out and about figuring out some new roller exercise that they figured out and how they're gonna balance on it and then jump over to a ball and do somersaults. But they all, we're so mentally tired from all the video that you have to do and all the training runs and these guys just come in and they're trying to stay so quick on their feet, they're like, ugh, it is like, it was so mentally draining to have the tech guys around. So at race, and they know it, they know it. They are like, you guys are the laziest group. Like, that's just where they're at. So you can tell. You lump them together, yeah, yeah, that's no problem. Now, you know, there are skiers that break that rule, but for the most part, it's hilarious. And—

Interesting.

Yeah, it's funny, man.

I just got reminded of, we were at the bottom of the the gondola about to come back up at Le Massif. And I said, back to the CSIA training stuff, I said, is there anything you, you picked up and learned from that training that you think could have helped you? Perhaps not with all the, the, the speed stuff, but more tech event stuff. Do you want to comment to like what you sort of discovered there?

Yeah, definitely. I think One big thing that I learned through the CSAA was finding a different spot on my ski. And then being able, and when I say different spot, with the speed skis, you're always, there's only, there's a pendulum swing, but it's super far forward and then to the middle. If you're in the back, you might get squatted out, you're gonna go off a jump, like there's terrain, there's no back, the back doesn't exist. But I was never able to, even in Super-G, you could move that pendulum swing a little farther back into the ski, GS even farther, and I think slalom even farther, you know? And I never really got that. And so for GS especially, I would always stay so far forward on my ski that I had a great top of the turn, I had a great apex, but I could never transition the end of the turn to being that productive to get to the other side, so I, uh, to start my next turn. So the linking was never really there for me, and, and because I never moved far enough back in the ski. So kind of what I learned through the whole CSAA was how to use the full side of the ski. Like, oh, there's not a front and a back, but there's actually like a side to the ski. Which is, which is so ridiculous to think, like, you know, 18 years on the World Cup and somebody had never really thought about it. I had thought about it, but to truly, like, take days and days and days of, like, uncovering what that feeling feels like and then what you could do with it and in what conditions and what skis and being like, holy smokes, like, there, there was literally one side of the ski I wasn't using. And that's, yeah, that's crazy. I think it would have been super helpful. I mean, I was very lucky to, not lucky, I worked my ass off, but I won a Super G race, World Cup, and I did get a World Championship medal in Super G. But I think that piece of truly figuring that out would have really progressed my Super G skiing. For sure would have helped downhill too. I mean, Birds of Prey, a couple downhills where you really had to link turns. Uh, it just— yeah, it just— I didn't have it. I didn't— you know, my tail would wash out at the end of the turn. You know, I was always trying to stay too far forward. Um, you know, it also probably helped me a lot. Like, Wengen, I had some great results, and I was— I had lots of energy in the finish area. And you stay from the middle of your ski to the front of your ski, you maintain a lot of energy. So there's a time and a place to use the side of the ski. So you would have had— I would have had to break that down a little bit more. Uh, but there's definitely some merit to it. I'm sure if you asked a really good technical skier, they'd be like, man, he's an idiot for not knowing that. That's like, that's just what you need to know.

But, uh, like, how cool is that, that just still learning about, about this sport that you've dedicated a lot of time to, and, uh, yeah, discovering some new feelings and new ways of using the equipment today, right?

Yeah, and even in a carve turn, like when you think you're the expert at a carve turn, but you just maybe couldn't do it as well as, you know, another 20 guys in the world or whatever. But like, no, there's some— I, I've always actually, now, now that I'm truly, uh, involved in, in CSAA or ski instructors and stuff, I mean, there, there are so many great skiers within the ski instructing world, uh, that I, I, I wish we had utilized them more. I think You know, you and I have talked a lot about, you know, the difference from teaching and coaching. And there were a lot of times that we just— I mean, I was coached for my whole life. And I'm not really even sure when the teaching even came in. I think it's just through so much time. And you know, the teaching like what we talked about and maybe correct me if I'm wrong because you're much more technical with this. But the teaching is the acquiring of new information and skill where the coaching is refining the skill, correct? I think that's— yeah, that we've pretty much defined it on, give or take. And I was saying this the, the other day with, with Kelly Vanderbeek and, and, um, Sherri Lawrence. We were having a drink and I was like, hey, you know, like, I— they were like, what did you learn, um, from, from your whole CSIA? And these, these were old teammates of mine and they were like, oh yeah, one time we were forced by our coach to go ski with this ski instructor in Europe for like 4 days, and we actually— these World Cup skiers, and they were like, I think we learned more about our skiing in those 4 days than I ever had. Like, that was the best 4 days I ever had to improve my skiing. And you're like, well, clearly there's a, there's a gap in this model, right? And, uh, you know, I'm not sure what it is, if it's just an ego issue on the racing side or what, or, or maybe just There's so much information that, you know, it's easy later when you've got the mental capacity to learn new stuff on snow to say, okay, I can do that. But when you get off snow at the end of the year, you get a couple weeks and then you're in the gym and you're doing all the nutrition and you're doing like everything else. There's not really a time when you're like, hey, you know what really would float my boat right now? A couple more days on snow with a ski instructor, you know.

Yeah, I know, I know. But you— it's like a good point. I think both when you brought up today being with a bunch of Level 4 candidates and your, your sort of ability to perceive what was going on there and that what they actually needed was the delete button and to really just be coached, yeah, into some confidence. Like, there's, there's— it sounds like there's a real place for a bit of cross-pollination pollination to go on there. But yeah, we're not, we're not here to solve that, that issue. We can just put it out in the podcast world and someone else can, can take that on if they want to. Um, hey man, I've been really appreciative of your time, and, uh, both in the podcast here and hanging out and skiing together. It's, it's been really cool. If people want to, uh, find out more from you, like, is that— what, what are you up to these days? Is there, is there anything? I know you have uh, like an online ski store, is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then so that maybe you can mention that, and then anything else, uh, yeah, if people want to maybe potentially ski with you.

Yeah, totally. Um, yeah, I'm right in Canada. Um, we have an online store, headracingcanada.com, and, uh, pretty much any, any racer— I mean, the reps are generally located in areas that have high population, and in Canada there's a lot of areas that don't but have lots of race teams. So racers can go onto there and they can, they can buy all of Head Racing equipment at the rep discount and they just get it shipped to their house. So it's super streamlined and easy and it's been really great. And I run a couple camps at the beginning of the year, some preseason camps at Panorama. They're invite only, but you know, if anybody reaches out and they fit within the, the group and, and this, the skiing ability, um, definitely always interested in, in, uh, seeing if, if that could be an option. And that's a U16, uh, camp. And then, yeah, you know, we're just— man, I'd love to say that there's, there's a way to— I mean, you can definitely contact me if you want to go skiing. I mean, my calendar booked. I mean, we're off to Kitzbühel after this, and I'll be in Japan skiing, and I've got some— a race in Aspen, and I've got a group going heliskiing. I've got another cat skiing group this year. I just booked another cat this week, and I booked a heliski this week. So there's lots of ski hosting, corporate hosting. I do public speaking. Yeah, I'm busy, man. And, you know, yeah, in between all of that, like all I want to do is like hang out with my kids and ski with them. Or actually, man, if they want to do somersaults in the backyard, that's all I want to do with them. So that's— that's— it's busy. But, uh, yeah, please reach out if, uh, if there's an opportunity to go and ski with cool people. Um, that's what, you know, that's what floats me.

Yeah, yeah, awesome. I think that's really cool. The— I didn't realize that's what your, your store was. It was really to help people that don't have maybe they're not in the most prominent areas like a Whistler or something where there's obvious reps for their ski racing equipment, they can get in touch with you. Yeah, but yeah, I get what you mean with chatting to you. Yeah, you probably don't— you got a lot on your plate, so it better be pretty cool if you want to entice you to do something. And I can definitely testify to your presentation skills. You're a good presenter and entertainer. Container. So, thanks very much. We better get to bed. We got another busy day. I got a flight at 5 AM and yeah, thanks very much for listening to the show, everyone. Have a great day.

Yeah, man.