The Rookie Academy - Melting pot of the worlds top trainers

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast. I'm your host Tom Gellie, and today you're going to meet two friends of mine, Harry McFadden and Rupert Goldring. I know these two guys through the Rookie Academy, which is a company based out of Wanaka, New Zealand that runs instructor training and advanced skiing training camps, and it's in an absolutely stunning part of the world You'll hear our experiences soon talking about New Zealand. So not only is it situated in like an amazing part of the world, why I wanted to do this podcast is because the Rookie Academy is quite special. It's, uh, its focus being so much on getting better at skiing and providing the environment, the atmosphere, the culture, the, the the social environment. It's, it's all these things that's hard to sort of quantify that make a unique learning experience that makes you a better skier. Now you're going to hear about it from the perspective of us as trainers, and the fact that, you know, we want to travel from all different parts around the world— some of the best ski trainers in the world want to get together and work together— it sort of speaks volumes about this, uh, this company, this organization, and the program they run. I hope you enjoy this episode where we discuss what makes the Rookie Academy so special, what makes it such a great experience for the, the guest, the student, and the trainer, so everyone involved. And I hope it inspires you to perhaps come and visit New Zealand and perhaps join one of the Rookie Academy camps because I think they are a fantastic experience, especially if you're, you know, a Northern Hemisphere person. You reach summer and all you can think about is doing more skiing. Well, I can tell you that, that spending time in your off-season, doing even just a few weeks, goes a long way to really taking your skiing up a notch and just like keeping continuity. And as you'll hear from here, getting inputs from people that have ideas and have diversified their, their training philosophy from exposure to people all around the world. There's nothing better you can do than get input from different perspectives. I'm a real firm believer in that. So I hope you enjoy this episode where I chat with Harry and Rupert, that you— yeah, that inspires you to come and ski in New Zealand. Harry, for people that don't know Well, who are you and what is the Rookie Academy?

Well, I'm Harry McFadden and, um, I'm a ski trainer from New Zealand and I'm a manager for the Rookie Academy. And, uh, what the Rookie Academy is, it is a ski instructor training and advanced camp training provider based in Wanaka, New Zealand, working between Treble Cone Ski Area and Cadrona Alpine Resort now. And it has been operating since 1992, originally just as a, uh, training provider for local people that wanted to become ski instructors. And now it has grown to be a international melting pot for ski training and instructor training.

Nice. 1992, that's a, that's a while ago. Do you know, like, what, why it started? Like, what, whose, whose idea was it, and why'd they call it the Rookie Academy?

Absolutely. So in 1992 Uh, the founder of Rookie Academy, Dean Hunter, was a ski instructor and trainer for the Treble Cone Snow Sports School, and they had a program called the Rookie Program, which was meant for people that wanted to be ski instructors. They would train on Saturdays and Sundays every week and then sit their New Zealand ski, ski instructor exams at the end of the season. And Dean Hunter was the original trainer for the original Rookie Program provided by Treble Cone. And Garrett Shaw, who has recently left Rookies but was an owner and manager and director of Rookie Academy uh, from 1994 was on the original rookies course that Dean taught in 1992.

There you go. Ah, cool. I didn't— I mean, for some people this will just be like names thrown out there, but I've worked for the Rookie Academy for, for 3, 3 winters, and, uh, when you get to know these people, it's kind kind of interesting to hear the, hear the history. Rupert, when did you first come over as a trainer for the Rookies?

I, um, I think my first season for the Rookies was 2008, if I'm, if I'm, if my memory serves.

Um, and yeah, and what, like, what brought you over? I mean, you should say Rupert. Rupert is a BASI, uh, Level 4 trainer. He's Ex-demo team a couple of times, more than—

yeah, a couple of times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so who brought— like, who brought you over? Who thought you were, well, you know, half worth flying across the world?

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a fair point. I guess the first thing is that, uh, I was— I used to— I used to work in, in Remarkables, in the— I guess I first went to the Remarkables in Coronet I think 2000 or 2001, sort of fell in love with New Zealand back then. And then I was a bit stumped for winters. I've been working in Argentina actually, and then this friend of mine, Gerardo, Italian guy who I used to work with over here in the Alps, he phoned me up out of the blue and said, mate, do you want to come 'do you want to come over to New Zealand and do some work with me?' And under the umbrella of the Rookie Academy, and I sort of heard of the Rookie Academy as some sort of mythical, I guess, mythical, like Harry says, melting pot where lots of demo team members and the likes of Steve Smart were going over and training. So yeah, a bit— Gerardo's proverbial handoff, and I was there.

And how was the first— how was the first season?

Was it 2008?

Did it, did it live up to your expectations? Was it fun? What was it like?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, I, I, my previous experience had been, um, had been in Queenstown, which, which I love, and I was probably at the age when, when Queenstown suited me. But, um, I'd often, uh, made road trips over to Treble Cone from Queenstown on days off and, you know, just to experience the, well, the steepness and the terrain. And so when Gerardo said, yeah, you'd be working in TC, like I said, I was pretty chuffed. And yeah, just the idea— it did live up to it. It probably exceeded it, actually. Just training sessions with Steve Smart and Steph Scrowbar Um, again, I'm throwing out names that, that maybe some people won't know, but, uh, Steve Smart. Uh, back in the day, I used to work a lot with some Canadians, and, and they all talked about Steve Smart like he was some sort of deity. Uh, and I actually, you know, just to first get to ski with him and then, you know, work with him and talk nonsense in the staff room and have him training us, yeah, it was pretty, um It was pretty amazing for a relatively youthful ski coach back then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, uh, yeah, for those who don't know, yeah, Steve Smart definitely is a bit of a legend in the industry. And, um, not only like— I mean, I think two things stand out. One, his ability to ski, like, was just far better than everyone else. Wouldn't you agree, Rupert? Yeah, completely.

Just, just so strong, so strong, so disciplined. Didn't, didn't sort of matter steepness. I mean, New Zealand can get some great, you know, great snow, and it can get some pretty tough snow. It didn't seem to affect, uh, Steve's form at all, or his, or his ski performance.

Yeah. And then, but then his ability to, to train, and it was sort of a pretty no-nonsense, wasn't it? Like, make it— yeah, definitely, you know, here's what we're doing and then we're just going to gradually make it more and more difficult and you'll learn through the task.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It was definitely task-focused, which is— which can only be a good thing. I do remember one instance when, uh, the bumps were pretty, um, pretty bulky and we were skiing bumps. Everybody was feeling Pretty good. I mean, Steve was the first person actually I skied with that was really talking about a rounded sort of outside line and sort of translating a, you know, rounded short turn into the bumps. And we were sort of getting on board with that, and then he took a ski away from us. Yeah, yeah, it was nuts. It was one of those sort of memories that you look back on with utter affection. Probably at the time I was a bit, I was a bit worried, but, uh, yeah, it was great.

Yeah, learned a lot from it.

Yeah, yeah, massive.

Hey, I think it's probably worth for people listening that have not visited New Zealand to hear a little bit about just New Zealand as a country. I mean, I personally I mean, being an Australian, it wasn't that far away, but I only went there in, I think, 2017 for the first time, and I was absolutely blown away with, uh, the beauty and the terrain. And, and for the Southern Hemisphere, the snow, especially around Treble Cone, is— it felt just better quality, whether it was the altitude or whatever. But I think New Zealand You, like you mentioned it, Rupert, you said you first visited back in early 2000 and you sort of fell in love with New Zealand. Was— what were some of the things you remember about, you know, for people that have never, never been to the country? Yeah, what stood out to you?

Well, um, I mean, primarily as a, as a sort of passionate rugby fan and, and played a bit back in the day Obviously the rugby when I grew up was just, uh, it was something to aspire to. And, uh, and I guess when I first went there, uh, I was expecting the Alps. I mean, I've lived in the Alps for, I guess, um, I'm giving my age away, but probably about 30 years. Um, and it was like the Alps, but, but, um, in terms of the sort of really jagged young fold mountains, but But I think what was most obvious was the— I don't know, it felt pioneering. The lifts were pretty slow at the time. It didn't feel commercial at all. It felt like everybody that was going there was there to ski. And, you know, it didn't have smart— I mean, this has changed a little bit, but it didn't have smart restaurants on the hill. It was sort of diametrically opposite. To what I see in Val d'Isère. It sort of felt like Val d'Isère back when I was a kid in the '80s and '90s. Yeah, pioneering. I remember the smell of— I remember getting off the plane and the smell of, you know, wood-burning stoves and everything. People were sort of wearing lumberjack shirts and yeah, it just felt pretty authentic really. It's a horrible word, authentic, but I think you know what I mean.

I know what you mean. Even, even down to the first time, if you've ever been, the first time you visit Treble Cone and you drive up the side of this mountain through these dirt switchbacks, like, that's, that's different. A lot of ski resorts around the world, it's a nice— yeah, yeah, it's a nice road. And this one, you drive up past sheep and, and there's no snow at the bottom, and then you drive up to the snow line, just literally straight up the side of this steep mountain. And like, I remember my first day, I'd gotten off a plane and, uh, I met— I met— oh well, Riley flew in as well on that day, Riley McBlashin and I. And then Dean picked us up and took us back to Wanaka.

And you—

when you come to Wanaka, you kind of drive over that hill and and then down, and what you see in front of you is the lake and then the mountains just booming in the background covered in snow. And I said to the guy, I said, "I've got to move here. I've got to ring up Jenny and I've got to, like, we have to move here. This place is incredible." And I mean, and I think Harry, Harry's the local. Harry, you've grown up and lived a lot around there. Your parents have have a home in, uh, in Wanaka as well. What's— what would you say about New Zealand and the mountains?

Well, I think the mountains in New Zealand are an incredibly special and unique place. Like, I, you know, I've skied all around the world in much bigger, you know, more established resorts, but there's just something so special about Wanaka and kind of what Rupert and yourself have touched on, the scenery, the rawness of it, the rawness of like having to drive up basically a dirt farm track with sheep on the road up to the snow line where you get out of the car and it's a muddy car park that you walk across and you know, Treble Cone has 2 lifts, but it is some of the best skiing I've ever done anywhere in the world with terrain and, uh, you know, the scenery as well. It's amazing. Skiing in New Zealand is very unique, and it is— a lot of people outside of New Zealand ask me, what's New Zealand like? You know, is it good? You know, we we're used to skiing in Courchevel, so, you know, and I say it's completely the opposite, but it has some, you know, similarities. The mountain ranges almost look like the European Alps with far less development, much more raw.

Yeah, I totally agree. And, and I think like Like Ru would say, you know, that word authentic, but you know, it really does feel like a very, I don't know. Yeah, you feel like you're in a place where there's no bullshit. It's just, you know, the people are very honest. The landscape is very honest. I mean, if you go past Treble Cone, you're driving towards some serious sort of glacial mountain terrain and there's not really that much developed, you know, a couple of farms along the way.

You—

it does feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, really. And I think that's the, the huge, uh, charm of it. And I would, I would echo that the terrain is, is some of the best, uh, sort of freeride fun, just, yeah, terrain. It's, it's, it's an amazing resort, Treble Cone. Hey, um, so then Harry, how did, um, like, what's your experience? You know, the reputation rookies had before you joined, and you know, you heard Rupert sort of talk about it. What's your perspective on it?

Well, you see, I always—

I grew up in Christchurch, uh, which for those that don't know, New Zealand is 440 kilometers north of Wanaka, and we're triple koners, but we used to come down in the school holidays and things like that to ski. And I remember when I was about 15 years old starting to think, what did I want to do when I leave school and things like that? And I wasn't too sure, and I thought, oh, I'll do— I'll become a ski instructor, I'll do a ski instructor course. And I remember Going up the 6-seater chairlift at Triple Cone and looking up to Upper Gunbarrel, or as Dean calls Headwall, and for those that all need to come down to New Zealand and ski with us, we'll ski that run a lot. It's a brilliant steep off-piste run. I remember looking up and seeing a bunch of guys in uniform doing synchro short turns. Rupert was probably in the group. And that was my opinion. Yeah, were they quite skinny? I remember, I remember looking up and thinking, wow, those guys are so cool, I want to be like them when I'm older, I want to work with them. And then I remember seeing the uniform in the lift queue and it said Rookie Academy, and it was a very unique thing for me to see because it's quite unique in New Zealand to have like a, you know, an independent, uh, kind of company or training company that sits aside from the mountain ski school. And I remember looking and thinking, wow, that's so cool. I want to, I want to ski like them one day. I want to ski with them.

Cool. And then so that, that sort of, uh, ignited, uh, like a passion to, to do that. And because I know you've, you've taken it pretty seriously, done a lot of training, followed different sort of, uh, I guess trainers around the world to help your development. When, uh, yeah, what was that like? Do you want to to quickly chat about that, because I mean, you, you are— you were on— you were on— you made the New Zealand demo team, so, you know, that's a pretty fast track. You know, you, you had a mission.

Yeah, yeah, I went from level zero, so unqualified, to demo team in 7 years. Um, and when I when I was an unqualified instructor, I was— or Level 1— I was not very good at skiing. And I really think, even though I was not working for the Rookie Academy, um, at that point, or even training with them— I was working as a ski instructor at Cadrona— I noticed how everyone who worked for the Rookie Academy got so much better at skiing and were great skiers. And very knowledgeable skiers because of the melting pot of different international ski instructors and trainers all working together, training together, and sharing ideas. So I said to myself, I am going to work in different resorts around the world, and I'm going to target the resorts I go to to make sure that I'm always working in resort with really top ski instructors, demo team members, etc. And that is what helped me develop as a skier. And I feel like it's almost the idea of information sharing that I saw Rookie Academy have. I took that with me and, um, worked with that as I went around the world. And I would I always say to any young ski instructor, I always say to them, make sure you work in different places, learn from different people. Don't just do the same resort. You might do the same resort in New Zealand or Australia, wherever you're from, every year. But if you're going off to work in the Northern Hemisphere, do a season in Canada, do a season in the States. Go to Europe, go to Japan. I know work visas can be a real challenge, but nothing's impossible. And it's so important, I think, to travel and, you know, get those different people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I guess you, you were talking about the So then the Rookie Academy is this place where some of those people from all over the world come together in the Southern Hemisphere and end up working side by side. And I would say that's one of the most fun things about working with the Rookie Academy. That first season I came in 2017, and you walk into the locker room and there's JF Buliot and There's, you know, Riley and also some, some Basie people I'd heard of on the internet and other, like Jonathan Baloo, all these, all these great characters. And being able to just talk to them and bounce ideas off, say, you know, put your thoughts out there and get them either ripped apart or, or confirmed. That part was like, to me, the biggest value in, in coming and working at the Rookies. Like, if you put those group of people in any resort around the world, I think it would still also be an amazing experience. The fact that it's a Travel Cone, it's— I think it's even better. But I think that, that mixture is, is amazing. I like the when, when Takao Maruyama came, I mean, for me that was kind of the highest level, uh, skier trainer I'd ever got to work with. And so I, I took away a lot of things from the sessions he's done. Rupert, what would be your, say, top 2 sort of training sessions, if there would be, from the whole period you've done?

Well, I mentioned, obviously I've been— I'm slightly more long in the tooth than you guys. I mentioned Steve, there was a guy, Steph Scrowbar, who— well, just to look at him, I hope this doesn't sound— well, it's a compliment to Steph, but his eyes, his eyes are just slightly, slightly mad. I think my dad might say there's a gate open in the top paddock, but I remember, I remember first skiing with Steph Scrowbar. I'd actually skied with him in Europe and blown away then. Um, but I've, I've never seen him— bearing in mind the terrain at TC is, uh, is really steep, variable. Um, but I only ever saw him do a short turn if it was bumpy, proper bumps. Otherwise he would, he would, he'd be pretty clean everywhere. Um, and, uh, yeah, um, that, that was mind-blowing. Um, first skiing with Jeff J.F. Bollia. Sorry, not Jeff, J.F. Johnny Frank. That was— that was— he was pretty youthful back then, and I mean, he's still a stunning skier. He's probably— he's probably more disciplined now in many ways than he was then, but just the angles he was getting. I remember, in fact, if anybody's interested, I think it was either Garrado or myself that filmed him on Lois Sinclair's doing some, um, well, ostensibly long turns, but, but he made them pretty short, clean as anything. And just, just the amount of angle he was getting in the, in the apex of the turn sort of was an eye-opener. I guess in terms of, um, technical input, uh, I have to doff my cap to you, Tom. I've learned a lot from you. I mean, um, and I think this is what's the beauty of the Rookie Academies— Rookie Academy, I think I think the first thing is that generally, um, there's no judgment in training. Um, everybody has different ideas and everybody has a, I guess, an aesthetic that they look to. Uh, I think in Basie, um, we're sort of quite output focused, um, but some— sometimes that's detrimental to the actual sort of inputs that you see. And, um, in It's sort of, you know, be clean above anything, even if that means throwing everything inside or whatever. And I think that the first thing I noticed that number one, training days, there was no judgment, generally no judgment. And any judgment that was there was just a sort of, it was just a reflection of egos, which unfortunately exist everywhere. But yeah, sort of no judgment. And some of the ideas came out of, quite left field and sort of critical thinking. And so, and I've learned a lot from you, Tom, actually, in that respect. Things that I hadn't thought about, things we don't want to get involved in, in technique, but things like, you know, leg steer versus foot steer and just little things like that. And not trying to, you know, not trying to get maximum angle before the time where maximum angle actually makes a difference in terms of moving the center of mass across the hill. Just little things that possibly I hadn't thought about in as much detail as before. And I think the beauty is, you, you know, you cherry-pick things that work and, and things that you can see in your own skiing and your client's skiing. You're sort of— you might not take everything on board, but, um it made me sort of think much more critically about skiing, which I'd never done before. You know, everything came via, as it still should, what the skis are doing on the snow. But it was just deeper, deeper, um, you know, deeper stuff. It's sort of, I don't know, I, I remember describing the Rookie Academy to somebody before as the there's the Oxbridge of skiing, which would probably only work if you're a Brit. But it's not just learning by rote, it's quite the opposite. It's actually getting you to think about what's the body— well, number one, what your intent is, but number two, what the body actually is trying to do to achieve that intent. And I'm not much of a details person except when it comes to skiing and ski tuning. And Rookie Academy, when it comes to skiing, turned me into a real details person.

Um, yeah, totally.

Tom, I've lived with you a few times, and, uh, I think people outside the industry— actually, people in the industry would think it was weird, the amount of, you know, ski, ski movies we watch and, and how deep we get in and how, how deep our discussions become because of that. Um, but it's addictive. I mean, it is. The only thing that gets in the way is aging, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Just thinking back to that, that season in that old house, uh, we, we would just get laptops out all the time. Oh my God, you know, Riley's showing us some movie from 1989 of some, you know, obscure model skier we've never heard of, but He's bringing— he's like, I've studied this guy and he does this. And, and that, that, that alone, I think, uh, inspires you to go, yeah, God. And, and you just— it makes you look at skiing even more sort of in a detailed way.

I mean, Riley, uh, Riley and yourself, and, uh, well, actually it was Jeff that first got me into, um, into the, into the Japanese tech stuff. And I'd already— I, I'd always— I wouldn't say poo-pooed it at all because I think the I think the athleticism is unbelievable, but I actually turned from thinking, well, these guys are skiing to an aesthetic more than they're skiing to a sort of utilitarian output, to actually, particularly once you actually ski with Takao and see how fast he skis, to actually thinking these guys and girls, you know, we had, I can't remember her name unfortunately, but that sort of, um, that girl that Takao was coaching. But, uh, just actually just realizing how elite these people are, um, yeah, it's mind-blowing.

It's mind-blowing.

And also, I like, I like the fact that— and you can see it, you can sort of see it geographically— people ski differently, you know, um, and people have different priorities. It might be aesthetics, it might be, I don't know, a low transition. Um, it might be slightly more, um, output focused. You know, I just, I just want the ski to— I just want the ski to be influenced as much as it can be in the, in the apex of the turn, or whatever it is. Um, and it's all good. It's all— it's just all good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I remember— do you remember that session, um, with Takao where he was talking about— basically, uh, most associations poo-poo rotating your upper body.

Yeah.

So, and he was basically teaching us to rotate and face our upper body inside of the turn, not just for the start but for pretty much 90% of the turn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of overly square. After the apex. And, and, and yeah, he made it work.

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Yeah, and he made it work. And people, I mean, I think there were some huge light bulbs. I remember from, from that day on, uh, Sam from the New Zealand team. She— her skiing got better, uh, so did, um, uh, I'm trying to think of, uh, the other New Zealand— I think, I think Josh's.

Yeah, I think that movement pattern was, was huge for Josh actually. Um, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Yeah, yeah. And it was just—

it's—

and it was interesting because it was going against the grain of what a lot of us had learned and, and taught. But he explained why, and, you know, saying you, you guys are all too overcounted, and so then you're, you know, chattering on the edge and you can't increase the edge very well. And, you know, he had some pretty fair points there. Um, but yeah, it was to the group, like, everyone gave it a go. And, um, and yeah, so it's pretty cool, and you don't get that if you just stay within your, your own organization and your own sort of circle of people.

Yeah, completely, completely. I mean, people wrongly sort of, you know, everybody does their, does their exams with an alliance, and, and that alliance becomes a sort of bible to them. And, um, and it just— yeah, people can become so dogmatic. And I think that's what rookies and actually, I think it's the pragmatism of rookies and the fact that there were numerous pathways and, and there were numerous intents as well in, in terms of what, what a skier might want to achieve. Yes, it's eye-opening. It's, um, and like I said, what I like about it is there's, there's no judgment. There's, you know, nobody hangs their, hangs their hat on a specific whether it's an alliance or, you know, I want to ski like this person, or people are just open to ideas. Um, and, uh, and, and then the fact we all get to train and we're pushed to train for 2 days a week, uh, it makes the experience better for the, for the, for the students. I mean, I can't think of any other place where, where you're actually pushed to have time off in order to train. Um, and, uh, you know, obviously I understand commercialism and I understand that the time with clients is, is, is money, but with rookies, I feel that Dino and Garrett, from an early, from an early time, I think certainly went— since I arrived there, it was always a 4-day week. It was always, right, 2 days you're going to train, somebody's going to take training And it's good for the students as well because it gets them, you know, the old adage of sort of learning happens when teaching doesn't. It actually gets them to reflect on, on what they've, what they've, what they've understood in, in, in sessions and spend a bit of time working it out for themselves because that's, that's ultimately the only way that things change, isn't it?

Yeah. And like, I mean, um, Harry, you were saying you noticed the Rookie Academy when all the trainers were out training together, and I think That's— I think the students, I've heard anyway, they really like the fact that we go out and train because they'll see us doing what they've come, come there to do, go out and work on our own skiing and do different drills and, and have discussions. So I think that part is— I think it's quite inspiring for people to have your coaches and trainers really be you know, walking the walk, not just talking the talk. I don't know if you have anything to say.

Absolutely. I think, yeah, it really, it helps us obviously develop as skiers and teachers going out and training, and it makes working for Rookie Academy so much fun. But I also think The students, as you say, it's really good for them to see us out there walking the walk. And also, I think now as well in New Zealand, now we're teaching more public as well as ski instructor training. It's great for the public, Wanaka locals who are doing our new camps, our new 4-day camps, to see us out there training and pushing ourselves as well. It's really cool.

Yeah, do you know one thing, uh, that's been really rewarding for me this season doing some online coaching and coaching people around the world is, is I've helped some people realize that there's more to skiing than just like the nice days where there's powder so you can put on fat skis and just go really fast and, and not really care. Like people have said they, they've really learned to enjoy and love carving or love mogul skiing. And I think that opens up your whole ski life to— and, and ski, you know, time to, to actually enjoying just about every single day, no matter what the weather throws at you. Because I think, you know, I mean, those powder days are really the— they're not, they're not that common unless you live up in Alaska or even sometimes Japan. And so being able to have skills to ski everywhere, I think, is, um, is really important. And that's what I think this kind of technical-focused camps, you know, because there are camps out there, you, you know, you can learn to go ski with some freeride world tour person or whatever, but, but these Rookie Academy ones, other than being an instructor one, if you're doing advanced camps, very much focused on being able to carve when the conditions are good for carving, ski bumps when the conditions are good for bumps, and ski powder when the condition is good for powder. It means when you buy your season pass, you ski every single day, and every single day is, is a good day. Um, like, I think, I think that part's important because we've been talking a lot about the trainers and, and how much we enjoy the, the experience of Rookie Academy, but we we do it because where they're also training other people to, to become, you know, the type of skiers we are. And so, Harry, what's this season offering if people are interested in doing a Rookie Academy program?

Yeah, well, I think just, uh, before we get into that quickly, I think the, the way I like to think about it is we're opening up the mountain. We're opening up the mountain for it to be fun and enjoyable, because you're right, so many people just focus on that powder day. But if we could open up the mountain to people, you can have fun every single day regardless of the conditions. Because I think I'm speaking for all the trainers and a lot of people that have trained with us for a long time, our guests, they are able to have the mountain you know, can be fun no matter what the conditions. Yeah. So this year, uh, it is very exciting that New Zealand is opening for tourists, which is excellent after being closed for 2 years. So it's a bit of a, almost a relaunch of international, uh, training with Rookie Academy. So this year Rookies is doing the traditional season-long training program for people that want to become qualified ski instructors, you know, Level 1, 2, and 3. And then as well as that, we are doing 3-week ski instructor advanced camps. There's going to be two 3-week camps in there, and that's going to be open to anyone who's already a qualified instructor. You can be a Level 1 and you're eligible to join these camps, and these camps are where you won't be specifically focused on training for an exam. You will be just developing your skiing and your understanding of skiing and a kind of high-performance environment that Rookie Academy will create, which is awesome. And then one little slight silver lining to a massive challenge with COVID was when the borders closed, Rookie Academy decided to try and go down a slightly different angle because roughly 90% of our ski instructor trainees were from outside of New Zealand. So for the 2020 and 2021 winter, Rookie Academy was just doing 4-day ski camps for anyone that wanted to become a better skier, marketed and aimed kind of at that, uh, parallel and above level that want to become better skiers and open up the mountain. So even though the borders are opening now, the Advanced Camp, uh, product is staying, and that is for anyone who wants to become a better skier. And also for this year, there's a new thing called the Brunch Camp. Dean, Dean, I thought this one up, and the brunch camp is going to be for people that don't want to ski all day but want to develop their skiing still. And that's going to be 4 days for 3 hours a day, 10 AM to 1 PM. And another cool benefit that's happened is Cardrona Alpine Resort, which is the other main ski resort in Wanaka, have actually purchased Treble Cone. So Treble Cone, as you've heard through this conversation, is, is a very quite steep, challenging mountain. And those branch camps are actually, a lot of them are going to start at Cadrona. So a lot of people say, we don't want to go to Treble Cone, we don't think we're good enough. We will start people at Cadrona and build them up build their skill level up to take them to Treble Cone and open the mountain up for them.

Nice. Yeah, cool. So there's going to be more on offer, and, and I think that's a really good point to make. Treble Cone is a pretty challenging place, and if you're trying to build your skills up, it's nice to have somewhere like Cadrona also to be able to, to train out of. So, um, yeah, great. Excellent. And if people are interested in that, Harry, where do they— where do they go to find out more?

So just go to rookieacademy.com, and we've got a new website out, and all the, uh, courses, uh, you can read all about the courses on the website, and you can book directly on the website, uh, you know, if you're keen to sign up. And if you have any questions, just click the Contact Us tab on the website and you can send an email, and either myself or Dean will reply to you. And we can give people a phone call if they want to have a little bit of a chat about, uh, coming down to New Zealand and skiing with us.

Nice, awesome. Well, I look forward to meeting some some people coming to New Zealand for the first time and hopefully having similar, similar experiences to what the three of us has talked about. Hey, I, I'm gonna finish up with— I can't help but, but ask you guys, I don't even know what this is yet, but Rupert, what have you been thinking about? What have you been working on in your skiing this year?

I knew you'd have some technical, uh, I guess, um, I mean, nothing, nothing groundbreaking beyond, uh, actually trying to get more hip in the middle of the turn and less lower leg. Um, and doing some of the stuff actually we've talked about in the past is, is actively, um, somebody described it to me. I'm not a motorcyclist, but I think most cyclists good motorcyclists, this is. It sounds pretty foreign to me, but turn their front wheel against the lean of the bike.

Working to tip more.

Yeah, to tip more. Working out with my feet to maintain sort of grip through the turn. So yeah, sort of counter-foot steering, I don't know what you'd want to call it.

No, that's— it would be, yeah, counterfoot steering. Totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, they're the things I've been working on, um, in my own skiing quite a lot. Um, just the old classics, like trying to grip as early as I do on my— I grip fairly early on my right foot, trying to grip as early on my left foot. Um, and actually looking at the end of the old turn.

That's the other thing with— there's a lot of, uh, a lot of tinkering goes on in that, uh, in that, um, Rookie Academy office, doesn't it? I mean, people have—

yeah, yeah, huge amount of knives, I mean, the screwdrivers and— yeah, yeah, every lunchtime in between the sort of digital piss-taking, there's, uh—

yeah, it can't be, it can't be the operator error, it's got to be the equipment.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, pretty much every lunchtime in between trying to decipher what Dino's saying Um, the old, uh, the old Allen key comes out and the, uh, and the sort of cuff, uh, the, the cuff key comes out, doesn't it? Which is, uh, which is just— I think as far as I can see, it's just a reflection of passion. So, um, yeah, so yeah, it's all good.

And you know, in our defense, sensitivity, you know, we're sensitive to these, uh, and you know, that's pretty true, you you can feel something's not right and you're trying to figure out, uh, often the equipment can, can get in the way.

Yeah, it's interesting when you change something in your equipment, the first couple of runs it feels fantastic. I think there's a, there's a psychological, um, my friend Giles Lewis told me, um, about this thing called the Hawthorne effect that ultimately means that everything feels better no matter what you do for a while.

Yeah, and as long as it's different.

Yeah, as long as it's different. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. So, so that's why we have to every lunchtime tweak the Allen key, you know, comes out. Yeah. Oh good, it's feeling better again. Yeah, yeah.

Actually, I think I've left a couple of Allen keys up in the old, uh, up in the old rookies, uh, staff room. So yeah, it's all good. It's all good. I think that's a good point though, isn't it? I mean, you specifically, but, but everybody, you know, the, um, you know, the evaluation of things doesn't just come down to technique.

It—

we talk a lot about equipment and, um, and psychology.

And absolutely. And, and that's, that's often what we'll— without— with our students, we'll be, you know, in there at lunchtime Yeah, with duct tape and going, no, no, this is not right, and then sending them down to the, to the shop to get things adjusted and, and punched here and there, you know. Like, yeah, I mean, the, with the, uh, this academy, this online academy I'm doing at the moment, I'm sort of discussing boot fit and, and looking at people skiing through the lens of, of boots. And two people in, in this week who've been skiing the whole season, you know, making improvements, but, but things, certain things just not changing. Yeah, finally got them showing me what their legs look like inside their boots. And, you know, one lady, the boot was basically choking her calf and, and, yeah, it was just not the right fit. And as soon as she changed, she put her touring boots on, which had a much more open cuff, and You know, the video, the video is completely different. She said she had the best day, and even her like digital carv sort of inserts were telling her the metrics were all, were all better. And, and another guy, yeah, another guy's just had all this kind of funny canting that I think someone thought he needed, and we basically took all that away, and then he got this, you know, yeah, amazing kind of run on camera, which was really good. So I Like, for me, I, I— before that, I was really trying to steer away from equipment with all my students. Like, not— like, really try and work on, you know, the movements and technique and, and, you know, doing the best you can with, with what equipment's there. Because Sam, Sam Robbo, my co-coach, he also was— is very much on that. I mean, he, he skis on like 108 underfoot skis with, um, touring boots and, and just slays it, you you know. So, so I mean, he's an ex-World Cup athlete, so it's a bit different. But you know, from his perspective, it's like, should be able to do it. But I still think there's, um, yeah, the equipment side of thing, I mean, it can definitely get in the way. So I got some, I got some new ideas anyway I want to share with you, Rupert.

Uh, oh man, I look forward to that.

Yeah, yeah, some real revelations. Like, I've always found it hard to balance or not hard, but just harder to balance on my left foot doing like one-ski turns. Uh, one-ski skiing. Yeah, yeah. But you know what I found out? I put—

I—

there was this spot that I just hadn't punched and it wasn't sore. Never gets sore during the winter, but it's like, it's— you could say it was blocked in the boot. And I'd— yeah, and it like, like fractionally, like 5%, punched it and I just— and, and I could— I can now ski one ski on that left foot just as good as the right. So it's really, uh, yeah, there's some stuff like that I wanted chat with you about. It's really, really, really interesting.

So I mean, I think there's— I think there's no— I mean, your mate that's ex-World Cup, I imagine when he was on the World Cup he spent quite a lot of time on his equipment. And yeah, I don't think there's any getting around that. I think it makes such a huge difference. I think in fairness to rookies, and this is the beauty of having students there for prolonged time is, is that you can work on this. And a lot of it is, is trial and error, as we both know, isn't it? And, um, yeah, yep, you know, it, it, it gives you the chance. And, and with it, with the wealth of experience of bootfitters— you, Riley, um, and, uh, yeah, I, I, I think it's, I think it's nothing to, to poo-poo. Um, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, Harry, what about you? What's, what's the focus been this season? What have you been working on in your own skiing?

Uh, so it— this season, um, tactically I've been trying to challenge myself to ski faster on steeper runs on longer radius skis, and with that, trying to keep the skis carving clean or as clean as possible in a long turn, regardless of the steepness. And in a technical input kind of focus has actually been sort of what we were talking about with Taka earlier in the, in this chat, chat, basically trying to rotate into the turn basically as hard as I can and keep rotating and staying square with the skis for about 90% of the turn. And just as I release and I'm decreasing edge angle, the skis turn across me slightly. So I still have a little bit of what you might call separation at the end of the turn, but I'm pretty much trying to be rotating and square with the skis for the whole time. And I feel like it gives me a lot more power, like power against the edge.

Yeah, I'd say. Yeah. Would you also say that when you video that, it doesn't look nearly as rotated as you think you are?

Yes, yes. It feels like I'm— it feels like my body is— my upper body is going to be almost facing up the hill. But yep, it's, it's not. And I do think, you know, we did touch on it a little bit earlier, it's very important to be open to allowing yourself to do something like rotate into the turn, because I think it's, it's become almost— especially in the English-speaking ski instructor associations, it's become a bit of a taboo almost, or something that we don't talk about. But I've been skiing a lot in Italy this year and, uh, skiing with— I've been lucky enough to ski with some top Italian examiners who are also Eurotest pace setters, Eurotest openers, and they all rotate super hard into the top of the turn. Super hard.

Yeah, you know what, like, I think an important thing is too, like, when you're testing this stuff, it's it's— you probably, you have a feeling that, you know, you get, like you said, the strength against the outside ski, and you've, you've an outcome you get from it. You know, rotating, just for like the— like, for people who are listening and maybe don't have the technical proficiency yet, it might not go that— it might not lead to a great outcome. But, you know, when Rupert was talking about the countersteering, that that rotational or difference of where the upper body is going and the feet are going, it's doing essentially the same thing as the countersteering. It's allowing you to incline or create space to move your body further and further and further inside the turn when you have that difference of, of facing the upper body in and the feet more out. And the longer you do that, the more you're going to keep developing higher, higher edge angles be in a strong position for when the pressure sort of hits those skis, and, and then therefore, you know, bend and make the ski turn through, through just— it's sort of arcing on the, on the sidecut as opposed to turning the skis, like physically turning them. So I think, like, like, I, I think that's, uh, that's important part, like, what— why are you doing these things? And we definitely, uh, delve into that Like Rupert said, when you've got a long, a longer period of time, it's really nice because, you know, you might walk away after 2 days going, what the have I just been doing? And this is against all the training I've had in my home resort, and I'm not sure. And yeah, it's nice when you've got a bit of time and you can, you can hear why and how it might link to something you've already been, you know, told and been trying to work and achieve, but This is just a different way of, a different route of getting there.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the beauty of what we do down in New Zealand for ourselves as trainers and also for the students that come down. They've got the time to go through quite an extended learning process. Yeah, become better.

Yep. Yep. That's, that's on a trend going up. But definitely has some ups and downs on that, like the finance— financial market, you know. Yeah, general trend up, but yeah, there's some, some dips, but that's part of a good learning process. So hey guys, thanks so much for taking the time to, to chat with us and with everyone listening. Really appreciate it. We've had, had Rupert Goldring and Harry McFadden. Uh, Harry's the general manager of the Rookie Academy, and we've Rupert works for the rookies but is also one, a very senior person within the Basie system. They're both going to be in New Zealand along with myself this, this winter. If you're interested in joining a Rookie Academy camp, as Harry said, go to, uh, is it— you go ahead, Harry, say it again.

Just rookieacademy.com.

Perfect. And there's a contact button there, or you can just sign sign up. Hopefully we'll see you there.

Yeah.

And thanks guys for listening.

Thanks, Tom. Good on you.

Yeah, cheers, Tom. Good to speak to you both, and lots of love. Hope to see you soon.

Well, I hope that episode was enjoyable and you got an idea of what New Zealand and the Rookie Academy is like. It's truly such a remarkable place, not only to ski, but also to experience training from all these international trainers with, you know, such a passion and drive for skiing that, as you can hear, we, we spend all our spare time on computers looking at video, discussing it, even, even when that's, you know, we've spent a whole day doing it. So I would welcome you to come and check out the Rookie Academy and come do a camp with And then finally, if you haven't checked out my website bigpictureskiing.com, this is an invitation to go check that out as well. Basically, all these experiences, ideas, and training thoughts that I come up with, I create videos around, and so it's a way for you to also learn and gain insights from, you know, a top, top-level skier, myself, and my co-coach Sam, ex-World Cup racer. And the idea is to just, yeah, keep, keep you learning no matter what the time of year, whether you're at home, on the other side of the world, it doesn't matter. And so perhaps you could even be using that before you come and ski in New Zealand, and you're already prepped mentally, sort of know exactly what you want to know and work on, and just need some feedback to, to help guide you in that direction. So yeah, please check out bigpictureskiing.com. And thank you for listening to another episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast.

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 Ski IQs 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 a 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.