Turn Shape First and When you Can Push on your skis with Tom Gellie and Demelza Clay

Some of the best insights I've learned that have really improved and helped my skiing have come from these conversations on chairlifts or in a locker room with another skier. Now, the thing with that is not everyone gets to listen to it, however, today's Big Picture Skiing episode with myself, Tom Gellie, and Demelza Clay gives you insight into some coaches' minds, our minds, what we've been thinking about this past ski season. So Demelza is going to share some thoughts around turn shape, she's found just approaching and explaining that as the framework to attach all of these other skills upon has really led to people actually having more fun and just a far easier time at understanding sort of more complex concepts. So we're going to hear about De Melzer on that one. Now myself, I'm going to get into some concepts that I've been trying to get out of my brain into the right words and explain this idea of pushing and pulling on your skis, and so you're going to hear me sort of talk as as I sort of struggle to articulate it in the right way. And Demelza helps sort of extract exactly what I'm really meaning by this concept to help people make far more precise sort of short turns. And really, I'm trying to help people fix chatter. That's like such a common thing people are trying to find solutions for. So I'm doing my best to explain how I reduce that as well as, yeah, make some of the best turns I can. So thanks very much for tuning in. If you're a new listener, please consider subscribing to the channel. If you already listen, boom, thank you so much, we really appreciate you. Let's get into today's episode of the Big Picture Skiing Podcast. So another winter season under the belt. Demelza, I heard you've had a great one. We've seen each other a little bit over, over the ski season. You've been so busy, lots of travel for both of us. And I know a lot of people's thoughts at this time of year move away from skiing funnily enough, we both often dive into our own minds and, and think about, reflect upon the season. After our podcast episode around inside leg mechanics and that story of your knee being rehabbed and discovering some, some new insights, changing the way you thought about using your inside knee, we wanted to do another similar episode, and we're wondering what would be a good topic. And we've sort of landed on this idea of we each have these coaching themes that usually change every season. We kind of go, oh, you know what, this is something I'm seeing. It's a bit like, you know, if you buy a new VW car, suddenly you see it everywhere. So you have this new theme and you suddenly now see every skier has this issue, and so you want to coach around it. So you're going to quiz me on mine for the season.

Yes.

Let's start with yours. What is— what has been your theme? Where did it start? Why did you choose it?

My, my thing this season was just this simple concept of turn shape. And anyone who skied with me this season probably got at least a morning on this, or maybe a full day. And I guess it just started like a little bit more on, on an academic level. Like, you know, when you get started as a ski instructor, you're sort of teaching a lot of concepts out of the manual, which is, which is normal. You know, the ski instructors create these, uh, the associations create these frameworks, um, and we need to learn this like academic information. And, you know, we know that turns need to be round. And I remember when I first started trying to encourage skiers, you know, way back, um, you know, in the beginning of my career, it was more just the lack of the round turn shape was what you know, so I'm like, okay, so imagine trying to say to a child, you know, make U-turns around to slow down. It's kind of boring. Like most kids are like, I want to go as fast as possible. So I remember thinking to myself, okay, I've got to get people to buy into this. What is it? Why are we doing this turn shape thing? So then I kind of started with, well, you know, if you, if your turns aren't round, I can teach you how to angulate, I can teach you how to edge, um, but if your turns aren't round, then you don't have anything to lean against, you're not building up any G-forces. Um, but still it kind of had this, like, the buy-in level was sort of mediocre because, you know, a lot of the time it didn't have like a what's in it for them kind of takeaway with it. Like, okay, here's the ski instructor saying make your turns round because if you don't do it, then it's going to be really hard for you to edge angulate. A lot of people are like, okay, all right, well, I'll give it a try, but it doesn't really sound that fun.

Yeah, I agree. I just like thinking it through now. It, it doesn't— it's a bit like most people would come to you with, I want to carve, I want to ski this run.

So I've thought about it over the years, and the way I teach this concept now, um, is to basically say to guests at the start of the day, I'm like, okay, I want to help you guys have way more fun. The way— the— what I love about skiing is stacking my body up against the forces of the turn. It feels like I'm a race car, you know, driving around a track, and you get to feel the thrill of building up these forces in your turns. And the way I've described it now, which I think a lot of people really enjoy, or they, they're really eager to learn, is I say to them You know, turn shape is the architecture of good turns. It's the structure of great skiing. Every single time you go and make a turn, it needs to have this shape so you can build up these forces. And once you've done that, then there'll be a need for you to edge your skis. And to edge your skis, you're going to angulate— we're going to use your ankles— inclinate, and all those things. And Yeah, and then that's, that's been, um, the thing that I think I really focused on this year because, you know, we ski with a lot of different sort of levels, mostly above like really strong parallel skiers. And quite often just literally the path they're taking down the mountain is not sufficient for them to really make any movements, you know, against the forces of the turn because they're just kind of going straight, you know.

So, um, or maybe even give them context of timing and duration, like how long they do something for. Like, okay, you angulate, you do this, you, you build pressure, but for how long? When exactly? It gives you something to actually grasp onto of like, oh, it's in this period.

And yeah, we have a real— a lot of really passionate, um, uh, learners in our community, as you know, Tom, and they're really keen to get their, their skiing going and And I say to people now, it's like, I can't teach you. You can't learn these concepts unless you're skiing down the mountain in rounded arcs. That's what I love about skiing. And I still sort of always bring it back to when shaped skis came out and we stopped skiing on, on, on straight skis. All of a sudden, just the tracks in the snow all around Mount Hotham where I grew up were different. There were all these little lines everywhere and everyone was all, all of a sudden skiing with a lot more deflection across the hill. And that was really fun. Like, just the feeling of doing that, even on a flat cat track, was complete. We'd never felt that before, really, in the straight ski era. So yeah, now, um, that's the journey that I've taken, um, over the years that I, that I take with my clients now to help them realize, you know, you can say to them, okay, we're going to do the box turn. You know, you go across the hill for 2 beats, down the hill for 2 beats, across the hill for 2 bits. Okay. Great exercise. But why, you know, why are we doing that? And I think it kind of, for me, that little thought process is really indicative of how I've developed as a coach, going from like book knowledge. This is what you should do. And when it's not there, you tell people to do it versus like, but why? Like, why actually are we doing it? Is it really just for speed control, turn shape? I would say no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you're back to your point about fun. So I want to try and describe if you maybe even have someone in your mind that, you know, you've skied with that you saw and you went, turn shape, we gotta do it. Try and describe so someone listening could maybe identify. They haven't quite found this fun turn shape idea.

So let's take your, um, classic kind of client who loves to track their skiing with either an app or a sports watch. Maybe they've got Carv running, something like that, but they can track their kilometers per hour. So I think any instructor who is listening to this has had one of those clients, and they'll be like, yeah, yeah, I got, you know, 78 kilometers per hour today. And you know, they're just pinning it to the bottom of the mountain, and that's where they're finding joy with their skiing. So let's, let's just take that person. And if they're, if they're a bit of a— they're finding that thrill in speed, then we need to try and help them understand the thrill in lateral speed across the hill. And there's that race car analogy. And yeah, just helping them kind of understand that first to the bottom of the hill doesn't really mean a lot. Anyone can just like ski straight in a really noodly long kind of like no-turn shape.

So you would say these people, the feelings they would have there, they feel like they go fast and they're carving perhaps, but there's very much a fast down the mountain.

Yes. Yeah, there's that. Yeah, they maybe don't repeat.

Yeah. So you can ask yourself, do you ever feel like you're getting jet it across fast. If not, there's a, there's a fun part you're missing there.

Exactly. So it's really having good conversations and asking lots of questions as well to that learner and saying, so let's take that thrill with speed that you have and translate it to going down the hill to this much like safer, um, and more exciting feeling of going across the hill, and then that's going to allow you to create higher edge angles and really stack your body up against the forces of the turn and get that, that whipping. And then, you know, obviously they can create better angles with their body, and you can take some video and show them literally what they're able to achieve once they're building up those turn forces. Because once they realize they're not building up any turn forces by just like pinning it to the bottom of the hill, they don't have anything to create a great turn with. Once you're skiing in rounded arcs, you've got, um, the, the stuff that you need to, to lean against to create a different type of, um, feel, sensation in your turns.

Would you say there's another group, uh, because of some technical, technically savvy listeners to the podcast, instructors, you know, former racers, that sort of thing, anything that comes to mind around that type of person to maybe like where you, you're like, oh, you know what, like they're close, but maybe, um, yeah, if could anyone identify at that level with a maybe something they could feel that there's more to be gained from like your, your take on turn shape architecture?

You mean, um, another subset of clients, or who do you think, who do you have in mind?

Because I can, I, uh, yeah, so I'm thinking of like the people the instructors that listen, the level 3s, 2s, like the keen people. Um, yeah, anything there that you felt you had some good breakthroughs explaining?

Some definitely, yeah. So when I, when I actually get into the, the guts of how to create, um, that turn shape, especially with your high, higher-end skiers, it's more, um, I'll first of all start with just the whole idea of, um, angle of entry to the turn. Which creates an equivalent and opposite angle of exit from the turn. So if you're only pointing your skis, like, let's just say, you know, downhill 20 degrees across the hill, that turn is only ever going to be 20 degrees across the hill in the other way. But if you're entering your turn with a lot more— it's never going to be like 180 or like, let's say, 90. Maybe it's more like 45. Then you can start to develop these turn forces because you're, you're entering the turn at a much, um, uh, higher, uh, part of me, a much, a much higher angle. So that's, that's one of the ways. And then I usually get into, um, talking about that transition moment in both the pure carved performance, like how are you actually getting your skis pointing across the hill underneath you in pure carving, um, or in steering. And in my mind, there's a slightly different mechanic to that that usually involves, you know, ankle, ankle-knee movements to, um, to achieve that turn shape in either of those two, like, main performance, um, types.

So if you say— if you can recall the maybe the last camp or something you did with this as a focus probably was with ski instructor type people. What was the maybe turn exit drill you did? Or yeah, if we were there watching, like, oh, we're trying to like— yeah, kind of like—

okay, so let's, let's just stick with, with pure carving. Um, and sort of, I've shared a couple of these insights, um, on some of the other things I've done online, like with Carv, for example. I don't think a lot about ankle knee rolling at the very beginning of the turn. I'm more about, you know, we sort of talk a lot about like, you know, edge your skis from the ground up at the initiation. And whilst I'm saying that there's, there's definitely ankle rolling happening, and I do feel a sensation that I'm edging my skis from the ground up, what if I'm actually edging my skis from the top down? Because we all know that inclination is the first move into a turn, and there's no— that's just the whole body tipping in. And then I move the hip inside because that's the, the big clumsy powerful joint that I want to get inside my turn for a pure carve. And then I use the ankle knee as the fine-tuning, especially through, in my mind, the last half of the turn. And this is something I've played around with a lot with my own skiing this year, is using more ankle knee rolling through the transition. So I'm effectively whipping my feet under my center of mass as I move my center of mass over my feet. I'm going to show you what I, I show my own people here with this pen. So the— let's just say like the lower performance way, or like a— maybe like a— yeah, let's just sort of— low performance way is you would finish a turn. Let's just say this is the head and this is the the hips, center of mass, and then this is my feet. The old thinking, uh, coaching was more around you're going to finish a turn and you're going to step on that new outside ski and move your center of mass over your feet. And that can definitely achieve the goal. However, in higher, uh, in steeper slopes and faster, higher edge angle turns, I feel like when I use this ankle-knee move at the end of the turn to get my feet underneath me more, to increase my angle of entry into the next turn, I'm actually whipping my feet underneath my center of mass, and at the same time my head is going over my feet. So two things are happening at once, and that then helps me get through perpendicular to the slope. And, and then you're creating that, that turn shape as well. So you're actually using this move through transition to get the top of the turn shaped a little bit better.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, that has been one, uh, I think really like it's kind of a— I guess it's a simple-ish, especially for that level of instructor, it's a simple-ish kind of cue. But once we work through that, then they start to feel all these, um, different sensations at the top of the turn, like they're really whipping their feet underneath them. There's that whole idea of like jumping your feet from one set of train tracks to another at the top of a really, you know, so there's a, there's a big conversation after that because they've all got a really well-established puzzle of skiing. And so then they start filling in some of these old cues that they may not have fully understood before. That tends to help them have like a bit of a penny drop moment.

Yes. Yeah, nice.

So how do you— have you ever thought about that before, like on that?

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, structure of turns.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So one phrase I use is like that if, if you have turn shape, um, like finishing, completing, closure, turn shape closure, then like you said in the top of the turn, you now are— you have more space and time. So that 45-degree angle, you've only got 45 degrees before you hit the fall line. That's maybe the equivalent of like a couple of hours on a clock. Whereas if, uh, if you, if you finish more across and you've got more hours on the clock hand before you reach down the fall line to actually do something Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, like if you're just skiing straight fall line, you have no time to go from one side of your skis to the other. So yeah, for me, I explained this space, uh, actually on the snow surface between the apex and, and, uh, transition apex. And then time as well, because would you agree a lot of people report back when they start getting this, it's like Oh, I actually feel like I have more time. I'm not rushed.

Yeah. And I, I feel like that's because they're really creating, facilitating a float phase. So they're creating that sensation of time because I still feel like, you know, again, like one of the bigger things that I've changed about my coaching, one of the things I was always coached to do is, you know, even on the national team was like early edge, early pressure. And what I've learned since is that I was going— it was too early. My— actually, my pressure was too early for the performance of turns that I was skiing in that context. And there's a lot of people still really confused about that. So when I'm teaching them this move to whip their feet under their body while their head goes over their center of mass, I'll just have a conversation around like, when do you think you might want to put the pressure on? Because as you know, if you put if you try to step on a ski, you know, let's just say you've got the dollar sign with the line down the middle. If you're trying to step on the new outside ski up where the line goes through the S in the dollar sign, most of the time the ski is going to want to drift and go down the mountain, especially in more of a steer context. So once we start playing around with, well, let's, let's try early, let's try really late, 'Let's try a few degrees in between. What feels comfortable?' We usually land on somewhere in the middle. It's like, we don't want to get on it too early because we're actually trying to use the top of the turn to scrub off some speed, not just the end of the turn. So that tends to really help them fill in a lot of blanks with that concept, you know. And again, like, turn, turn shape doesn't slow you down. I think it can accelerate you. Depending on when you pressure the ski.

That's right, that's right. Because it can maybe keep you within like a speed, say speed down the slope. We separate that from speed across the slope. The right turn shape can keep you in this zone of feeling comfortable. Say you like going down a slope at 40, but 45, 50 k's an hour down the slope, you start panicking a bit, making errors. If you can use TurnShape to keep your downhill speed to 40, but then you convert that to like this across, um, yeah, that really helps. I was going to say one thing that made me realize, maybe ties into the other, the conversation about the knee, when we were sort of talking about that and the inside knee not being super active, which was like a a maybe something that used to be taught when carve skis came out. So really using a lot of ankle and knee tipping to tip the skis over more. In this podcast, check it out. Yeah, yeah, we sort of talk about that and then how that can affect your hip, which is the big strong one for it. I feel like after that, and then we played that, we've kind of like tried to figure out more about the ankle and knee and where that sits in. It's not that it's don't do it, it just has bit of a more effective moment in the turn that it can be used. And, and when I started out skiing, I look at old videos, I was like really knee, like I used a lot, a lot of knee, and it was hard to separate rotationally as much. Um, and so I sort of got rid of that and then followed this, like same, same with you, I was like this using the hip a lot more and really trying to use only just enough ankle and knee to not ruin that. But then I, I remember watching, uh, maybe it was even in this podcast I talked about Nick, a friend Nick Jones who's on the APSI demo team. He made these short turns. He was showing me like in Switzerland and I watched them and I was like, these are super cool, like so good. And, and the short turn, why I like that, he was just getting this whip across the hill His feet were coming back under him really fast and out the other side really quickly. And I was like, and I knew I'd also spent some time with Nick in the Staredbo season and we were doing some drills and I was like, oh, I think you're using too much ankle and knee here, Nick, for this drill. Watch this video. I was like, oh, he's using that thing that I thought was overdone to achieve this whip feet back under acceleration. And I'd recheck myself like, hang on, there's something here you're missing in your really nice smooth turns, Tom, that you could put in to maybe get some more whip out.

Yeah.

And I started putting and playing with this ankle knee more, like you're saying, at the end to accelerate the feet and skis back under you so you don't have to work as hard to shove your body over the top.

In a moment where we're trying to square up. And that's what I was playing around with a lot as well. It is funny because I was chatting with Kili about this over in Switzerland in the season. We did a camp together. He was guiding for us. And of course, we're kind of nerding out. And in his mind, he doesn't think about ankle knee at all. In his terms, he's clearly using it. And a couple of the instructors— I was over at the Peace Festival coaching as a guest coach a few weeks ago, and we shared similar things. You know, guys from different associations, Europeans, wherever, some of them don't talk about ankle knee movements really because they're like, well, look what happens if you move your knee inside your ankle too much, that's a really dangerous position. And I would agree, like, um, through the end of the turn— and this is a conversation you and I have had a lot that's when you want to square up. And I'm just trying to help people. I'm not saying to anyone that I ski with, like, ankle knee is bad and, you know, don't use it. I'm saying use your ankle knee when needed, but just know that if you use it a lot, it's going to end up squaring your hips up. If you don't use it a lot at all, you'll get a lot more hip angulation if you need it. So, you know, I think that departure from this is how you do it, this is the right way, this is the wrong way, uh, the people that I've skied with have enjoyed that because we're just giving them the tools so that they can figure it out themselves. They've got a really well-established puzzle of skiing. There's definitely some gaps, you know, you and me, same thing. The puzzle is spherical, 3D, 4D, whatever. Um, yes, in, in more this like, this is what this structural function does in our bodies. Let's play around with it. What does it do? How did that feel? Was that strong? Was that weak? Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did it impact, uh, turn shape? Because that's right, because you like— it can— so say we take that idea of too much knee, uh, beyond the, the hip. So lots of knee angulation, knees rolling in a lot. We could all understand, I could imagine, that does make me feel less strong, but not all parts of your turn are you trying to be strong. And this comes back to a bit, this, this idea of when you're looking for pressure and when you're not. So if you can think about, well, say through the end, I've already got my deflection, I'm getting speed across the hill, pressure is dropping. You're also trying to like maybe unweight your skis a bit. Totally safe to put the knees and ankles in, right? Like, so it's like, ah, that I can start adding it a bit, bit more and more. And if you marry it up with when the pressure is dropping, so there's less load, it's not harmful. Exactly. Place these like structural, like these body positions that have attributes of strength versus like mobility and guiding the skis in a separate part from where you're up. Yeah, that's, that's when you can start making sense of it. And I guess the errors come when you, when those two overlap. Yes, their highest like points too much, then you do cause it. Because yeah, you know, it made me think of, I was standing at the bottom of Hintertux, you know, think of it, yeah, it was this, this year, and you were coming down and you had cars following you with the Insta360 camera. And you're macking it down the, the red slope. No one's in your way, so you're going for it. Like, carve, turn, hip to snow, next one, hip to snow, next one, hip to snow. Oh, this is looking awesome. And then you suddenly, like, hip to snow, and then you were hip to the air, like 6 feet, flipping over. I was like, oh God, helicopter's going to be called. Demelzer is, is just ruined herself. That was like a moment of kind of those two things maybe overlapping. Like, you had the hip over, and then yes, the snow is really grippy. You had really grippy skis, new, those new O+ skis, and they just hooked and then turned back under you. And it was so fast and at the wrong time that it lifted you up like a pole vaulter.

Yeah, I just, I think I stayed on the ski for too long, I think, and, and it I just, I think that was the slightly softer ski. We were trying to get to the bottom of this. I was looking at the video and I was in the one that was a little softer trying out, and I had one already made by, uh, Original that was awesome. Um, I've still got it now and it's definitely a bit stiffer, but I was bending through these skis too much. This is what Jelle, the Original rep, was saying. And just like an elastic band, when you stretch it really, really far, it's going to come back at you really quickly. So for me, it was a really good lesson in trying to be more subtle because I can get in and really kind of attack it because, you know, honestly, I've always skied on skis that are really, really stiff and usually a little bit too stiff for me. So this is the— and, you know, torsionally fine, but this is the first year I've skied on quite a few skis that are quite a— not that they're too soft for me, but they're torsionally just fine. Like, remember the one over in, um, uh, in Japan as well? That ski that I bought over did not— I basically couldn't really carve it on super hard snow when it was really steep, but it was really interesting what it forced me to do on the really mellow, like— and it's soft in Japan, obviously, you know, snowing all the time— just being a lot more gentle. I mean, it was a classic constraint really for me and kind of what I needed. So I just kind of like took a little piece of pie and went for it.

This is what we want. Like, maybe not in the moment because it hurts our ego of like, I'm not getting this, I can't do my usual. But you can reflect on it now hopefully and go, so good, that brought out like maybe this— I was too comfortable in just absolutely bending the crap out of this ski. And a certain time, like, you could bend it for longer and it didn't matter. This one was like, you'd bend it and the ski knee was bent and the turn was coming around, and you're like, usually on stiffer skis having to hold it for longer. This one was like, I'm done.

Yeah.

And then it just, you know, obviously the camera's on, you're like, cool, go for it. And you'd been on the other ski and now you're on this one, and suddenly it's like, we're ready, and it just ankle and knee whip back under you.

And that's ridiculous, Tom. That's just— I would never do anything like that.

It happens to me as well. And I think it's a good one. Like, if people ever get that high-sided feeling, if they've ever had those crashes, or you see it on ski racing events, it's, it's kind of like those skis are accelerating back under you with a lot of pressure that you're not ready for. And so the, this, the, the legs come back under you and the boots lift you up like, and that's all you— yeah, but there's a, there's a point of like, you want some of that because it's dynamic and, and, and really like closes the turnoff well. But yeah, the point where too much of it is, is dangerous.

And exactly, yeah. And that's, that was one of the things I always struggled with too, with that sort of, um, that cue of like, you need earlier pressure, earlier edge. Well, it was more about the pressure because I'd be building up. I just got to the point where I thought, well, this must be beyond me, I mustn't be able to do this for whatever reason. But I was actually building up way too much pressure too early. So by the time I got to the fall line, I had just too much pressure, full stop. Then I had to deal with it. So now, um, you know, it's just a good conversation. And, you know, just like me, there are so many skiers, instructors who I think are still, um— and it could just be a language thing as well, um, still I guess there's a few of these cues that I would sort of consider a little bit dogmatic around, like rolling the ankle knee at the beginning of a pure carved long turn. Just like my friend over in Switzerland was saying, like, that's not a safe position for your knee to be in. But we see coaches all the time on the side of the hill, you know, doing that really, you know, knees go right up the hill, really articulating their knee away from the midline of their body. And I used to teach that all the time, like, we've got to, we've got to be more active in our ankles. And whether or not my coach meant that, it doesn't matter. Just what I think has become the understanding is that you're supposed to edge the skis from the ground up, use your ankles and knees to tip your skis over at the start of the turn. That's what— because I always ask people, so what, what's your— what are we doing through transition? Like, Good coaching should always be a conversation is what I've learned as well. Like, ask lots of questions. If you're just like information dumping at people, they just passively sit there and go, uh-huh, uh-huh, you know, and they'll walk away from the experience going, God, that was— yeah, that was a lot. Let me see if I can remember anything. But if you have a conversation with them and ask them lots of questions and try and draw out of them what is their understanding, what is their experience of skiing, then you can actually intercept where the misunderstanding is at.

Um, I think it comes a lot of it from our desire to really understand and kind of almost like write down in a book, the start of a turn is initiated from the ankles and then the knees move in and then the hip and then the body. And we always go from incline to more angulated So this desire for like a recipe that's, that's like, cool, we, we want— because we want to know like how it is done, uh, really badly. And, and people, and I, and people want to give people those answers and those understandings. And in a way, you could look at a video of a turn of, say, an amazing skier on the World Cup and you could put some words to, look, they're starting the turn with the ankle and then the knee. And but I think in one way that could— you could also describe it like you said, from the, from the top down as well. And I think what's really important, if you— where I'm trying to go, I'm pretty sure the same, is how many angles could I view and describe a turn being done from. Like the blind people looking at the elephant or touching the elephant, and they say, like, the one's holding the tail and they go, elephants feel like rope. And then another one is like holding the foot and it's like, no, elephants feel like a tree trunk. Someone else is like holding another bit and they describe it completely different. None of them are wrong.

No.

Just feeling it from a different vantage point.

It comes down to that experience, you know, like there's this positive psychology saying, it says, you know, what you It's like a focus thing, like what you pay attention to, you get more of, but it also determines what you miss. Yes. So finding our blind spots, you know, is super important, I think. Yeah. In everything we do, especially in coaching as well. There's so many assumptions that I think we make. Everyone must know X, Y, and Z, but it's not necessarily true. Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah. I think getting to that World Cup skiing, I've always sort of said to my clients as well, when do you see any skier, whether they be on the World Cup or just someone up online doing some great turns, the outside leg is long and straight? It's never, it's never buckled at the ankle knee. So how do we square that circle? If I'm supposed to be moving from the ankle knee really aggressive at the top of the turn, did I at one point stop and straighten the leg up, you know? Or is the ankle knee— it's just a feeling. I think it's just language. Like, you're definitely moving your ankle knee the whole way through the turn, um, but, you know, I feel like I'm chasing my, my hip with my ankle knee. It's just behind, but I'm chasing it, and then at the end of the turn, it has to, you know, finish everything off.

You just made me be reminded of, like, uh, a thought around how much more we see the best of the best in any sport because of social media. Yeah, in front of us. And keep thinking that we always have to aim everything we do around what the best are doing. So, um, and I know in the past I used to think, look, an idea is only worth sharing, Tom. You're only going to seem like you know what you're talking about if it's true with the best ski racers or the best whatever. But I've since changed my mind on that because, yeah, not everyone, one, has the body of a ski racer, uh, two, has the same intention that they need to get down through a race course and beat everyone else for time. Um, is on the same equipment that basically only the best and the best get access to. So I've stopped trying to do that, and I've— and like this thought of especially having Archie, an 8-year-old son, of like pressure to— if you're gonna do a sport, then you're aiming to be as good as, as the best. Like, soccer and all these people around us Uh, you know, kids that are half decent then end up going, well, we should put him in an academy 3 days a week, you know, because if he doesn't do it now, then he's going to be no good later on. And then same with skiing, it's like, oh God, you know, I feel this pressure because I'm a ski coach that he's got to be good, and that if he's not, then what am I missing? What should I add more of? Because otherwise he'll never make it. And anyway, yeah, I feel that that is kind of ruining a lot of people to give up on something early. Like, oh, well, I'm not good at this because, like, if I'm not as good as, you know, these people like Tom and Demelza or Marcel Hirscher or whoever it is online— not comparing us to them, I'm just trying to say, like, examples, comparison— like, it's really harmful for your progress. You should just try and aim to do skiing for fun, like, you get out, and if you're doing a little bit better turns than— yeah, you were like last season, that's awesome. And does that make sense in terms of what I'm trying to say here? Like, don't always reference the best of the best. Yeah, this is a whole context and situation around that that's not relevant to you and where you actually want to go with your skin.

I'm not a parent, and which means I'm definitely not an expert However, and one of my friends who is a parent said this to me the other day, she goes, actually, I think you do have a lot of valuable insight for us because we kind of lose our minds a little bit when we become parents. And so I'm wondering, how do you think you've successfully framed Archie's involvement, or any, um, child junior athlete in whatever sport they might be enjoying, when faced with that I've got a lot of parents around me, their kids are right in it. You know, there's 4 or 5 sports going on at a time, which is great, trying lots of different things. But there's always this pressure like, oh, they're doing pretty well, you should probably get them in a program. Yeah, we've got registration open next week. And look, it comes from a good place, coaches saying this. You know, we've done the same thing. Hey, your kid's skiing really well. Do you want them to go into Race Club next week? Next year? Is this something they'd enjoy? How do you think you have morphed into this as a, as a dad?

I battle with it. Yeah, constantly. I'm not gonna say I've figured it out, and I make like, make mistakes the other day. So we live right near the beach and, uh, there's good surf waves, and I, you know, I'm right into my surfing at the moment, and I'm like, Archie, it's perfect, small beautiful waves for kids at the moment. Do you want to go out surfing? He's like, nope. And I get upset because I'm like thinking, well, if Archie's not getting better at surfing, like, he's, he's not making the most of where we live. That's wrong. Uh, I want to go surfing more often and I want him to come, so that's wrong. He's got to come and make the most. Like, it's not perfect waves every day, so you should come right now. And he ended up crying, and I made him cry because I put this pressure on. So I made the mistake exactly, you know, I know all those things you should not do. I made the mistake.

Yeah.

So I guess I'm getting reminded of just chill, chill out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I think I'm maybe a little bit better at it with skiing, which is weird because that's the one that I can have maybe the most impact where he could do really well. You know, I'm more worried about all these other ones where I'm not the expert, like soccer and yeah, mountain biking and surfing and everything.

Yeah.

So yeah, I'm more chilled and I actually don't want him to become— people like, when's Archie— is Archie going to be an Olympian? I was like, nope. Well, he can if he wants. There's no pressure on me. I just want to be able to ski with him. And it's just, it's almost like he has to do it because this is part of our life. So it's just like, yeah, just something he does. It's not this special thing that defines him.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, uh, and I want to hear about your one thing too, by the way. And this is like almost a whole other conversation, but I said to my friend the other day, I mean, because we both love David Epstein's work, he's done this, uh, written this book called Range about how most— this whole idea of 10,000 hours to build the best athlete is more relevant to skill acquisition. They'll get the skills, but will they have developed the passion, the mental dexterity, the drive, the attitude to want to excel in that particular sport? And what they've realized is most likely no. And a lot of athletes, successful entrepreneurs, will try a lot of different things and actually choose to specialize very late in life. I was saying to one of my friends who, I mean, she's, you know, two kids in all the sports, and I said, I think when a coach starts talking to a parent around with— when the conversation goes towards like, there could be a chance they'll make it, I think that's when the relationship with the sport has deteriorated. Like, it's, it's not going in a good direction. Kids just want to have fun. Sure, they might one day turn around and go, I want to be a World Cup skier or, you know, badminton player. You know, it doesn't matter. We help— we're helping them. And I can say this as a coach of children for many decades, like, we're just trying to help them have great experiences, develop. Like, race coaching in Australia, being a coach of Aussie race kids, just to say to parents all the time, this is not about going overseas and being a competitive athlete. This is about them learning how to get up in the morning make sure they have their skis tuned. Like, good habits, really good habits that will then translate into whatever they choose to do with their lives. But, well, I think you've done great. Archie's— Archie loves it. He loves his skiing. So, yes, yeah, yeah.

I think that what I would say, the takeaway I would have for the listener, like, people that follow us that want to get better at their skiing just be mindful of like how you are talking to yourself about whether you're doing well or not. Because I think there's just a lot of, I just, and you just very easily get trapped in like, I'm not doing great, so I suck. And you maybe you get stressed about it and you have the wrong mindset or, you know, yeah, you try and do too much to try and fix it and get better at it.

Yeah.

So anyway, I've just like told my— I'm almost like having this mantra in my head, like, hey, just try and, number one, enjoy it. And then two, I love improving. We all love improving. So just try and be a little bit better or work on something that is going to make you a little bit better than yourself. Not don't compare.

Yeah.

Yourself. Like the comparison thing is that this is a comparison, a thief of joy.

Yeah. Yeah. And this is something that we quickly went chatting about yesterday when we caught up after the season. We were just discussing about if we didn't know— just to bring up carve scores, for example, which is a great tool, have really enjoyed using it. Um, you know, at our level, to get an improved carve score, you need really great snow. We all know this. But we said to each other yesterday, if we didn't know the scores of those people we were skiing with, would we automatically think it was like 10% better than our skiing. You know, I feel like I'm improving even if my Carv score hasn't necessarily, you know, gone up or down or whatever. And the people at Carv, they're so passionate, they're making improvements all the time, and that's, that's the nature of the, the technology. But there's a lot of people we ski with who get, you know, when— because it is, it's a great tool, they want to get their number up, but they get to a point where they're plateaued, and then that frustration comes in, and there is a of like, because it's a score, there's a comparison thing going in, going on there. So yeah, yeah.

And I think it's very easy to not compare where you've come from, but then look around and go, oh well, so-and-so is better, like I'm no good because I can't do as well as them. So it's, again, I think it's a framing thing. Yeah, of like how you use that tool, that data there.

It's what you make of it.

Yeah, yeah. If you can make sure you're really like easy on yourself and just be like, oh, check out this, if I compare how I was— not, not how I am compared to you, Demelza, but how I was— and then I've done this sort of work and look, I am better. It's just, uh, it's hell. I think it's a healthier self-coaching Yeah, there's a body type thing in there.

There are certain, you know, we were discussing yesterday, there are certain body types I think that, that get really great carve scores. Um, I spoke to a bunch of skiers over at, in Whistler a couple weeks ago, great ski instructors, beautiful skiers. They're like, yeah, carve just doesn't like my skiing, you know. But if I saw them coming down the hill, I'd be like, oh really, that's beautiful skiing, you know. Um, and there's a, that's, that's a whole other podcast. But okay, I'd love to hear about your thing? What was your thing that you kind of focused in on, explored, introduced to your, um, clients? We've got Academy people, which is, you know, online, and then also the people that we meet on snow— you met on snow. What was your thing this season?

Yeah, uh, there was a few, but one I'm going to share, one that I tried to I tried to come at a problem with maybe a different way of describing it. And the problem was, uh, a bit like this, this pressure idea, like when pressure builds, when it reduces. And maybe a felt sense problem people would notice is, uh, is chattering. So like trying to solve that issue because people are always like, yeah, this is going well, but then I chatter on my left foot only, or, um, this type of snow bite, snow eye chatter. So I thought, okay, how can I think about this, um, this problem and, and help people solve it differently? And then the second part of that would be some comments from people around, uh, pushing in a turn or, or balancing. So I've heard— I know you don't hear this as much, but I've heard people say like, don't ever push on your skis, don't push because you put your— what you're doing wrong is you're pushing your feet away from your balance point. So that's wrong. You're going to fall inside, you're going to be on your inside ski, you're going to make the ski lose grip. So don't ever push. And I can actually even remember at some point when I just did my Level 3 Canadian of kind of feeling like, oh, if I don't push that much, I do feel quite good balance. And so I'm not ever going to push. And I told people, don't push. However, I push on my skis, uh, and you said, yeah, I definitely— I mean, maybe it's not just this word push, there's other, like, uh, extend my leg, it's a language away. Yeah, tense it. But it's— but it's definitely, uh, like, all those things I would say are like kind of getting my foot further away from me is, is kind of the consistent theme. There's a pushing, like, active movement of the body to do so. So people are saying don't do that, and I even see in the skiing they're trying to not do it because they've been told it. And I was like, what if, if I'm doing it, is there a certain time when I stop doing it? And if I do do it at a certain time, is it detrimental? And I kind of figured out that in a way, yes, there is. Pushing your skis— this concept I had was you can push your skis in the top part of the turn. So I had this idea, there's a push zone. So back to your idea of turn shape, if we took a perfect, like, uh, C, that top part up in that zone, go ahead and push because gravity is kind of going down. And so pushing movements outwards and upwards is not really building up on, on gravity, so you're not getting an over-excessive force. Um, you're also needing to get your feet just before that moment or under you So how are you going to get them away from you faster if you need to? If you're, if you're just thinking standing and rolling, you're not really going to get that happening very fast.

No.

So you might need to extend and push. That's okay. But once you hit the fall line and gravity and the slope and you start lining up, you kind of have to be careful about stopping the push. You can maybe go to resist, so you're not pushing or kind of retracting, you're just holding. So then I was like, okay, after that, then what, what would the cue be? Don't push, it's actually pull. So I had this idea of a push zone, top half of the turn. Pull zone is kind of like a bit after the fall line and underneath. So muscles and actions that pull the skis and feet back towards—

nice—

are actually going to sort of reduce that, that chattering impact of like you pushing away at the snow, gravity pushing you against the snow, all those things too much after the fall line definitely don't help the ski grip and it, and it do its job of, of bend and follow its curved kind of shape. So I was trying to give people a felt sense again, like, what does it feel like? Oh, you can kind of pull on, don't push away on, because then if the, if it's, if the ski is trying to grab and go this way, you're trying to make movements that help it and encourage it to do that.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, I presented this idea and yeah, some people got it, some people did.

Well, I remember you introduced this during the Academy, which I help you out with on the weekends, and it was a really— I think it resonated with a lot of people. How did you play around with the language? Because I just, I just hear the word push. And I think, yeah, like I've heard that cue of don't push before, but it was more in relation to like intermediate skiers. Don't push the ski away from you, balance over it. And again, like you're sort of saying how humans, we like to put everything into neat little boxes and arrange it like my desk drawer. It's super neat. But I wonder, like the word that you used before, like Did you say sweep? Like sweep the legs away from you? Like, I think that using or searching for language with our clients can be really powerful because push word mightn't work for them, mightn't— it might not translate properly. So how did you work through any sticking points with that concept with people?

Yeah, that was That was, and that was probably the main sticking point, uh, was the lang— people trying to maybe use my language or take out pushes to them and then it maybe not working. Some people it did straight away. So, I guess I had to wait for people to try it and come back. And luckily, like, I try and coach in a way that encourages them to explore, like, if it's not working, try something different. And so there were some people came back and, and said, oh, I didn't really push, I felt this. And I can't remember what, what some certain things are, but the listener, yeah, they're going to go out and do it. I would encourage them, maybe you're not looking for push in the sense that you feel it, because push to me has a difference, uh, different movement outcome feeling. Yeah, you to Melza, to everyone else is going to be different. So yeah, I I guess I was trying to open up the, the chance that they could find their own word or feeling and timing to it. I guess I was just constraining them to, like, when your skis are down the fall line, the point down here, you've kind of— if you're doing it after that, you've missed the, the time when I'm encouraging you to explore with something different.

Yeah. And so, so what did you see happen when you were watching your clients try the push? And how did— because my, my struggle with this initially was like, where's the timing of the edge set? So let's just say we're talking about probably more like a steered short turn. Would you say this probably, um, relates a little bit more to a steered short turn? Or it could be high performance.

Uh, yes, I would say Yeah, this is where then I started realizing the concept had to change a bit depending on the turn style you're doing.

Performance. Okay.

Yeah, it wasn't a blanket, like, all— like, a long turn and a short turn, there's a push zone and a pull zone.

Nothing ever is.

That ends at this point. And like, no, that— I was like, okay, I gotta expand it a little bit further.

So, so let's just say it's a short turn.

Yeah, short turn. Okay. And then I'll get to the long turn. Because I realized this morning actually how I was encouraging that one. But for a short turn, um, I, I felt doing this, this drill called the double edge pressure drill, which Austrians kind of do— and if I try and describe it, it's a great one for setting your edge and releasing it quickly. And this also has to do with chatter as well. So I, I watched some some great Austrian skiers doing this. And if people want to reference a video, it's on YouTube. I'll put it in the description. Um, oh, it's called Two and Two. It's Benny Wolk and Andreas Spettl, these two guys. And they do all these different exercises, and one of them is this double edge pressure drill. I've called it that, I don't know what they call it. Anyway, so you make a turn and you try and, uh, set your edges like an edge set hockey stop. Before or at the fall line, but you don't hold it, you let it go. And then you do a second one, you set your edges and then you release them again. So double edging pressure, because this is edge pressure kind of then release.

Yeah.

So I'm playing with that in a short turn. And one thing I realized is before I— it didn't really work if you just rolled your feet on because your feet weren't really away from you to begin with. You kind of would just roll and you wouldn't get this like sting snap. So yeah, so this kind of like push, but then timing it so when you did want the ski to really grip, you didn't push any further. You actually released and allowed the pull or the rebound to occur. That made me realize on a short turn, I do have to help kind of get the feet away because otherwise they're not going to move fast enough. and then I don't get this kind of whip back, like kind of slapping someone in the face and then retracting your hand. If you just slap and hit them, it's not as hard as going whack and then, and then back.

Yeah.

So in the short term, I was playing with that, and because there's double edge pressure, I was doing it at different moments. So back to your question, like, when, when should I play with this timing of, of it and not doing it?

Yeah, yeah.

If you're doing it multiple times a turn, you start feeling like, oh, this— if I do it at the fall line, I get this result, creates that outcome. Yeah, yep, exactly. So I just realized, I mean, depending on the pitch of the terrain, you're changing that. So steeper is later because otherwise you just go too straight, too direct. Flatter is earlier, less steep. Um, and just having the ability to— yeah, having the ability to just realize that and try and change your timing of movements is something, something I worked on. Yeah, a while to, to get better at it. Um, does that— is that—

yeah, yeah, no, it does, I think, because what, what I realized, um, because we're always playing around with the things that we hear from other people, especially each other, I was edge setting late, a little too late. And, um, then my second question with the ball is that how— because I see, I see a few more advanced short turners trying to create leg softening, um, through the transitions so they're not like— the legs are not like one length at the apex, the same length at the transition, same length at the next apex. So there's this idea that the legs are stretching and becoming a little bit shorter, but in my mind that needs to happen without like a full retraction, because then the retraction diminishes your ability to set the edge, like to create the edge. But does the pull happen after the edge set? And how do you differentiate the pull from like people just sucking their legs up underneath them?

And okay, yeah, now, okay, you know what I mean? Now I know what you mean. Yes, like I'm picturing the skier that has that, like they get their legs out and then the retraction is kind of weirdly at the wrong time because it just looks like they sit and they end up back seat.

Yeah, it's like it's controlled versus responsive.

It's contrived. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because they think it has to happen. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, uh, so great question. So now back to again the chatter thing. If you're trying to make the ski— like, if the ski will chatter because it's at a certain angle, and then, and then there's forces like your body and, and the momentum from just a split second before is now pushing against where that ski is pointed, So chatter's because it's gripping and then it slides away and it's sharp enough to grip again, and then you're still pushing away at it, and so it ungrips and then it grips again. It goes until the forces are not so high because it's been dissipated through that, that it finally grips and goes where it's going. So, so say it's— say we get back to the point before we get the chatter. The ski's going across your line of travel a bit. It wants to grip. You want it to grip because then won't chatter or run this way. If you're telling your body to make pulling movements, my hope, my intention was that the muscles and the, the body is, is kind of pulling downwards on the edge. So, so instead of pushing out on, on the ski edge, which you could scrape it away, I'm trying to actually almost press like down towards the snow, like adductors on the outside leg are activated because an adductor like pulling your leg back in. So those muscles are pulling.

Yeah, okay.

As the ski then grabs and it's going across, the muscles you're telling to fire cooperate with that. So they're like, oh, okay. Whereas if you're pressing and resisting, as the ski wants to go this way, it's going, but your leg has still got muscles that push outwards and momentum's pushing outwards. So leg muscles in particular are pulling down to get grip and then pulling inwards again so the ski can run as it's intended to on this bent arc.

Okay, so I think, I think what I immediately thought you meant when you said pull was legs coming towards the center of mass, but now you're saying Partly that, but it's more the legs pulling the skis across the helix. It's more like a sweep.

Yes.

Sweeping back towards, like, underneath you.

And I guess if I think about it now, it's more step one. It's not even sweep yet. It's, it's grip. Because what's the actual problem, especially in a short turn? The ski grips, but it ungrips, then it grips, then it ungrips. So the first thing is the pull down is not to get the legs back under me yet. I don't need that. I just want to make— I want to hold the ski against the snow. It starts to run and my legs start coming across me more, and then there's that sweep. The pull then becomes this— yeah, kind of back, back under me. So it's not like pull as in, like, if I was lying on my back and you pushed on my legs and I pulled my legs into me like this. It's definitely a lateral pull which ends up coming under and then going the other way. Like a pendulum, pendulum pull, not a pull and sit on it.

Yeah, so this is something we have video of. Remember one of our, um, epic training days that we had in Silver Star back in when we first started working together? Well, second time around, um, we did the fish— I think I called them the fishy tail short turns or something. Do you think that this has been an evolution of that. Um, whatever you were sort of encouraging me to play around with was, was to sweep the tail of the ski out, like almost in my mind it felt like a heel push even though it wasn't. And I was getting this like really, um, like really frictionless top of the turn, sweeping the legs out and then kind of landing on the edge set out towards, you know, after the fall line. And then the legs were kind of not retracting, but, but shortening. Like my center of mass was— and I say to people, it's more like your center of mass is coming down onto your feet versus your feet coming up to your center of mass. That would be more of a retraction. Center of mass going down to feet is more of a flexion. Yes, and that was just what I felt in that moment. Um, but what I've struggled to square with that in that circle is how do I—

retraction, the retraction.

No, no, but how do I— because I wasn't feeling a very strong edge set with that fishy tail short turn, even though I found it really easy to do in like— remember we had this, uh, we were down the back of backside of Silver Star bumpy post-powder morning kind of groomer with like the beginning of bumps on there. I just found it really easy just to like, without trying to go for like really early high edge earlier in the turn. When you first introduced this, I felt like the push-pull feeling was on it, what I had then.

But yes, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure if that makes sense.

Yes, I've been—

we've got video of that. Yeah.

That's right. Yeah, I've been trying to think of other ways to talk about that, but also like maybe the push-pull thing was my attempt at like finding like a principle, like an overarching, like, oh, I can apply this to solve a problem as opposed to a technique. Yeah, like I'd call the fishtail one was like, that was a technique description, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, so it's like, do it here uh, with this action, um, and then this happens. Yeah, I was trying to get a concept that would— that you could put the fishtail. Yeah, with this concept you could also put this other thing with— you can retraction extension can go on this thing as well.

Um, I think it's something that you demonstrate really well with your skiing in your short turns, and I know that speaking to to, uh, some of the folks out in Pisac last week, and just any— a lot of people are trying to use leg length and leg shortening through the trans— in their short turns generally. There's a lot of— I would sort of almost say, like, is it more of an older school technique when the legs are just kind of the same length all the time? Um, is it— is this a newer school, uh, technique? Just like with short turns used to be kind of quite narrow corridor, like, you know, um, the edge set, but now they're a lot rounder, for example. So this push-pull really sits with that very well. And I, for a lot of the people I was chatting with, uh, Riley and a few of the others, we were trying to agree because Carver was there on what a good short turn is and, um, and how to get people to, uh, about how do we get Carv, the algorithm, working to step people through, um, to help them develop their skiing in a beneficial way with short turns. But what we could agree with was what the, the best short turn that we could think of was this short turn similar to what you demonstrate, where you've got the long leg and the short leg through the transition. Um, but I still feel like that's not— we're not very clear on how to make that happen yet, you know, and what's happening there.

Yeah, yeah. I'd— so I was thinking about this, and what, uh, from a coaching perspective, I was seeing the issue of people are passive. So especially with, say, slalom ski, you can sort of— you don't have to use as much output from your body other than just movements. Uh, you can kind of just roll and lean, roll and lean, say for example, and a little bit of pushing and pulling, but not much. So I was, I was trying to be like, okay, if the ski does a certain amount of work because of its design, then the difference between some with the same ski and, uh, doing that, and then say me actively adding with my body, pushing an extension and moving the legs which are attached to the skis away. And then when the ski wants to bite and carve, helping add like more speed across or more, uh, hold other than just the sharpness of the edge to get it down. I was trying to coach in a way that got people to like turn on them, act active output mode of muscles. And, and yeah, in a simple way, not like, use your adductors. Yeah, because in the past I was a lot more like trying to be too specific with, use this and this is how you do it. And we've talked about this ecological approach where it's like, try not to do that, try and give a task where the person discovers it themselves. And like you said, if I just say it's a push thing and you get stuck for like weeks going I don't feel a push. Oh, but I feel a sweep. It's like, yes, well, that's like— and then you show me, it's like, that's what I mean.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh, why didn't you say sweep? And I'm like, because I don't feel a sweep. Well, now that I do what I do, but it just wasn't in my head.

Yeah.

So I guess I was trying— that was the problem. People are inactive, just look like they're rolling, they're balancing.

Yeah.

You know, like there was this missing dimension, and I watched all these other sports where this is like, yeah, people are using their body to multiply, add, yeah, to what the skis can do. That's what I was trying to help.

But I think that's what you did really well with, uh, when I watched you coaching that online. You know, they always say, like, um, I think of it as, you know, you're honoring your client's learning journey by always saying there's pushing is not necessarily the word. Like, let's just figure out what it feels like for you. Yeah, that's why I think sometimes if we get a little bit too stuck on, you know, definitions and verbiage and this is right and that's wrong and you can't use the word articulate but you can use tip, like, it's just language and it might mean so many different things. Yeah. And if you think of that as a sweep or a push or a fishtail or whatever, that's that's right, because you're watching it happen. But, um, yeah, I— do you feel like, um, the only way— and I don't even know if this is where I'm— where I will end with this for myself, because I'm sort of working on this at my own level as well— but when people ask me, the way that I am best able to describe this idea of pulling the legs across and underneath you is, you know, if you were to— you and I are in the same room, I could say, hey, push against my hand here, you know. And let's just say this is your hand, this is mine, and you're pushing. If I was to just retract, it would be a collapsing, a collapsing, like a mogul collapsing, like I'm gonna hit that mogul, and like the legs are coming up underneath me with a little control that I'm letting the mogul push me. But in the context of the transition or short turn, it's more like when you push against me, or when the ski pushes against me, I let it come back with control versus collapsing, uh, letting the leg collapse underneath me. So is that something you feel, or does that sound like it's— it affects you?

Totally.

Okay.

Yep, totally. Uh, and I think if I then made sure, like, this is good for me to talk it through, because if I was now presenting it again, the next thing I'd make sure I was clear with is what we're trying to achieve with this is, say, the skis are coming around to the end of the turn. We are trying to make movements that help it go from that point over to the other side, above us, kind of for that turn shape idea, with more— like faster and with greater ease. So I think if there was that, like, that's our goal.

That's the goal.

Yeah, from here to here without— without— if our skis go here and then they get up over here, this, um, what we're trying to do is aimed at achieving that goal.

What are the options? How should we make this happen? Yeah, yeah, options.

Because yeah, I was thinking even now with the push push zone idea, I think where maybe people might get it wrong is say they think the push always equals more pressure. I would say no, it doesn't, or you're not looking for that. Because back to your thing, like when in a short turn on a really steep black run, if we push and create too much pressure in a short turn early, the ski is going to want to go straight. We go too fast, we don't get that across. The push can create more pressure because we can kind accelerate, like, where the ski's going against the, the turn forces. Bang, more pressure. You could also just push it and it'd be light on the snow, like the fishtail, or in the air. Yeah, you just get from A to B. Your skis are on zero edge angle to 65 faster because you've pushed them out there, not just rolled. So I get— yeah, now I would be like, the push can create some different outcomes. One is getting your feet over to the point sooner. Yeah, and it'll go there sooner if there's no resistance. You can also use the push to create resistance, which is, you know, maybe in a carved turn on, on an easier run, you're looking for that grab and bend earlier in the arc. But yeah, you can— so yeah, go and try both. So let's just be pushing to get somewhere and there's zero pressure in between, or very little. Let's try some pushing to create pressure early to fill in the gap of, of like pressure always being after the fall line. Can we add it in by actively pressing against the snow? Different, um, outcomes there.

Were there any notable, um, client experiences or outcomes that you can think of that you had with this particular idea.

Yeah, there was some, definitely some, uh, I'm thinking of Megan, like, really experienced ski instructor trainer, very high level, right?

Learner.

Yeah, great learner. She'd never really— she just never really considered this idea at all. Um, and so just now gave her something to go play with in, in these different parts of the turn. And she kind of came back and said she realized— I think this is right, Megan— anyway, she was just like, oh, I don't— I think I always pushed at the end, um, and I never pushed at the beginning. And so she changed where all these moves were happening, and suddenly now things like, uh, she was always working at like— her feet always like to be really wide apart.

Yeah.

And then they just naturally came in narrower. So I'd already— I tried to help her in the past, like, hey, try and ski with your feet narrower, do all these things. And it didn't really stick. This produced that outcome without her trying.

After she went through this process, the skis were whipping underneath it. Short terms, it was a very noticeable improvement.

It was exactly— so that was really cool. Um, there was a few other people that, that commented that, yeah, really helped, uh, especially in, in the kind of snow conditions. I was hoping the chatter to be reduced or eliminated on. They could feel that what they were doing before was bracing and pushing at the wrong time, so adding to that— is the ski breaking away? They were not helping, helping it hold. Uh, yeah, but Megan was the most noticeable one.

Um, yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah. So what's next? What do you think for, for this year? What are you cooking up in terms of ideas. And, um, yeah, well, you'll obviously be skiing down south.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't want to make this podcast too long because I want to— we want to get back on and do more of these. But a little, uh, preview: you saw me post some stuff about separation.

Yeah.

So I've had some good realizations, or what I think are realizations for me and coaching others on creating separation and the different ways, um, that you can do it, uh, particularly because I think it's a really tricky one, especially in short terms, for people to get. Once you get it, you, you really get it.

But that idea of the upper and lower body moving differently and how you do that, um, yeah, I think it would be good for people listening to this, um, to write some comments wherever you're listening to this, whether it be watching on YouTube or wherever. Like, what, what kind of things would you like us to share our thinking? Are there some— and it, like, the world is your oyster. We'd really love to hear some of these things. But the separation thing, Tom, I think is going to be amazing because it's a really big point of difference sometimes with style when you're looking more at, more like the instructor associations were sort Uh, look, everyone's skiing really well, you know, but there's always inherently a different style with some of them. And some of it does come down to how much separation we have, how square are we, how, you know. And there's a lot of people sort of with this question is like, how much do I have to do? And I'm always like, well, what are you trying to do? How much do you think you need? How fast are you going? Like, you know, and I, I try to veer away from there being like this, you know, we just talked about this one way to do it versus like, this is how your body, this is how your body moves. And when you move your body in a certain way, this is what it does to your edges, the new direction and all the, all the different things involved. I think that's going to be interesting to see how that evolves for you.

Yeah, definitely. Uh, and I've kind of— well, I've scheduled it for, um, as a webinar. So over this Aussie winter, so which we'll be skiing, but a lot of Northern Hemisphere people won't be, I've scheduled like 5 deep dive webinars, and separation is one of them. A few other topics. And I've done it to force myself to present it currently as I, as I am now, not thinking it's going to be the polished version, but when you have to explain it, sit down and look at it deeper, you also get all these questions back. Like, you just— you've helped this push-pull zone idea so much more in my head because you, yeah, you questioned where, where I wasn't explaining my thoughts as much. So I'm looking— I'm really looking forward to that. But just one thing on the separation thing that really helped, when I realized the strategy the body uses to solve a movement problem early on in any kind of movement thing. So swinging a golf club, uh, turning your skis, same thing. A strategy we use to make it simpler is we freeze degrees of motion in our body because we have all these joints, all these moving parts. And when something is new, if I just lock it all together— so I think the tennis serve is really good because I'm not a great tennis player, but I know when I'm just trying to get the ball in the spot you got to get into, you know how you kind of just, you just use your elbow and you throw instead of like the whole body, you know, from the feet up, you just use your elbow and you dunk. So you freeze versus tennis. Yep. And you just use one like joint.

Yeah.

And guess what? It works really well because you only have to control one joint. How far?

Accurate.

Exactly. So then you might go shoulder, elbow. As you get braver, then maybe a little bit of rotation. But like, if you realize it's a very good strategy freezing first, and as you get better, you're just trying to unfreeze, unfreeze, unfreeze, it helps change it, like, from like you trying to go and get people who have really crappy separation and they just turn everything It changes to being like, okay, all I'm trying to do here is bit by bit unfreeze some different joints with some different exercises at different times. So I'm like going to approach it that way as opposed to like going for the gold standard of like the same thing, someone like Rafael Nadal saying this is how I do my serve, and then I'm trying to do that and control so many ranges of motion, joints going, like, it's just not going to happen.

You need progression.

And so, yeah, that's where I want to take the separation thing, break it down. So I'm really excited to, to work on that personally in Australia with my own skiing and, and, uh, some instructors there, and then present it. Uh, yeah, it's cool. I like—

interesting.

Yeah, talking about it now, I'm really excited about it.

Yeah, because I've always, um, felt like, you know, let's just say schooled skiers, whether they be instructors or just people who are really into skiing with, you know, a fluid technique, we tend to get pretty frozen up, especially, you know. And I think again, like, language, you know, the cue is like, keep your upper body stable. And I've, you know, done a lot on this as well. One of the things I teach a lot is like, when I'm skiing, when you you see my upper body is stable and, and my, and my legs are doing this underneath me. It's happening because I'm moving my upper body a lot against the forces of the turn. And that's why I really liked what you sort of presented with this idea of this counter rotation.

And, and yeah, yeah, it's got optical illusions.

It's a total optical illusion that really— and I— you could maybe put this video up if you want, but I had this video, uh, a camera on my ski on my ski tip when I was cat skiing in Monash powder. And it was crazy because of course the camera was the stable point and my body is doing this. Yeah, on top of the camera, on top of the, the skis. Now of course if you watch me skiing down the hill, I was just making regular turns, but I had some funny comments on that video. They're going, well, that's a really weird way to ski. Yeah, um, because people, you know, don't— they get told keep your body still, so they freeze up. But like, that stability comes through a lot of movement, um, which is another thing I definitely—

makes me think of just like, I always, I always acid test like new thoughts about skiing against sports in general. Like, would this ring true as a principle in tennis, in surfing, in mountain biking, in golf? Like you always keep your upper body still. And it's like, probably not. Like, it's just like, we're all— it's all movement-based at the end of the day. And it— and all the top people, there's, there's a similar, like, ability to control and use the whole body, uh, in just these really organized, separate kind of ways that link together. Like a, like a whip being, um, flipped or whatever. But yeah, that, that your explanation they're just the illusion. Yeah, yeah, the illusion. Yeah, makes people teach the, like, the illusion, and then they wonder why people are not getting progress. Whereas, yeah, I think if you just, if you, yeah, appreciate the whole body, always it works better when everything actually has a job and a kind of movement. And that we begin by freezing it first, and then we unfreeze. Like, you could—

yeah, that's That's what I thought was interesting. I haven't thought about that. Our client— maybe our clients aren't freezing just because they've been told to freeze or to be still. They're freezing because it was easiest to learn that way.

Yes.

Then we— they get to a point where they're skiing with us and they're at a much higher level. We need to loosen them up so they can be stable. So loose and stable.

Yeah.

Freezing is— yeah. Anyway.

Yeah. Like, last, last maybe story. So the first season I got invited to go to the Rookie Academy in New Zealand, I, I got a guest— got a chance to do the guest training day. So every Wednesday, one of the, the coaches there would present a topic. And, um, so my first season, they said, do you want to— what do you want to do? Present something. And I, and I, and actually, back then, it was, it was around rotational separation. And we started out the day by going, right, I want you to make turns, like, whatever size they are, but where you're going to try and separate from is, um, just like the foot. So you're going to try and— like, everything else is staying the same, and you're just going to try and turn and separate only, only where the foot and ankle is, you know, as much as you can. There's not much there, So people are skiing around doing that. And then we would just work up the body. So the knee, can you do it? And just try and think about turning everything from only the knee underneath, and then the hip, and then like the pelvis and lower back, and then the upper body. So we're creating more and more separation. And then like the shoulders, and then even, even the head. So like, you know, turning everything, but only your head is still looking one way. Your feet are like pointing 180 degrees to your head. Anyway, so we went through, not like this is right or wrong, it's like where can we separate from this unfreezing idea? And everyone went through it. And then the coolest thing, we went to the saddle and this really good long steep run, and then everyone just was like, right, it's over, go freeski and just use whatever you want when you want. And I just remember everyone coming and saying, like most people anyway, oh, I just feel like I'm skiing really well now after that warm-up, like I feel really loose and fluid and things that, yeah. Reacting well. And it was just cool, like, that was a process, yeah, of training and unfreezing, unfreezing, unfreezing, unfreezing, and then just letting people go to experiment with where and when they used certain, certain parts.

Permission to move, baby. Yeah, you give people permission to move. I mean, like, I, you know, I feel like I'm moving a lot, you know. It's a dance when we're skiing, and when you help people understand that, you know, these concepts that we're talking about right now, they are very much, um, like there's a big weight lifted off their shoulders because all of a sudden it's not about stop doing this and stop doing that. It's about, hey, move and let's see what happens. Like, there's, there's an experimental, um, idea with it. Yeah, yeah.

I seriously need some help with my dancing on that front. We were at a friend's birthday and my— and Jenny it's like you can move your hips, you know, like, you know, all I've got— like, it's such a thing, you know. It's like, I wish I could dance like I skied, but I just obviously haven't spent the time. But I need, I need some help there because I know it would feel so much, so much better. But I'm a frozen 3-joints dancer.

Same thing. We were, uh, you know, at the wedding, he came over and, uh, and we were having a great old time, but We— it reminded me of— he's like, 'Mel Z, you never really taught me to dance properly. This is where I am.' Or is it not? Classic.

Yeah, cool. Well, so for everyone listening, there's going to be some more episodes like this. Leave comments maybe on a topic you want to talk about. We'll, we'll take them into consideration, uh, for sure. But we've already got some ideas really enjoyed this conversation.

Same. Yeah, it's been really great.

Yeah, let's do it again soon.

Yeah, I think that the summertime, you know, for all those pros out there, this is— I mean, we're all too busy during the winter to really be upskilling. I mean, we're practicing our skiing as much as we can, we're on snow, we're training. Um, but in the off-season is when I start to identify things that I want to, um, how I want to expand my thinking and grow. And, and, uh, yeah, Tom and I are hoping to go on that little journey with you guys this, this summertime. So let us know what kind of things you'd like us to dive into.

That's right.

Awesome.

All right, Demelza, super fun catching up again. See you next time, and thanks everybody for, for listening.

Yeah, thanks guys.