“Ski Just Above Your Ability. You Will Make The Most Progress.” | Sasha Rearick - Former Us Ski Team Head Coach

You know, really it was more not saying, hey, what you're doing is not good. It's more just saying, hey, this is where you are currently, painting that picture of what is possible and then saying, okay, here's the steps of how we're going to get there. You know, for him, it was, it was, it was really about balance at the top of the turn. So it was just like, you know, we just looked at video of his skiing, you know, what's what the best guys are doing. And we just looked at how his balance at the top of turn wasn't, you know, he wasn't in a good position to really bend the ski early in the turn. So the pressure was building later in the fall line. And then, over that year. Some of you may have seen some videos of Ben skiing, you know, one ski, arcing turns through rollers with no poles, cross block and slalom gates, carbon on the inside, outside ski. And like, you know, if you would've asked me 2 months before that, is that possible? I would've been like, yeah, but probably not really through the rollers. And you know, so that's a place where, you know, a coach can bring an athlete, but then also at the same time, an athlete inspires a coach just to keep pushing that limit farther forward.

And did you find that also led to him having a better top of the turn position, better balance?

Absolutely.

That was Sascha Rierich, former US ski team head coach and now director of Apex 2100, an international ski racing academy. Now in this episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast, you are going to be lucky enough to learn some of the principles and ways Sasha likes to coach his athletes. And I must say, I'm in such a fortunate position doing these podcast interviews, and someone like Sasha is like a gold mine of information. Some big things to take away from this episode. Constraints-based learning. Constraints-based learning is a big one, and Sasha has done some deep research on this, practically tried it out with a lot of athletes and seen some amazing success. And so, you're going to learn more about that in this episode, and hopefully if you're a coach or an instructor, or even if you are an athlete who likes to work on self-discovery in improving their own skiing, you're going to be able to apply these principles straight away and see some results. That's enough for me. I'm going to turn it over to the rest of the interview, but just before that, please check out Big Picture Skiing. This is where I put all my great ideas, all my lessons, helpful videos, things designed to help improve your skiing. If you're the kind of person who is a self-motivated learner, you you're going to find a treasure trove of resources in there to improve your own skiing. All right, let's get started with this latest episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast, interviewing Sasha Rierich.

Is there an example of like maybe someone, a story there with, with one particular aspect? Like you said, maybe it was someone you needed to just be hard on, and maybe up until that point they'd been babied a little bit, or everyone had sort of said how great they were.

Can you think of that scenario, that person type of person, the scenario where, you know, an athlete is, is doing really well, um, but if for them to make that next level, they have to understand what is possible. So I would say, you know, an athlete like Ben Ritchie, um, when you go back 4 or 5 years ago when he was on the junior national team, on the development team, he was working back and forth between his home club and coming to the national team. You know, he had a lot of coaches that, you know, he was definitely the wonder child that it had first year FIS, second year FIS, and came in with me who had that perspective of World Cup, of what the top level was. Really, it was more not saying, hey, what you're doing is not good. It's more just saying, hey, this is where you are currently, painting that picture of what is possible, and then saying, okay, here's the steps of how we're going to get there. For him, it was really about balance at the top of the turn. So it was just like, we just looked at video of his skiing, what the best guys are doing, and we just looked at how his balance at the top turn wasn't, you know, he wasn't in a good position to really bend the ski early in the turn. So the pressure was building later in the fall line. And then over that year, you know, we developed together a bunch of exercises and things and he actually showed me new things of what was possible. And it was just by, well, you achieved that challenge, what's the next challenge point? And I think, you know, maybe some of you may have seen some videos of Ben skiing, you know, one ski, arcing turns through rollers with no poles, cross block and slalom gates. Carbon on the inside outside ski. And like, you know, if you would have asked me 2 months before that, is that possible? I would have been like, yeah, but probably not really through the rollers. And, you know, so that's, that's a place where, you know, a coach can bring an athlete, and then also at the same time, an athlete inspires a coach just to keep pushing that limit farther, farther forward.

So with that, how long would have he spent do you have an idea of how long he practiced that for? And, and I'll get to why I, I asked this.

Practice what? One ski?

Yeah. And then adding, like, from, from not being able to kind of do it or not being given that as a challenge to then you saw it.

How much time? Say it was probably, you know, a combination of 15 days of training, you know, 15 days of training, you know, different things in there— GS training days, free skiing days. But, you know, within 15 days, you know, seeing really clear progress, um, what was, what needed to be done.

And did you find that also led to him having a better top of the turn position, better balance?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. But we didn't, we didn't go about it by talking about the top of the turn at all. We just went out as, as constraint. You'll, you look, one, we'll probably should talk about, you know, my methodology of training.

Yeah.

Really mostly is, is, is with constraint-based training where we, we define some constraints, whether they're tasks or whether their environment or equipment or rules to the game and, and really play with those things to kind of mold the athlete, uh, that you want to create. Um, and that's really my style of coaching. It's something that I've really been pushing for the last, I'd say, 5, 6 years. You know, I was, when I was the head coach of the US ski team, I didn't get to get down and dirty and coach a lot of kids on a regular basis progression. I'd come in, you know, say what I thought, give the coaches feedback, and boom, I'd fly off to another group. And, and so going back into development, back into working with kids, is I really kind of looked at my coaching and went like, okay, where, how can I be the most effective? And I went back and I really studied. I went back and looked at the latest science of, you know, of learning performance, learning and going, okay, how would you do this? And then it really came back to, you know, constraint-based, task-based training, and then using that to, to mold and develop athletes so that they can express themselves in their own way. Yes. And, and, you know, Ben Ritchie's a very tall, super athletic skier, doesn't tend to ski that way right now, you know? So it's something that I'd love to be able to work with him again and be like, hey dude, let's go, let's go back and do some of this athletic stuff.

Okay.

So, hey, on the constraints-based thing, cuz similar, I went down that path of what are other sports doing to develop skills in, athletes. And so I've, I've sort of found a lot of that research as well. Can you, can you talk to some examples in the ski world of an environmental constraint, an equipment one, and maybe a, another rule, like game, to kind of, and it, maybe, maybe start with what's, what is constraints-based learning?

Yeah, constraints-based learning. It's actually, you know, probably it started, in Quebec by some professors in Quebec back in the '70s. And, and what they basically, you're looking at is, is put an environment in place and let the athletes find their own solutions. And because of the environment, the athlete is gonna find their unique solutions. To simply say, I'll give you some examples. So, you know, I think one thing that people, you're starting to see a lot more is, is, is a straight picket fence. Of about a meter and a half apart, straight down the fall line. That kind of constrained environment in ski racing, you go, why would you do that in ski racing? You know, the minimum distance is 4 meters, usually it's 5 meters. You're setting a meter, meter and a half apart. Why? And that, that environment, all of a sudden you can constrain the athlete and you can change tempo. So you can make 'em go faster or slower. You can give them a clear task. I want you to pull plants. Every single time, every single turn. Or I don't want you to pull clip. I want you to speed the tempo up. I want you to slow the tempo down. I want you to, you know, I can use that environment with another environment of the ski pole. I can put the ski pole right on the hips and I would go, okay, the hips don't move, but make it through it. And what are they gonna do? They're gonna internally, externally rotate their feet. They're gonna steer their feet. They're gonna learn to steer their feet without ever telling them how to do it. By holding the hips, putting them in that environment, all of a sudden I'm teaching the kids to steer, which ski racers are typically really, really bad at. They chuck their feet, they carve or chuck, and all of a sudden now they're steering and they're keeping everybody stable. And I didn't ask them or explain anything. I just said, give them this. I start out slow, speed it up. So that would be an example of a very simple constraint. The mountain you grow up on, is a constraint. So if you look at the skiers from Squaw Valley, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the great coaches from Squaw Valley, they say the head coach has been the main lift there, uh, KT 22, KT 20, what, 22, 21. He goes, that's, that's been their environment that they've grown up in. And you watch any athlete from Squaw Valley, then they don't have a top return, but they chuck it down any mountain they go down because they know how to ski in the, in the environment that's steep chutes, trees, big, huge, giant boulders, body bumps, cause them how to move. Yeah, it doesn't intimidate them and they learn to be athletic through that environment. So that, you know, the mountain can be your constraint. So that, those are examples. Some equipment constraints that I'll do, I'll ski slalom with Super G, I'm sorry, slalom with Super G skis or GS with Super G skis a lot. I'll do that one a lot. And what are we doing? All I'm trying to do is just make it so the ski doesn't turn. What am I trying to do? I'm trying to get the athletes to move forward and back so they learn to use the tip and tail without explaining how to do it. Da da da, just put them on Super G skis, give them the same course, give them the same set radius as they gotta do. All right, go carve the turns. And they'll struggle, they'll fall down, they'll miss gates. Just keep working on it. And then all of a sudden, the equipment, constrains them to move in a certain way that I deem that I want 'em to see 'em move in a better way. You can, you know, do it on cross-country skis. Go, go alpine skiing, cross-country skis, you know, just, just making slalom turns like short swing slalom turns on cross-country skis. You want to be balanced. I mean, that's a balanced athlete. They can do it on cross-country skis. You know, Telemark is, is fantastic for learning how to make a proper Super-G turn. So, Yeah, those are, those are equipment constraints. Game constraints.

Can I ask why, why telemark for helping make a good Super G turn?

Um, it puts you in a really good stable position.

Is it more to do with the stance than the freestyle?

You're, you're, you're on your outside ski, but you're not dumped your hip in. You can't dump your hip.

You, you're a lot squarer.

You're squatty to the skis. Your, your, your hips are over your feet. Um, you know, you're not, you're not hip angulating too early.

Can I just, uh, deviate here? Cause I'm not sure if you knew, I was a telemarker before I was an alpine skier. I grew up cross-country skiing and, and not even in like groomed trails. My parents, we would go backcountry, leather boots and that sort of stuff. Anyway, when I got into, uh, telemark skiing. I made it to the, the demo team in Australia, and I was the only telemarker, and I was put in the group of alpine skiers. We're doing formation stuff, and I have to try and match these other high, high-end, uh, ski turns that they're making, which, which was great. So there's, there's that, that example in there. But I really struggled for a long time with knowing how much, like, like, separation, counter hip position, and, and I think you kind of have to in the tele turn. I think some people are over-rotated, they're not square. But, but I found that a really fascinating journey. And I'd say the latest breakthrough in my own skiing has just been about really finding when I want that ski to take off and just rip from tip to tail, stand in that square position, which reminds me back of like where I felt I was tele skiing. So that's what you're Yeah. Yes. So is a great tool.

And there you can see just in that, just we can unpack that little, you know, what you're feeling, where's your hip, where's your, what's your angle? And we get ourselves so confused. And I think, you know, probably North America, especially Canada and US, we're lost in terms of what is hip angulation, what is upper and lower body separation? What does that really mean? I mean, I think we could, we could have a whole podcast just about that. But I, I, I now moving back to Europe and just watching little kids progress, watching athletes who progress, who don't progress. I think that's a, that's a major topic. But to go back to the constraint, you know, like you're teleskiing and you're trying to keep the same rhythm and tempo as an alpine skier. That's a gamification. That would be a way to play the game. You know, the games are follow me, have to react to whatever I'm doing, you know? Left, right, go down, cat and mouse games with little kids. Gamification, you know, just, you know, all of a sudden going, all right, let's carve turns backwards, let's skate backwards, let's have a skating race backwards, skate forward, skate on the side hill, you know, all those type of things, those games, all of a sudden, you know, skating to me is an unbelievable independent feat or weight transfer, active weight transfer. So do it forwards, do it backwards, do it sideways.

So the coach really has to be in charge of the, the rules there, right? That becomes a really critical part because you've got this constraint and per se, like, say it's the terrain, you don't need to do too much there. But, but like you mentioned with like the poles on the hips, those sorts of things, even given a drill, if the coach doesn't clearly explain kind of the rules, like, okay, you know what I mean by pot, like your poles have to be touching both the left and the right hip joint. You're like not allowed to. You put in those rules and then, and then give them feedback. No, you broke the rule. Keep trying, but you broke the, you didn't feel it. Like that's, that's the, the coach's role.

So that's what that step, that comes really back to this whole, you know, why, you know, some people are like constraint-based, it's not fun, you're constraining people. And in the end it's actually what I've seen is athletes love it because you let them be freer. And then you clearly give them the, you know, here's the success task. If you do this well, this is what it's going to do or feel like. So they struggle, they struggle, they struggle, and when they achieve that, they know it. So all of a sudden they get, you know, an endorphin release, they get a, you know, release of chemicals, they feel a high, and they're like, okay, what's the next struggle? I want to go struggle through it and get a high. And you can let them go. And, and to me, what I've seen is when you have multiple environments and, and you create these envir— these sessions where there's really a variety of environments, yes, at the end of the session, they don't feel like they're skiing that much better, but their learning of how to be athletic on skis is through the roof. And that learning, you come back, you know, 2 weeks from now, 3 weeks from now, 6 months from now, is there. And that learning is, is the, the freedom of what they call degrees of freedom and movement. So, you know, like if a traditional instruction is move this way, your elbow's here, your hip is here, that type of, you know, pedagogic approach, which is what most sport is, leads to less degrees of freedom of movement. So yes, it looks good, but when you put pressure on you, a competition, you know, you gotta keep up with your buddy on a powder day and you can't see anything. That, that pressure, all of a sudden that method of learning falls apart.

Yes.

So that's why I've gone, you know, really towards this method of, you know, constraint-based, learning. I still use, I still use pedagogic progression in certain situations, and that I'll use when something is completely new to somebody.

And if you, if you could go back in time to like US ski team, you've just been given the role there, you'd pro— what would you do it different? Would you do it different? Would you, would you try and implement more of this stuff?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so like, I mean, I'll give the example of Ted Ligety. Yeah, I worked with Ted as a junior on the development team, Europa Cup team, and then we went to the World Cup together. You know, we had this idea of how to ski and it, you know, it was, we, it was really a lot of things that he was pushing and I was giving him feedback. Yes, that works. And especially in slalom, if you go back, I mean, Ted was a fast slalom skier, he was on the podium in slalom. And we had this idea of what a, you know, a fast turn was like. And it was very like, here's what you do at this part of the turn, here's what you do at this part of the turn, here's what you do at this part. And that led to a very fast turn for 12-meter slalom.

Uh-huh.

And then as soon as, you know, someone out there in the world decided that slalom was no longer gonna be 12 meters, it was gonna be 10 meters, all of a sudden that rhythm, that, that pattern that we had, you know, technical pattern that space you had kind of to, to do it in, didn't work in slalom. You, you couldn't do it. You, it didn't, it didn't have time. But what it did was it translated very well to GS.

Got it.

So like all of a sudden, you know, it's a lot of the success he had in GS and the way he described his turn is a lot comes from slalom, what he was doing when slalom was 12 meters back in 2000, you know, 4, 5, 6, that era. So that led me, and then we then had, okay, well, you know, Ted's winning. Everybody, this is the technique. This is the way you gotta ski. And we took then Tim Jitloff. Who was a completely different style of skier. And we tried to teach him like Ted and he just got worse and worse and worse. And it was only once we said, okay, no, no, no, no, let's go a different way that it was, he able to come back and, and actually progress in and, and get some top 5s. But you know, a technique, a, a style of skiing leads for someone in a certain environment. So, you know, 12-meter, 26-meter turn EGS, Lined up great with Ted. Once it went to 35-meter skis, it lined up even better, you know. And then there was like, okay, well, he's not adjusting to rhythm changes. So of course coaches started to set different rhythm changes. Well, that was— we practiced that, but, you know, a certain style. Then when it went back to 20, 30-meter skis, horses became way straighter. And the speed became way faster and the arc had to become way shorter because it was not necessarily who was cleanest on the ski, it was who was traveling less distance while still putting the pressure on the fall line. And that was a different style of skiing, much more force, much more, you know, courage to keep the skis going straight down. Very different. All of a sudden Marcel Hirscher started to be able to really, you know, separate himself out. And now you look at what, Odermatt is doing. I mean, Odermatt is going so straight and clean and putting the pressure on the fall line, and he's got his own style.

But, you know, do you know anything about his training background? If he, if he approached things differently, a bit like how, uh, Ben, you were just giving an example how, you know, clean up the top of the turn, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna build these challenges, constrain myself, one ski, rollers, no poles, to like develop better balance. Do you know if Odomat had anything special going on?

I, I know he had some really good coaches when he was coming through the junior programs. So as you know, last year U16s and then going into, into first and second, third year FIS, you know, that, that period of time, he had some really good experienced coaches. Um, You know, when you watch him ski now, he's got his fundamentals are very good. He's in balance. He's got lower and upper body separation at the appropriate time. So his upper body is stable. He's got an active weight transfer. You know, those fundamentals are ingrained and he's able to do that no matter what, every single turn. And I think, you know, that. And he's, I think he's physically, and he's got this characteristic that he loves to race. So I think he's got a combination of things. He's not just a great ski racer, but he's also, he's a tremendous competitor. And I think he takes great joy in competing. But you know what his methodology has been, and I haven't been around that. Mm-hmm. Probably for me to study and figure out.

I was, I was just thinking, I just had a thought there on the, the constraints-based thing, because now I, I don't really coach much. In the flesh with people. It's through video content. That's, that's a constraint that has been— I've sort of put on myself to try and do everything I can but without actually being there with the person. And, and I can say it's— when— because I did 3, like, 2-day camps this winter in Australia, and the snow is terrible this year.

I'm—

it's been so tricky just El Niño, this sort of stuff. Anyway, I've really found it's helped because of the constraints of not having, you know, on a video I got a short amount of time, I got to show a lot of stuff, I've kind of got to give the parameters and then hope that those parameters get the person going in the right track. And that on snow was like really cool. But just, yeah, just didn't realize I'd put that on myself, that that's helped my own coaching to be developed. So it's just, you know, I mean, you're probably doing this all your life at different times, but what you've discovered sort of in the last 6 years is more this framework and this kind of concept of it that you can always like think about your day around. Am I doing, you know, the things that make this constraints-based learning work?

Yeah, and I think, and I think that's, you know, what one of the things I've done is I've kind of made just a simple chart of it and, and you where you can change the constraint, the environment, the task, but then at the same time you can change the variability so that there's more randomness and there's more variability that the athlete has to adapt. And you know, people are, you know, people are trying to disprove the science on this now and they're trying to say no pedagogic way, you know, is that so?

People are trying to disprove.

Oh yeah, yeah. You know, block practice and saying block practice is more effective and, and I'm going to come back and say, if you are challenging an individual at the appropriate level, just above their current threshold of where they are, that's where you're going to make the most progress, whether you're doing it in traditional pedagogy or if you're doing it in constraint-based, task-based type training. And I think that's the key is giving the person you're working with, whether it's an athlete you're coaching or a student you're you're instructing is, is seeing where that person is and going, okay, where can I take this person? And just getting to step through that next level of, of comfort zone, get 'em outta the comfort zone, let them have some success there so that they know when they're doing it right and wrong. And if you do that often enough, you can set the governor up. So to me, that's whether you're, you know, teaching in a classroom, you're teaching in a, on the hill, that to me has been the, You know, where I see the, the magic coaches that really progress a lot of athletes, that's where they are. You know, I, you see a lot of coaches working, working, working, and they, you don't see the athletes progressing that much. And it's typically they're just, you know, they got their idea of here's the progression and they're not, it's not matching on up with the ath— athletes either bored outta their mind or it's way too far over, over their head or, or maybe it's the right stuff, It's just the athlete doesn't understand what the task is. You see that a lot of times.

Yeah. So now I wanna, I wanna, you mentioned something before about North America, Canada, hip position, angulation. Let's get in there. Come on, give it, give us your thoughts because I think this is a fascinating topic. I, yeah, let's, let's give us your thoughts.

This is how, this is how I define it. And this is good practice for me. So when I screw it up, don't be afraid to pick me at it. Is your pelvis is the center. Okay. Your pelvis. Below your pelvis, you got your femur and your legs and your ankles. So lower leg engagement. You know, when you look at high-level skiers, they all ski with lower leg engagement. And lower leg engagement is the ankles pronated a little bit. There's ankle flexion, there's internal femur rotation, the knee is driving forward and in. That's in, you watch a little kid that doesn't ski very well, the thing's wobbling all over the place, you know? And you watch a U16 pretty good skier, it's not as engaged as it should be or it's engaged too late in the turn. Okay, so that's lower leg engagement. But typically, so we got internal femur rotation, external femur rotation. So it's, but the pelvis is, is, is different. And then above the pelvis, you have the, the upper body, the spine and, and the shoulders and everything else. Now that can do a different motion than the lower body. And I think where everybody gets confused is that the hip is not the central movement. The hip stays kind of neutral and it's really the lower body's doing something and the upper body's doing something. And yes, on extreme GS turn or a really powerful GS turn, you're going to get hip angulation.

Now let's, let's clarify because this bit, the hip, the hip, that word, the hip, okay, yeah, okay, good. Because that's— I can remember being like a fresh level 4 instructor, I'm like, I know lots of stuff, and I actually still— this is before I studied any body stuff— I was like, so what's the difference between like the hip And the pelvis, like if someone's talking about hip rotation, you know, like hip rotation, I'm like, is that the leg turning or is that the, the pelvis turning? Cuz you talk to a physio and hip rotation is the leg internally rot and then someone's saying, no, that's pelvis.

Anyway, so when you say the hip, hip angulation, that's a word that's used out there. Hip angulation is, is you create angle between the upper body and lower body in the, in the lateral, in the lateral plane. Okay. Upper and lower body separation is the legs are turning one way. So the internal femur rotation, external femur rotation, the legs are turning one way and the upper body is doing something the opposite.

Yep.

Okay. Now you can do that and still have your pelvis somewhat square to your skis.

Because you can, you can, I remember hearing the guy when, when I chatted with Norwegian, former Norwegian coach. He was talking about thoracic spine separation and rotation, seeing that he sees that as a really key area because then you can keep the pelvis square in a strong position. And then so when people are separating, it's, it's actually just through the, through the rib cage.

Yeah, it's the upper body. I'm keeping it even simpler. It's just, you know, the bit, the bib, the bib of your, your bib, the zipper of your jacket is facing the outside.

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean your pelvis, right, has to face the outside.

And, and, and yeah, so then, so then, so we understand hip angulation, we understand upper and lower body separation, we understand what lower leg engagement is, how the femurs can rotate internally, externally. And then you have to understand that the pelvis can rotate or can counter, and depending on the situation you may want more of one or the other. And this is where that degrees of freedom is like, let the athlete express themselves in different ways. If you're doing glide turns and you're all of a sudden counter the pelvis, you're gonna be slow as shit. But if you rotate the pelvis in a slalom turn on steep injected slalom, you're, you're not gonna make it down. So there's a place for everything. You're skiing a steep couloir. Yes, you're gonna have, you're gonna counter the hip the pelvis to really stay, you know, over that outside ski. So there's this degrees of freedom of that motion that I think we have to understand. Now in ski racing, and what happens is, is when all of a sudden people start to coach a lot of hip angulation, and I've made this mistake for years, I had drills that were hip angulation. What happens is, is they start to think that's how you make a turn. They create hip angulation and they create hip angulation too early in the turn. And that's 99% of ski racers create hip translation too early in the turn. So all of a sudden they're out of bounds at the top of the turn.

Back to Ben. Is this what you were seeing, uh, or something different?

He a little bit, but that was not his biggest issues. He was just pushing the feet out. So his upper body, he was like, instead of inclinating, building platform and inclinating, which I wouldn't, I don't, I don't use the word inclinating because that gets people confused. But if we're really biomechanically look at it, there is that. Yep. But he was just, he was just putting the feet out there and I was just trying to get his upper body to match up and cover his outside ski. So that's something like the French use that term a lot is they say cover the outside ski. Oh.

Okay.

It's a really nice way to, you know, take something outside of the body and go, okay, cover the outside ski. So what are you doing? I'm bringing that thoracic spine over my outside ski with separation. You know, that's basically, I didn't use those terms because I didn't, I hadn't heard that then. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's what we were trying to do. We were saying, get to the outside, get over the outside.

There is a problem though that there's, there's not a clear sort of lexicon, like verbiage to these things, right? So, so back to your, your comment around, and maybe an athlete's not developing because they just don't understand when a coach is telling them do this with their upper body. Maybe they're, they're moving their pelvis with the rib cage instead of the, the coach meaning just turn your rib cage.

Yeah. Absolutely. This is, this is, this is pandemic across, I would say a lot of coaches, a lot of coaches around the world. And I, and I, and I, and I see it, you know, I see it. I'm just, you know, I see it myself in the mistakes I've made and, and kind of clarifying it. You know, angulation, hip angulation in, in France is not a good thing. If you say, oh, you're skiing with a lot of angulation, the athlete's like, oh God. It's not good. In America, it's like, yeah, I got a lot of hip pain. Let's rip it, man. Yeah. And so it's a very, very different culture. And, you know, yes, hip angulation, if you're trying to pull radius, big GS turn, you know, that works. It works.

Yeah.

If you're trying to pull GS radius. But if you're trying to now adapt that to a long Super G turn or rhythm changes or terrain, it's much harder.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's why when I was like the first guy that drew me a skiing skeleton, it, it, it looks like almost like a right angle at the hip. And then, and then now this one just really, really subtle, you know, just what's sort of needed there.

We need it. Otherwise you're, you're outta bounds. How do you, a lot, a lot of, if you look at Odermatt, Odermatt's got up, he's got that thoracic spine, like, you know, the moment of impulse to release, that's, you know, 3 ski lengths. So we're talking 5.5, 6 meters of distance in the turn. If you stop his frame, left foot turn, right foot turn, his upper body is always— thoracic spine is always covering that outside ski every turn.

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.

But his pelvis is up over his feet.

How do you think you can help change this across coaches, instructors? Because even it starts with instructors too, because kids come in thinking, I'm just going to do an all-mountain program or get a lot of lessons, and they— or private lessons, and they get an instructor who's maybe thinking they're doing the right thing? Because no one's making mistakes for trying to ruin people. They're just teaching what they think they— what is right. Yeah. So how, how does that— how does it get changed?

Yeah, I mean, I think first it's just, you know, kind of clarifying, you know, if we, if we all understood what we were talking about. So if we can get clear definitions of, you know, this is what this is, this is what this is. I think that is good. I think if we coach more in the sense of, you know, an athletic stance, like, are you athletic? And, and, and the way I, I, I define a balanced athletic stance is, can the athlete move in any way he or she wants to at any moment? So top of the turn, if we stop it, can you move left? Can you go? Can you release the edge? Can you build edge? Can you go to the inside ski? Can you go to the outside ski? You doing the Billiken?

Simple as that.

Simple as that. So I, yeah, you know, that, that to me is just, you know, can, are you, are you in balance? And if you're not, then we have this verbiage to talk about, okay, you're not because your hip is rotated or your hip is countered or you've created hip angulation in that lateral plane too early. Yep.

You're not engaging your ankle wherever it is in the body.

Exactly.

Wherever it is, you start building athleticism.

So, so if we first these kind of just basic terminology and then we try to teach more in terms of task environments.

One thing that I've enjoyed, sorry, you finish.

Yeah. Yeah. We, we allow athletes to, to, to, to learn to express themselves in in different ways. And this is one thing that like, I see the ability of, you know, an athlete. Yeah, I, I see it in mountain biking, you know, for example, in France. I mean, they are phenomenal downhill mountain bikers in France, technically correct. And they have this way of teaching it, like the proper technique of it. But the average person mountain biking in France goes 2 miles an hour. Where in America it's the opposite. Like the very top end doesn't really have, they're not that great because they're probably lacking some technique. But the average Joe's going, you know, hauling ass, having fun, expressing themselves. So there's this kind of balance and skiing's the same. And that's, that's what I'm trying to, I'm trying to work through is, is, is going, how do you take some of the good of here and some of the great of here and some of the bad of here, eliminate that, some of the bad of here and put together and, and create a, you know, a model that, a teaching model that, that allows athletes to continue to progress for the rest of their life.

Yes. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it would be a really big, really big undertaking to try and have something that is, I mean, just even North America perhaps, you know, like a, a site or something that is like, this is this has been agreed upon between PSIA, CSIA, the coaching associations, all that, that, that when we, when we mention this word, this is the definition. And then you could just give it to instructors, athletes, check it out, this is what we mean. Just, yeah, we're not speaking French to you, we're speaking English. This is the, the same thing.

Yeah.

Um, so this season I really enjoyed, back to your comment about athleticism, And the snow being pretty bad, it's like, try and use it as a, as an advantage to work on your stance, is what I'm thinking. And a mentor mentioned how important it is to, to stay athletic, like, with inside your ski shells. Doesn't matter that you're in there, you— it's just an environment that you are still athletic within or on top of. And I think I found personally, anecdotally, this, this season when I talked with people, too many people when they're in the ski boot, their athleticism is blocked because they stand very much on the heel, like flat-footed almost. And, and that's no one stands like that in any other kind of sport. Like if you stand like that on a, on a set of bike pedals, you're soon gonna find out how that doesn't go very well down, down a hill. If you stand like that trying to receive a tennis serve, all sorts of things. Thoughts on that? Because it's hard to see when you, when you're locked in a ski boot, you cannot see unless you kind of train your eye to it, like how someone is actually balancing and using their feet.

Yeah, I mean, I think equipment, um, probably overaggressive for what it's meant to do. You know, I think first and foremost, you have to, you know, if you wanna ski athletic, the foot needs to pronate a little bit. So, you know, these footbeds that are really stiff arch, you know, puts you in a supported manner. You take away your, your basic fundamental motor pattern right away. I mean, every step you make walking, you go from supinated to pronated. Pronated is where your power of the turn, power of your foot comes. So I mean, to me, that's, that's number one. So I, that's where I start. Like, you know, I, I watch someone skiing. If they're skiing, if they're, if their lower leg's engaged, I don't worry about it. But if their lower leg's not engaged, I, that's the first place I start. I just look at the footbed. I look at like how the foot fits in the boot. So if it's too big or too small, I think that's probably the biggest shock I've seen is people are like, oh no, I want my foot to be big so I can move. But then it's rubbing, it's sliding, it's got extra plastic. You want the boot to fit right. I probably make the mistake of putting them too tight. That's probably the mistake I make most of the time. And, you know, but I watch these kids that got bone spurs and they got bone spurs because they're in boots that were too big. Yeah.

Rubbing.

It's of rubbing.

Yep.

So I mean, I think that's, that's something that's, you know, important to, to get right. And then just making sure the boot's not canted too aggressively or it's too stiff. And, you know, those are the, you know, can it out aggressiveness. And there's a few people that need it. Some people need it.

But you know, yeah, the leg shape.

Yeah, the leg shape. There's, there's some people that need it, but not, you know, not the same, most people, half degrees, you know. So I, I see people come in with, you know, one's zero and the other one's 2.5 degrees and keep it, you know, half degrees inside out, maybe a little bit the cuff. Um, so I, I'd start there. And then second is just, you know, making sure that the boots that they understand how to, how to, how to move through the ankle. So, you know, I start out with bunny hops all the time, even with great athletes, you know, bunny hops standing down the hill. If they can't move at all, undo the boots a little bit, bunny hops. Then I do side edge sets, headsets, you know, traditional ski instructor headsets. Yeah. And learning to edge set just from the ankle knee. So it's just internal femoral rotation and then you make a crest and then you can make it, you can just change the constraints, you know, change where the poles are, change where the ski is, the inside ski, do it on the outside ski. But you know, that, that to me is that, that kind of, that chunk. Let's look at that chunk. Like, are they able to engage correctly the edge from the ankle knee without it affecting the pelvis? Mm-hmm.

So yeah, how do you, how do, what, what boots are you in at the moment? Are you in, and do you enjoy them?

Dude, I, I ski in a, a 10-year-old. I have about 3 pair of them still. I rotate through. Uh, I can't say the brand because I'm not sponsored by them. Okay.

But you found what works.

It's a, it's, it's an old, it's an old, old mountaineering boot that's heavy. And the reason I can ski in it is because my foot, it holds my foot and it's soft as hell. And that's what I ski in. And I get into a regular, you know, you put me into a plug boot now and I'm like, you're talking about stiff backwards arch in my back and I can't find the edge. So.

Yeah, that like ability to just flex your ankle just becomes so key. And I say that because, like, a couple of times in this camp I was— I got people, we skied one run in the entire day with boots done up. The rest of it, boots were loose. And people were kind of complaining in the beginning, ah, but then they all— because the snow is terrible, they all skied way better in it because their ankle could move through the bumpiness. And yeah, I just, I, I see— I saw it today with an online client today. Boots don't allow enough forward flexion. They're trying to crank them up thinking like the more lack of control they have, the tighter they go and the, the situation gets even worse. And you just said it like you, you put your, you put your plug boots on and suddenly, oh, all this, this weird stuff happens.

I gotta go ski for 2 days by myself and hide on the backside and yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I think Yeah, I think, I think being on soft boot and then something that, you know, when you all of a sudden have a boot that's too soft, you know it. Yeah. I mean, you're carving turns and you're, you're overpowering and you, you can't power the ski up to do what it wants to do. Yes. That's when you go, okay, I need a stiffer boot. But until that point, you know, get a boot that fits right, that flexes smooth.

Yeah.

Yep.

So do you, do you enjoy going out? Do you, do you work on your own skiing Or do you not really get time to even think about it? Cause if that, you don't, I don't work on my own skating.

So one of the things out of all the research I did was one of the things I, I read and I took it to heart was like, demonstration is actually bad because in the, in the theory on this and the science on it is that you actually, by demonstrating, you're actually showing the athlete what they're supposed to do instead of the task. And I went, oh, that's me. That's good. I'm out.

There's your excuse.

Yeah. So every once in a while I'll demo because, you know, I don't, I don't explain the drill correctly, so I'll demo it to give an idea on it. But, you know, I've got a series of drills I run. I go out and practice those a little bit. And those drills, they're really, they're just tasks. They're just constraint tasks.

So what are they? So give us them.

Yeah, the first one was reverse bicycle. And this is a cool story. It was during this time when Ted was coming up and all of a sudden I was like, man, you're ripping in GS right now. I mean, that's pretty impressive. What does it feel like? And we're going up the chairlift and he goes, it feels like I'm pedaling a bike backwards, skating forwards all at the same time. And I'm just like, huh? And it took me 3 weeks to unpack that one. But through the turn, it's like he's pedaling backwards and then he's pushing forward skating. So I unpacked that and I took the chunks of it, chunked it all apart. And, you know, the first drill of that is the reverse bicycle. And what you do is you pick up the tip of the outside ski at the bottom of the turn and you leave the tail in the snow. And when you're good at it, you can actually bend the tail. So you're teaching someone to move through the turn. So that's, that's kind of the first one. I'll do a lot of skating, forward skating, backward skating.

Um, how good a back— I found I, I've more recently come across like backwards skating. That's a good one, isn't it? I, I really, I really like that for just a certain feeling.

Someone you want to teach someone to ski, to, to press against the front of the boot, have them do wedge turns backwards.

Yeah.

All of a sudden they're like, oh, I feel the front of the boot now. So that's, you know, if you're trying to feel, that's how you can do it now. But just skating is to me.

Yeah.

You know, I just watch, you go to a ski club and you work with, you know, the U12s, U10s, and you can just start from the clubhouse and say, okay, skate race to the lift. The kid who makes it there, the third place, the second, the fifth place is the same in the race. It's, you know, especially young kids. Um, so to me, skating—

and on skating, do you tip— would you, you'd use like the bunny slope or just the flat area at the bottom of the mountains? Lots of skate— like set courses, like obstacle course, like cross-country skiing kind of basically on your— in your alpine gear?

Whatever you— where, you know, like I always say, like, okay, when you get off the lift to the moment you get on the lift, like use every inch of snowflakes you got. You know, so, you know, they know when they see me after a couple days of skiing that they should be skating hard if it's flat.

Awesome. I love it.

Yeah, but you know, some, you know, one of the things I learned from Randy Peltier, who was the downhill coach for the US team for a long time, skate downhill, you know, skate 4 or 5 skates downhill, stop, do it again, stop, do it again. That projects yourself forward, you know. Um, so I mean, reverse bicycle. Then I got a drill where I learned from Andy Avers. Andy Avers was a phenomenal coach from Austria. He was Benny Reich's and Hermann Mayer's coach and came and worked in the States. Learned a lot from him. And he's got this drill, which is, it's pretty hard to describe on, on, on a, on a podcast, but it's basically you're, you're driving your outside arm all the way into the apex. And then right at the apex you switch your arms very dramatically and the arms are forward. Yep. So one arm's on the head towards the tip, driving towards the tip. So you're driving towards the tip towards it all the way in the apex and then switch your hands dramatically. And then I'll combine that with the reverse bicycle. Cool. So I mean, you just, you know, those are, those are, those are kind of my go-to. And then one, one ski, a lot of one ski. So, you know, there's not a lot of talking whether you're doing the task right or not. And then I can just change the timing, the rhythm, the tempo. The steepness, do it carving, not carving, slalom radius, GS radius. Um, and all I'm trying to do is get kids to dance on skis.

Yeah.

And they're like, oh, this is the funky disco. And I go, yeah, now you're athletic. Now you stop thinking about this technical stuff and you're just being free.

Yeah. Now a lot of people that listen to this podcast are not athletes, they're not kids as well. They're probably more you know, probably, yeah, between 40 and, and older. This stuff applies to them. And this is my personal opinion, I don't see those people are out there doing this kind of stuff enough. I mean, sure, go and enjoy, enjoy your skiing, but the people that want to get better, they don't seem to take this approach. A lot, a lot of them really like to think about it. But a lot, but most of them don't do it or put themselves outta their comfort zone, do funky dancing kind of, you know, constraints, take poles away for, you know, yeah. Your opinion on this, the general public?

Yeah. And I think that's where, you know, where we go back to a coach. What's a coach's job? Is a coach is to take them somewhere where they are to someplace where they, they don't know they can get there by themselves. And, you know, so, you know, I think, you know, what you're trying to do online is, is really cool. Um, how do you do it? How do you, how do you scale, you know, teaching? And, um, it's not easy. Um, but, you know, trying to bring— so I think inspiring people to try different drills. And, you know, for me, even people in their, in their 70s, you know, they can skate. They can skate on the skis. They can skate with their, you know, just their poles or without their poles. They can ski with their poles on their hips. They can think the task, all right, I'm going to keep the zipper of my jacket facing straight down the hill, you know, or I'm going to have that zipper over the outside at the middle of the turn. Or, you know, at the bottom of the turn, I'm going to pick up the tip of my outside ski and that's going to make me transfer my weight. So I think those are, those are simple tasks that, you know, I've gone out there and had some, you know, retired people in my coaches clinics and, and they're out there doing it and loving it. And so I think those are things you can do.

Yeah. I guess maybe my point is I should have prefaced that with, yeah, even seeing some from afar instructors, coaches, maybe not realizing that's where they're gonna find some progress with people is pushing them into that that uncomfortable state. So many people comment like, God, the kids get so fast at skiing well when they do Race Club. It's because of the stuff they do, it's the, the tasks they're given, constantly pushing them. And, and we can all do the same thing. It's just, uh, oh, that was the question I had. Like, it's— have you also found that in— it's human nature to really avoid uncut, you know, these uncomfortable kind of situations. Like, that's why a coach is really helpful, because doing something that looks silly straight away, you probably won't do that. Things that are harder than what you're comfortable doing, you straight away avoid that.

Comments on— I think, I mean, I think that's, yeah. I think, you know, that's all personal. Like, are you going to push yourself to go there by yourself? Are you going to get that rush? And I, and I, and, you know, let me, let me take it back a different way here. The past 5, 6 years, I've tried to learn a different sport every year or 2 years. So I started water skiing, never water skied, never was around boats, started water skiing. Still, I'm an absolute hack. But the process of trying to water ski is, is, it's been really fascinating to learn something totally new. And like right now, my water, we didn't water ski too much the last couple years because we then started a different sport. So we did water ski, then I did wind surfing, and then it was foil boarding behind the boat wave, and then I was wing boarding. And now it's like kind of circling back and back into water skiing a little bit now. And right now, like the courage to pull hard through the wave, through the wake. I'm just like, man, nah, I'm not going there. So I'm like, I need a water ski coach to like coach me some drills to gain that courage. And I'm, and I, and I'm, I've hit this plateau. Like, I'm like, and my son and I are talking about, I'm like, he's doing it now. And I'm like, he's having the same issue. And I'm like, what? And we're, we're, we hit a prop wall. So we need a coach to get us through that, that part.

Yes.

Um, and it's, you know, that, so I see that, like, you know, foil boarding, what I, was a really interesting one is foil, but wing foiling is, I mean, talk about when you finally, you just struggle, you just struggle, struggle, struggle. And you know what that, that, you know, success is flying and not falling. And when you finally do it, man, the endorphin rush you get is insane. And then you're like, I got to do it again. I got to do it again. But the task is so clear. It's so crystal clear. Fly the foil with the wind. That's it.

Yep.

Then it's like, all right, I can do that, but now I gotta go upwind. And then this is a tasker, and all of a sudden you do it and you're like, all right, well, what's next? All right, the next thing is like, all right, tacking, tacking, left foot, right foot. And like, again, going through that struggle, I mean, and I'm hitting kind of a wall there. It's like, okay, the idea of tacking Yeah. It is just like, I, I, I know I'm gonna crash a hundred times and it's just like, I'm not ready for that. So I need a coach to coach me through some kind of progression on it.

Yes. Yeah, that's right. I think that's right.

When you, when you talk about skiing, you know, people that ski a lot and they're taking joy, you take joy skiing and you take joy of being out on the mountain and you, you know, how, how you're gonna find that task of where it is, the you want to improve in so you get that rush. I think that's probably, you know, the challenge of skiing and why people have pushed, you know, pushed towards, you know, other sports, other challenges, other, other dimensions of the environment. And that's why powder day is so much fun.

Yeah, I must say, this season being, being a really bad snow season, it's made me think, uh, I think that, that the environment, you know, growing up skiing in Australia a lot with regular conditions being that way, in order to— I mean, it's a beautiful environment regardless, and skiing is fun, but then spending from 9 till 4 on sugary snow, you know, patches of ice and then slush, like, that does kind of wear on you. But like your learned attack and all this stuff, adding, adding things onto it, knowing that you can— you don't have to go as fast as you're currently going to challenge yourself. You can bring some new skills into it. Like, I'm just appreciative that I have that mindset, that that's how I can make the most of the day and come away going, that was, that was so awesome. Because I couldn't ski, you know, this, this season I tried to work on like a wiggle turn in the bumps. Like be out on, on the set of like between two bumps doing one, two turns, doing like four or five turns. Because there's this, this, the, you know, the old school bumpers, so, so, so good at it. But you don't see people doing that anymore. It's like, I'm just gonna every— he said use every snowflake every time to the lift, whatever I'm trying to do, the fast turns. And I'm feeling all these things go wrong, like I'm rotating my pelvis around and— but By the end of this winter, I, I started to see these cool wiggle turns come in, and, and I can like pull it. I'm like, I'm gonna do it there, bang, bang, bang, and they come out. And if I'd had a good season of not great— of good snow, I wouldn't have gone there. I wouldn't have had the mindset to, to, to build a new skill.

Yeah, but how did you build that new skill? You didn't think about how to do it. You just said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna increase the tempo in this environment, in this constraint, And you know, here's the task and here's, here's the, you know, what I'm doing. Start out a little bit slower and all of a sudden you do it faster. Yeah. And what did you do? You got your body in a better place. You stabilized your upper body. You learned to pivot your feet faster. So which pivoting your feet faster is internal external femoral rotation. Your, your shoulders became stable, which allowed your pelvis to stay stable. Those are all the things you probably did. You started to probably use some poles to help.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. The, the pulls is a big one. Like, like I was like, wow, I just do not move them fast enough to move with my feet going that rapid. And I kept getting tripped and whatever. Had that epiphany moment. Oh, and just started. Yeah.

But it's just, just, it just, it just, you know, just, you know, like to do it faster, if your elbow's here and you're stiff and your pull plant's here, it's so much slower. So you can't do it faster than all of a sudden you relax this and you just do it with the wrist.

Wrist.

All this, and you're, and you're, you're, you're now, you're in, you're in a neutral position. You know, I don't like to correct body positions, but like the one thing that just drives me nuts is, is, is this.

Yeah.

You know, is, is this internal, over-internal rotation of the, of the, of the humerus because it leads to all kinds of tension. And so, but you know, you watch mobile skiers, I mean, mobile coaches, people that are really good mobile coaches, I mean, they're amazing at teaching a pole plant. Amazing. Yes. And because they have to be, because the pull plan, doing it correctly is so critical. Where in ski racing, I mean, I wish we would be better at teaching how to pull plan. And, you know, how do I learn to pull plan? Is watch a locals coach, coach it to it. I'm locals out.

Yeah. Oh, lost you there. Oh, there we go. Back in there. Hey Sasha, to, to wrap this up, perhaps some words of wisdom from you to any of the coaches, instructors listening, if they're inspired by constraints-based learning and your approach of, you know, get the task to teach it. Yeah. Could you put that in a neat summary of like the tips? Say this is your building that you've just spoken to the instructors across North America. It's like, right, Okay, from now on, as you go, when you go out and you teach and you coach, please remember this.

I mean, I think, I think a lot of it is, is first, when you— let's just talk about from like an instructor-based point of view, is this— I think this is what instructors do really well, is they, they create a relationship with the student, with the, you know, the, the, the, the, um, the client. And I think this is something that instructors do well, is they understand where that client is and where they want to take them. But I think really I would just encourage that, have that discussion on what, okay, what is the thing you wanna be able to do? And then look at it from, you know, kind of a, a basics of skiing perspective of what they need to do, not from a technical perspective. And I think most instruction of most sports, it's really from a technical perspective. And I would encourage is, is, is look at, look at the sport and go like, you know, You know, you have a skier that's a good, good skier, can ski blocks, but now wants to be able to go ski crud off-piste. So the skillset that they're really probably not lacking is, is the ability to, to unweight the skis and weight the skis. You know, so what are the things that we need to do to be able to do that? Well, pole plants help, flexion extension's gonna help. You know, it's okay. So those are, let's, let's play, let's give those conceptions to it so that they can play in that off, in that crud snow. Or if, you know, you have a good, you have a good skier and you want to, they all of a sudden want to start to ski some steep couloirs, go, okay, you know, the task that they're going to have to do is like we talked about earlier in the podcast, is just, you know, having that upper and lower body separation. So let's go do some drills for upper and lower body separation, explain to them why that's important for skiing steeps, then kind of progressing that way. Instead of saying, you know, here's the, here's the technical way to do it. Find, find what are they, where are they at? What do they want to do? And see what, what kind of fundamentals of the sport or skills of the sport they, they need to kind of progress in. Let's go try to be creative and figuring out how to give them those skills so that they learn it.

Yeah. And I mean, I was just thinking there too, you are lucky when you have a season to work with, say, your athletes, it puts you in a mindset of of like you've got time. And so you maybe don't feel pressured to like deliver everything and speak technical, technical, whatever. You can set up like a game to get going to this. I think sounds like even what your, your recommendation there, that would be a good mindset to think about too, is just you don't have to think about it being all achieved in this one single like lesson of the day if we're speaking to instructors. Like you said, people might not ski, as you said, a day of one-ski skiing and hopping over poles. They go back skiing, it's gonna be a couple of months' time after they're playing with that, you just start seeing, whoa, look how athletic they were on that rollover. Did not matter that they couldn't find their outside ski 'cause they were on the inside. Boom, perfect position, found the outside and came from sort of this, this earlier training. So yeah, I love it. Any other, any other final thing on, do you wanna remind people of the, of the constraints-based kind of principles to play with even if self-learners, you know, gonna go out?

Yeah. So I mean, it's just you, you, your environment, whatever environment you're in is gonna shape how you move. So, you know, think about, you know, whatever, whatever if you, if you grow up as a skier skiing ice, for example, you're gonna have very good athletic weight transfer from right, from outside ski to outside ski. But if you ski super grippy Colorado snow, you don't need to transfer your weight because as soon as you tip the skis on it, the weight's transferred for you. So the environment shapes how you develop as a, as a, as an athlete, as a person. And those, that environment can be, you know, the snow, the mountain, the hill, the speed you ski at, the whether you ski short swing turns, long turns, what kind of equipment you ski. You know, those things are always gonna shape how your movement patterns develop and how you express yourself. And we are, we are all athletic in some ways. And the, the human body's amazing how it will learn. Some will learn faster than others, but how it will learn and adapt to the environment that you've exposed it to. So, you know, if an athlete, if you, you know, why, you know, someone who skis with very aggressive boots, canted out, they can learn to get down the mountain and have fun, but they're gonna do something funky with their hip. They're gonna rotate their shoulders and do something funky that we as classic instructors go, that's wrong. Wrong, but they have to do it because they can't internally, internally rotate the femur and pronate the foot. So they're gonna do something else because that's the constraint that they have learned to move with. So that's why, you know, I start out with this, this neutral equipment as you can and put them in variety of environments and change those environments up, change those tempos up. Create more variability. And what's gonna happen is, is you're gonna create an athlete that's balanced and they can adapt. And I think that really is what we want, is we want skiers that can express themselves in, you know, really bad snow, really crumbly snow, really golf ball-y snow, really icy, beautiful powder day, that they can go express themselves. And that's like, you know, one of the biggest frustrations I have as a ski coach is, You know, you, you get these great ski racers and you have a bluebird powder day and they can't, they can't get down the mountain fast because they'd never ski it. And, and it's just they, that they didn't have that constraint. And so, yeah, to me that's, you know, like expose 'em to a lot of different things. Expose yourselves to different things and, and, and wherever you find that challenge, So I have to think about, okay, why is this a challenge? And then go, okay, how can I further constrain myself and give a certain task or rhythm or tempo that's gonna make me learn to move correctly without thinking too much about it? Because that slows down.

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks very much.

Hey, welcome.

I've really appreciated the, yeah, I've really appreciated the chat. I mean, you've got so much experience in coaching And, and hearing the way you, you speak about all these things is— it's very inspiring. I'm already— I'm ready to go. And it's, you know, we've still got a couple more weeks in this Aussie season. And so, uh, if people are out there and they are, make the most of it. Don't be disheartened by the conditions. This is your chance to be masterful in this variety. So it's going to pay off. It's going to pay off.

Absolutely. If you have fun on— if you have fun in tough conditions, you're gonna have fun, more fun when it, when it gets— when it gets those amazing days. So Thanks so much, Tom. Appreciate the opportunity, and, uh, my pleasure. Have yourself a great one.

You too.

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 18m, 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 board 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.