Tom Gellie big picture skiing a chat about a chat with Snow Camps Europe and SIA Austria

Hi everybody, it's Andy from Snowcombe Shop here with Paul from the ski shop.

I've barely got the music going, you seem a bit in a hurry, Andy, to get going with it this week. Is there a reason for that?

Did we not just spend 15 minutes where you hadn't pressed the record button again? The last one we did, we ran out of film or whatever it is in this fancy— what is it, 10 grand camera that we use that just turns off halfway through. On this one, you said you turned the screen so I can see it, so it says record. I can see it says record. 15 minutes in, you go, I've not pressed record on the sound.

He's having a right rant. Are you tired? Anybody would expect— this is what it is.

Anyone would think it was you that was sleep deprived from having a baby.

You just—

when the studio manager's not here, you just fall apart.

I know, I know. Yeah, you know what I mean? I need to get like Joe Rogan or something, you know?

Like, who's Joe Rogan?

You know, this podcaster.

Oh, it's— I've never heard of him, to be fair. All right, someone who I've heard of is this Tom Gally fella.

Gilly. Oh, Tom Jelly. Jellyface.

Who you—

why—

why I was away having a baby, you came back from your Iceland and Greenland trips, and you did a little bit of a go-off and you went and filmed 3 videos with him.

I know, what a traitor, eh? Traitor. Left Andy, went off. He's not the same. It's not the same. But yes, I was with him.

He's not got— he's not got my charisma, has he, to be fair?

He doesn't have your accent either. Um, yes, we did. We did, uh, Reflection on Gally. So it is— it was a good— it was good. It was, um, we'd had a couple of chats off, off air caught up a bit after a bit of time. And then we obviously had part 1, part 2, which were mostly covering things to do with anatomy. We really were looking at— because his audience generally is 50 to 60s and stuff, I was keen to tackle the point of eccentric loading, isometric, and to discuss the weaknesses that we see within that area in mechanics at the minute. So for those that don't quite know what I'm talking about, imagine doing the lowering yourself down to the ground in a press-up or lowering yourself when squatting. That in effect is the eccentric portion, the lengthening. And in the past, way back in the '80s, '90s, we did a lot of eccentric loading, what we called negative reps. Now they led to injury because in a negative rep, you can put 2 times your best lift onto a bar because you're just now lowering it, if you like, and you You're just trying to stop it from coming down with gravity. But because people saw it then as unsafe, I feel it's been removed a lot from modern-day gymnastics, gym programs, etc. And it's still a very essential tool, to such a point that I have noticed from a client base that people are not as strong as they were in that type of mechanism. And, you know, you used to be able to even put 1.5 times your maximum weight on a bar and lower it. Nowadays, people could barely do that 1 1.1 times the maximum lifting weight, if you like. Because it's— in skiing, what I was saying to Tom is because of the way you see a lot of these YouTube skiers moving around and stuff, that is primarily the issue that I think people— why people can't ski like that, because they don't have that strength to do that, like a suspension system that's required with the eccentric loading. And also the patella strain, I think is going to be higher, the torque there. And I think that also makes some older people particularly feel a bit like, oof, that's a bit like a stab on my knee when I'm making that type of lower turn in lower position. So we discussed a lot about that, which, you know, people can listen to it, but to me it's one of the things which is very important that people tackle. We then went on about the importance of knees over the toes, tibialis training as well as the calves, and making sure that people had the right My argument being, have people really got the tools to make that type of turn off the piste on the dry land? Because if they haven't, then why are they trying to replicate that type of turn on the snow while sliding on a ski?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this goes back to— we've spoken a lot about you're probably only going to improve your skiing if you improve your fitness, um, and the, the level of fitness, not just your fitness, but the level of that fitness to improve the level of your skiing. Because you say, when, when you look at these people skiing and doing this particular kind of turn, it's going to give— put a lot more strain on the body than—

yeah, than standing upright. Which is— was a funny bit because Tom was telling me a story, and I think it was Paul Reilly had done a video. I don't know if you saw it, or Riley, or the, uh, the, the, um, the, the, the most efficient way to ski.

Yes, yes, fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. So he was obviously taking the mick out of everybody, um, who was telling him how inefficient his skiing technique is. And as you hear me rant on all the time, I keep trying to tell people it's a sport, you've got to— there's going to be an inefficiency eventually. Um, but obviously, yeah, it's going to be super efficient if you just stand up tall. And I've actually taught, taught people to ski like that before who have injury. I remember teaching a lady who had like a type of Parkinson's, and I think it was cerebral palsy or some, some really bad— she had some sort of movement brain disorder. I can't remember exactly what it was now, but I literally had to teach her completely bowled upright and skipping from the heels. And she'd stopped skiing for years, and as it was degenerating, the, the problem with the, with the illness, and I could teach her to ski. And I remember she started to cry on day 3, and I was with her husband. I went, oh God, what have I done here? And he says, she's so happy. Yeah, she's actually been able to come one more time onto the slopes and ski down. So there's a reason why we might want somebody to sometimes ski in a way.

The thing is, with the video that Riley did, which was basically a Mickey take, everything except for stand up straight and be stiff, everything else he spoke about, about sliding, which we've said sliding is important and more difficult skill than carving. He talked about leaning in, so we're talking about toppling at the start of a turn, so, and all of the different things. But it's the way he presented it was spoof, but there was very few things that you don't actually do, but you do them with more movement and with more athleticism.

The problem is as well, like I was saying to Tom on the podcast, was most people and most ski instructors are an echo of what they've learned in the ski associations and through whatever video videos to watch. And whereas I think from my side and from Tom, we both look at things from a more scientific, more biomechanic way, not just from skiing but in general with this sport. And because we've been introduced into anatomy and we understand it, we understand it doesn't have to be a set system that somebody uses to ski, for example, or to snowboard or whatever it is. You can break the rules. Yeah, as long as it works.

And, and we've kind of— we touched on this when we talked about the associations and things, and they don't help themselves in the way that they train the teachers and examine the, the new ski teachers is with a very methodical progression. And I think a lot of the younger ski teachers think that's what I have to do. And it's only the ones— and we— our most recent podcast that we did a few weeks ago, we talked about what makes the best ski teachers. And one of the things we said was older people with experience, because they will turn into the system or question the system or say, well, hang on, John isn't getting it by doing that, so I'll get him to stand up tall. Bingo, he's got it.

Yeah, like, like somebody said to me, how do I stop people from sitting back? I said, but you ever thought about just stand them up? Because if they stood up tall, they're not sitting back.

So, um, I think, yeah, the system doesn't help itself in that.

But that's tradition, as we discussed before.

I screwed up a very regimented way of doing it, isn't it?

You're not, you're not encouraged to ask questions within the associations and within the system. That is a big problem that the ski industry still has that a lot of other industries have addressed. You are not encouraged to go into that office and tell some guy who's been skiing since 1970 or '80 or whatever, he's an Austrian or a Swiss or whatever, and say, oh, by the way, have you ever thought of doing this? You are shouted down, you know.

Why should we— why should we do that? We've always done it this way. Yeah, I think— and wasn't it Clive Woodward when he went to the England rugby team job thing? Because he wasn't a— he wasn't like a rugby player, was he? He was brought in to manage that team in an entirely different way than they'd ever been managed before. And he changed a lot of what they did within the fitness. Obviously the drinking culture went. I think they— he didn't talk about we've got to be 25%, 100% better than the opposition. It was just 1%. So when they went in at halftime, they put on a new, uh, new uniform, a new kit. So they came out on the start of the second half as if it was the start of a new game. And it was all these things that he changed which got them to win the World Cup. And again, if, if the rugby people— I don't know what they're called, um, if it's like the FA but for rugby— if they'd, if they'd been kind of, oh no, why, why should we change? We've always done it this way, then he probably wouldn't have got that job and, and done what he did. Yeah, no, I mean, in Australia, Tom, in the World Cup at Rugby, I think it was.

And it's, it's the same, obviously the same story with it, with it, with biking when it changed as well within Sky. And you know, the, the idea of these 1% were very important. Also bringing in sports scientists who were nothing to do with biking would go, but why do you not cool down and warm down? Yeah, we're never warmed down. You never warm down? Okay, but why? 'Yeah, because we've never done it. It's tradition. It's French. It's the way the French do it,' you know. And suddenly things changed. And of course, Sky were laughed at for years, and obviously then they obviously won everything, and people went, 'Oh, we better start copying what they're doing.' And the ski industry needs a bit of that. And I think now that you're going to have like Tom, um, who's in a lucky position, I suppose myself in a very lucky position where I can question associations without worrying about being told off, or who the hell does he think he is, then, you know, people like us, I hope, can then bring the ski industry into the, into the 20th century. And because it's, it's just such a stuck-in-the-past type sport. So yeah, so we spent the first, I think, first two parts we were discussing different things about anatomy and things like that. And then of course on the, the third section, we then, I opened up that interesting question of asking Tom about length of skis. And Tom confessed, as I thought, that he, you know, started on the slalom ski, you know, in Australia, and had developed through the system on the slalom ski. The reason being, he argued, that was because the slopes there in Australia are not quite, you know, like here.

They're quite, they're quite narrow and short, aren't they? So they favor a short turn. They don't kind of, let's say, race carve down, because they're also quite busy. I've seen pictures and it looks like the M25 in, um, Perisher and places like this. So I think, yeah, that's, that's one of the reasons they say they would have always skied on slalom skis. Yeah.

Yeah. And do you think it's different, or—

well, I think that the style of skiing that they do, and the, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Japanese, and a few of the other kind of Southern Hemisphere countries do have a different style of skiing. And it goes back to what you were saying about this being suspended, the legs are working underneath. And I'm not saying that the Austrians and the Europeans don't ski like that, it's part of the skiing, but it's not the be-all and end-all of the skiing. And I think for the— that those markets, that is their base style of skiing, that's what they want to be doing. They like the look of it, the feel of it, and it's a lot easier on a slalom ski.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, now hang on, it's a lot easier to get that turn on a slalom ski but the forces on the body and the pressure and the work you're probably doing over the day is greater. Yeah, which you'll probably elaborate on.

Yeah, which I've mentioned before, that skiing all day dynamically at performance level, hard-packed with a slalom ski, you're more likely to feel it on your knees, your back at the end of the day, than skiing on a longer ski. A longer ski is just that bit more forgiving and pliable, and it, it's just it's just physics, it's just the forces. I mean, again, I've mentioned before, you've got somebody's 1.80m and the slalom ski is only 1.65m for a man, work it out, there's going to be more force. So from my side, that's why— and I was lucky, I'd done the same as Tom, you know, I'd stuck to a slalom ski generally going through towards Level 2, Level 3, and then I progressed because I was in Austria and everybody would laugh at you. I progressed onto a longer ski and tried a bit with the GS, and after all these this time, I've come down to the conclusion like you have that it's the Race Carve length that's the optimal in-between balance. That length between sort of, you know, anywhere from 16 to 19-meter radius, um, is the best ski because it's not so parabolic, you know, it's not so aggressively shaped, um, but equally it's not completely straight and, you know, in doing a radius of 25 or 30 meters as well when your clients are stuck behind you and you're all flying down the slopes and they're struggling to keep up in a straight line.

It's funny because I just got a new ski, so I got a new X9 because the last X9s had split, and I'm debating whether or not I'm even going to ski them or use them as my main ski next winter, and if I am going to go back to a 17, 18 meter. Because we were looking at some videos of me doing short turns on the shorter radius ski, and they weren't as good as my previous short turns on a much longer radius ski. So yeah, I'm thinking about switching to a longer one.

Yeah, I think, I think on a short radius ski, when you do short turns, you end up being encouraged to be on the edge more because you can literally be on the edge almost, you know, 80 to 90%, if not 100%. I've seen people do it on a slalom ski. But on that long turn, that you have on that longer ski, you have to have that bit of a blend at the top as you hit the edge. And then there's the deflection part that's quite aggressive on you. But it looks, it looks cool, looks really good. And that's why for me, I actually like my Giant slalom skis at 25 meters for a short turn often. And the ski that I generally grab hold of when it's firm packed and it hasn't snowed for a while, it's a bit icy and stuff, because it's forgiven on the body and it's great. But if I'm specifically going out to teach carving, I actually avoid that ski because I know that 95% of the people I'm skiing with do not have that ski on their feet. They don't have a 25-meter ski. So it's much more realistic for them if I ski a ski ski that's similar to them. That's a great podcast in itself, you know, ski instructors putting on the kit that matches the student. Um, otherwise, as I said to you before— you didn't press record— yeah, it's always my fault. One of the exercises in the Austrian system is to teach people how to do Alpine basic position, the position of balancing on the outside ski, and they do it through traversing over the hill with different exercises. And I always find it weird because our trainers all tend to use 25 to 30 meter radius skis, and they traverse across the hill. Obviously they've got no speed, no real pressure building up. They traverse over this real shallow curve because the ski's got a huge radius, and then our lot go follow with our 12 or 13 meters, and it's certainly halfway up the hill. Yeah, whips around the— they're in two different locations on the mountain now, the group. And so I think wearing what everybody wears— that's why I just done a video actually on skis and telling people what skis to purchase, because when people go to Argentina with us, they don't have the opportunity to come and shop with us. And that's a bit of a scary bit because we like to control carefully what people are buying for reasons. And as they're going to Argentina, I know the taxes and everything out there, and equipment's hard to get, we encourage them to take the kit with them. And when I was doing the video, I was telling them, buy an RC, buy this ski. You know, if you— if I have to tell you, that's the ski you want to have. And even then, you know, even when I was saying you could get an all-mountain, that's fine, up to maximum 85mm underfoot. But as we all know as well, with an RC or a giant slalom ski, when you're particularly doing the slower stuff like plow turns, plow parallel, a bit hooky, the drift— no, the slalom ski's hooky. The slot— the, the big giant slalom ski drifts nice, and whereas the slalom ski, it's grabbing all the time. As you mentioned on that shorter ski with your short turns, it's because it's, it's always wanting to grab. And so it's a difference. So obviously Tom, you know, when we were discussing it with Tom, he confessed obviously he'd done the same, and the reasons being was a little bit to do with teaching Um, but he then obviously can obviously ski in a 25-meter radius, or I think he also said he favors the sort of 19-meter Volkl that he had. Um, yeah, it's the ski to go with. Um, and I was saying to you before that, that it's interesting on YouTube, I saw people actually write what ski they're skiing on now to try and prove a point. Look at me, I'm skiing on a 25-meter ski, you know, it's like It's a ski. It's like, yeah, you know, people specialize.

It's funny.

So that was the three— that was our three little podcasts that we, uh, that we had. Obviously you can watch them and reflect back on it. Um, from my side, it, it definitely was more to do with, I suppose, trying to encourage people to do those knees over the toes style exercises to start to learn to move backwards, to learn tibialis work, like strengthening the shins, and also encouraging their understanding of their mobility and stability in their body, you know, from knees, from hips, and things like that. If, you know, they have issues there and how to address those issues, start to understand a little bit of 101 anatomy, and it would help their skiing.

Good stuff. Good stuff. So you're gonna give him a call, what, in about a year's time now? Because it's taken about a year this time, hasn't it?

Well, I would have actually met him in New Zealand for our course, but I need to be in Argentina to reset everything because obviously, yeah, things have not been running for 2 years. But we'll tackle that in another podcast. And yeah, so apart from that, we're back. Let's do a couple of podcasts.

And we'll probably try and press record at the right time.

Eh, do my best.

Bye for now.