How to Stay Strong, Mobile and Active at Any Age with Elite Ski Coach Warren Smith #600
00:00I want to do sport until I'm older, much, much older.I want to enjoy all these things for as long as I possibly can.And if you get to work at it right now,but trying to look at what your body's capabilities are,your machine will go on lasting longer and longer and longer.But if you're grinding down one side of your unbalanced body,you're going to know about it, and those joints won't last forever.Hey guys, how you doing?
00:23I hope you're having a good week so far.My name is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast.Feel better, live more.Today's episode is with someone who is regarded as one of the best ski coaches on the planet.Yet this is not a conversation about skiing.The things my guest has experienced over the years,through teaching, coaching, and working in the mountains in unpredictable conditions,hold valuable lessons for us all.
00:56Warren Smith is one of Britain's leading professional free skiers,an internationally qualified performance coach,creator of the Warren Smith Ski Academy,and someone who has spent several decadeshelping people understand their bodies betterto help them move and ski with more freedom.Warren has been a sponsored vocal athlete for over 10 yearsand is one of the most innovative instructors working in the Alps
01:22and has held in high regard for the research and development he carries out,combining ski technique, ski biomechanics, and ski physiology.As well as coaching tens of thousands of recreational skiers,he's also well known for being the ski instructorthat many high-profile individuals seek outwhen wanting to improve their skills,including Prince Harry, Heston Blumenthal,Lawrence Delalio and Bradley Wiggins, to name just a few.
01:51Now, I myself have known Warren for almost two decades now,having sought him out in my mid-20s when I first started getting into skiingbecause I was deeply fascinated by his philosophythat made a lot of intuitive sense to me.In our conversation, we discusswhy so many of us feel limited by our bodiesand how simple, five-minute, functional exercises can help.Why differences in strength or mobility
02:19between the two sides of the body are incredibly commonand how they affect everything from skiing to running to daily movement.What Warren's injuries have taught him about resilience, patience, and rehabilitation?Why fear on the mountain mirrors fear in life,the mental and emotional benefits of elevation and nature,the life lessons that Warren learnt from surviving an avalancheand losing friends in the mountains.And Warren's incredible life story from growing up in
02:52a council estate to now living and working in one of the most prestigious ski resorts in theworld. This is not just a conversation about skiing, but one that reminds us that when we preparewell, stay curious and look after ourselves. We can keep doing the things we love for longer.Well, it's really interestingthat skiing, of course, is not something that everyone does.Yeah, fair.There's a cost element to skiing.It's perceived to be the sport of the wealthy.
03:31It used to be.It definitely used to be that way.You know, same when I got into it, it was that way.Yeah, but I think your backstory is actually really, really interesting.because I'll let you elaborate on it, but ultimately, you grew up in a council estate.Yeah.And now you're considered one of the world's best ski coaches in this incredible elite, prestigious resort of Verbiay, having taught Prince Harry and whoever. Like, I could just list off these kind of A-listers or whatever you want to have you have taught.Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that journey. You know, how did a...
04:12boy from a council estate in Hemel Hempsteads end up doing what he's doing today.Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was quite lucky. My councillor state, you know, in Hemel, I likedit. I don't see, you know, to me, it's got a lot of qualities that could be higher than the town ofVerbié, and it taught me quite a lot of principles in life, you know. I was lucky, this is wherethe luck part comes in, or it's destiny, that they built a dry ski slope.which still exist all over the UKand they're mega accessible.They're mega affordable.
04:48Even if someone never ever goes skiing on snow,it doesn't matter.You can still learn this brilliant sporton a dry slope and it costs next to nothing.In fact, quite a lot of other sports cost more.So nowadays, skiing has become really accessible.From where I learned, I used to BMX as a kidin my sort of area.
05:06They built a skateboard park in the late 70s, early 80s,which is phenomenal.You know, it was likeif anyone's ever seenDogtown and Z-Boys,we were lucky enoughin Hemelhamsteadto be in that wave.
05:18So they built a Skable Park.We lived in the Skateball Park.And then they demolished it.And we were all,you know,we were very unsatisfied.Kids in our local area.Unsatisfied is a nice way of putting it.
05:32Yeah, yeah.They built a dry ski slope, right?So they built a dry ski slope.So they knocked down the skatewhere you and your body's hang out.Yeah, exactly.And in its place,put a dry ski slope.
05:42So how were you and your mates feeling?We weren't too happy about it.So we would spend our time, you know, probably not doing great things to this slope.I don't want to get them to some of the trouble.But yeah, we used to do things like Burnett and whatever.We used to key the cars.We did some horrible stuff.So you were kind of, you and your mates were showing you frustration with a bit of vandalization.
06:05Yeah, yeah.Keating some of the car.Stuff that, you know, you're a lovely guy.You would never do.You know, this is back in your youth, right?It's a long time ago.Yeah.But weren't you caught?
06:15Yeah.So that was one of the sort of things that happened,getting caught by the local Bobby on the Beat.And one of the local Bobby on the Beat solutions was to work at the dry slope.Yeah.This policeman who caught you, I guess there are a number of options that were available to him, right?Yeah.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:35So he didn't have to do that.Right.So was he quite, do you think he was quite understanding?and thought, God, I get why these kids are like this.Let me see if there's a waywhere I don't have to either take him into the stationor what, do you know what I mean?Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:48I mean, I've often reflected on that.It's the same with my school teachersbecause our school was at the back of the dry slopethat was built.There are many people along that journeythat were critical at the point of your career development.And it could have gone the other way really easily.But someone that had a positive outlook on life
07:09rather than sort of drawing on the negativehelped me through a situationand just redirected me, redirected my energy.So you had to, I guess, part of your punishment, I think,was working the ski slope.Yeah, yeah, exactly.So do you remember how you felt the first time you went in?You know, this kind of slope that was put in
07:28on top of your fun place, right?Yeah.Were you a bit resistant when you went in for the first time?Weirdly enough, I think there was a bit like a skateboardercan relate to snowboarding.A skier has a really strong crossover with cycling.Any cyclists out there that know the feeling of pushing your left pedal down,pushing your right pedal down,
07:50and the continuum of that is what relates to skiing.It's how we ski.We put pressure against one ski and then the other,and it's very much like having sort of leg extension and flexion movements.As soon as I jumped on skis,I kind of slipped into skiing quite naturally.So I was sort of straight at it.I felt the balance of skiing.
08:11I learned everything for my career,and this is one thing I'd love people to understandthat everything I learned for my careerwas accessed locally in the UKat a council dry ski slope, council funded.There's many, many dry ski slopes around the UK.If you look up the guy James Woods,you know, he won an Olympic medal, X Games medal,
08:32learned to ski at the Sheffield ski village,Sheffield Dry Slope.Wow.That isn't there anymore,There are hundreds of these venues around the UK.I was skiing on one in Dublin on Saturday,running a ski instructor training program for them.And they're there.
08:47They are accessible.You can go and see how you get on with skiing.But that's what helped me with my career.I was lucky enough, stone throw away from where my mum livedand skied on Hemel and lived there.I mean, that became my second home.I spent more time at the dry slope.I became fanatical at the dry slope.
09:04And then that linked to meinto a connection of someone who skied at the dry slopewho said, oh, come out and ski in this resort,we'll get you a job and you can be a ski instructorand learn the ropes.And then my passion was kind of ski coachingand then free ride skiing, off-piece skiing.That was my goal.
09:24And that led me that pathway to Verbier.So I'm forever grateful to what is now the snow center in Hemel.It was the dry ski slope, the Hemel's ski slope.And, you know, those guys sparked my career, and I'll never forget it.You said that growing up in a council estate was really impactful.It's taught you many lessons and that you really enjoyed where you grew up.Yeah.Right?
09:52One thing I've noticed being around you and knowing you for a good two decades now,it's how calm you always seem to be right i've seen you in stressful times or when things are goingoff or whatever but you always seem to have this calmness which i can see why it would be so importantfor a ski coach you know with clients feeding stress whatever you know you need someone who's notgetting caught up in that but do you think that ability to stay calm in the face of a lot of stress orperceive stress by others is something you learned as a kid possibly yeah i mean i was very lucky inme upbringing i had two loving parents but i my um my um parents were divorced it's a broken sort of homeum and there was money issues and you know things like um making sure the electric's on the electric
10:48meter putting 50ps in um sort of i guess it taught me the challenge of likedidn't really have time to sort of be uh upset in the moment andabout something. I had to go and do something about thatmoment. Mine was going out and washingcars or cleaning cars in the localneighborhood. To get money for the meter?To get the money to stick in theelectric meter. And my mum was brilliant.
11:12You know, she had two or three jobsand my dad, my dadyou know, he did his bestbut he didn't reallymanaged to provide in the wayyou'd sort of need to financially. Sowhat ended up happening in my scenario,I kind of went out to work a bit early.
11:30And weirdly, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.I mean, for me, it built resilience.For me, it taught me to get on with it.You know, no one else is going to get on for it for you.You know, not in my scenario anyway.And it gave me a bit of independence.Made me feel good, actually, going out and earn a few bucks.And I remember paying for my first ski trip myself.
11:56And I don't think anything's ever been that different in my life.you know, I've gone out there and got it,but my job and the success, perhaps, of our academyand pushing away, I mean, again, you become quite pushy,not in a rude way, in a respectful way,but you become quite pushy to achieve.And that's what I sort of, that's what I did.You know, I kept on going with it.
12:21And I think it's installed something in me,and there's an inner engine, I think,that got developed from perhaps coming from the background I did.Yeah. What you teach people to help them ski better and more efficiently,and what you've learned along the way, I think absolutely apply to non-skirts as well.So it's an idea that, oh, you know, to ski well, you need to keep your upper body facing down the slope.And, you know, your legs and your hips should be rotating around your upper body.So you don't want the whole thing moving together. You need that separation, right?
12:55And then I think I saw a video of you online or I read it in the multiple magazines you were in.You said something like, what's the point of me trying to teach a client on the mountain to do thatif they don't have the biomechanical capability?And so let's talk a little bit about that because one of the things you're really big on with your skiers is the importance of preparation.You can get technique coaching for something,but if your body isn't able to apply that technique,well, you're probably better off spending time on your biomechanics first.That applies to anything, whether it's running, golf, swimming,
13:36whatever you want to do,because preparation for me is also about biomechanics before technique.I think you've just hit the nail on the head.If you want loads of things to go right,whether it's the psychology of the sport,whether it's the fatigue you might get that could lead to psychological issueswhatever it might be in your day that goes right or wrong in skiingthe biomechanical functional movement pattern of the left and right side of the body
14:05being even is essential and nearly everyone and this is a bold statement to make on your showbut I would say in 35 years of coaching people I have rarely come across a person that is evenand the work that goes on during that thing you said, the lesson,is usually always focused on the side that starved or strangled of a movement range.So if people went away and did the preparation work,it doesn't take as long as it sounds,but skiing is based around turning left and right,unless you're going to plan on skiing in a multi-story car park
14:40and work your way around it on what are your turn directions,you're going to get caught if you haven't prepared,and you're going to get caught on biomechanical restrictions on one side of the body.Now, it's not because you're walking around and like, my God, that person is so unfit.Look at the state of their biomechanics.Biomechanical's sort of functional movement patterns are way more simple than that.It's just you need to be made aware of simple exercises.And like you just said, if you want to take a lesson, and let's say skiing as one, you know,
15:10you could hire me for the day, and if you're blocked, and I'm spending my whole day screamingfinish your left turn off, mainly because you've got a restriction in your inner rotation of youroutside legs steering towards the left. Now, on a test like that, measuring leg steering, there is anational average. This is no word of a lie. We've just finished our UK tour of 30 degrees asaverage. So people before they've even started to put skis on will have this left and right sidedifference. It will 100% affect their technique. Let's just go into that. So what do you mean 30 degrees?So we're currently talking about, just for people who were listening,like I guess if you had your back against the wall
15:52and you weren't moving your pelvis to the side,how far could you sort of rotate your leg in your hit?Yeah, so to explain this for people that can't see,if you stood up and you were looking in the mirrorand you held your hands on the size of your hipsand you stepped your feet to one direction, let's say, towards the left,you'd measure your right leg's abilityto inwardly rotate to the left.
16:18It would feel quite blocked on one side.You'd go the other way towards the right,you'd inwardly rotate your left leg.And when you score yourself,one leg will normally feel quite free in movement,and the other leg will feel like it hits a brick wallgets blocked halfway through the movement.Now that, for me, fundamentally,
16:34is one of the biggest secretsin learning and understandingwhy technique doesn't always feel perfectwhen you try the sport.Yeah.So you've just been on this UK tour, you're teaching your ski technique lab approach to lots of people around the country.But the principle applies beyond skiing.It applies to martial arts, to, you know, yoga, to running, to even one-sided sports, it probably applies to as well.
17:02That's exactly it.And what should we have rotation-wise in our hips?You should have the ability to rotate your leg to a degree where your foot,eventually ends up at 70 degrees.70 degrees, right?So we should be able to go 70 degrees in both directions.Yeah, yeah.And what are you saying most people do?
17:20So national average of what we've just completedwith another 2,000 people we've tested is 65 degrees one way,35 degrees the other way.That's a national average.Right, so the average, so hold on 65 degrees one way, not bad, right?It's nearly at 70 degrees.But this is one of those other universal principles,I think, that we can take from skiing to non-skiers.
17:40this idea that you're only as good as your weakest link.100%.So if one side is only going to 30 degrees or 35 degreesand you put yourself on a steepish ski slope,it doesn't matter how good your coach is.It doesn't matter how good your skis are.Yeah, it's irrelevant.You're being limited by the movement of your body.
18:07Which still comes down to what you've just saidby a lack of preparation.Yeah, that's it.Preparation is everything.Finding this stuff out before you gois your responsibility to yourself,but also people you're skiing with.You're better as a person on the mountain
18:24and safer and better to help your buddiesif you've already unlocked this.And then when you've learned about it,pass on the knowledge.The thing about the inner rotation of the outside leg,let's just say for the sport of skiing,you don't use that rotation in day-to-day life.It's a really unused movement
18:40and yet you rock upon the Sunday morning of a ski holidayor if you go into an indoor snow dometo try and practice it or a local dry ski slopeif you haven't sort of figured this outand worked on it beforelike you sort of said on the start at this pointit's going to affect your day
18:56it's going to affect your experienceand the annoying thing and frustrating thingis your side that got to 65 degreeswill soak up and absorb all that informationand you'll frustrate yourself psychologicallywhen like, ah, I'm hitting a brick wall, why can't I do this?And people usually, because we're humans, start beating themselves up with the...Yeah, and they try and, you know, push harder and try harder.
19:18But that ain't going to fix it.Because you would have benefited from spending the last three months doing five minutes a day,trying to bring that 35 up to 45 or to 50, which again will not only help you if you choose toski, it's going to help you for life, right?Absolutely.So I know we had a joke when you got herebecause you, your Uber's didn't turn out this morningand so you were about, what, 10 to 6 in the morning?
19:44Stressed.I was stressed out because you know you have to get hereand you had to sprint all the way to Hammers with Tube.But I just said to you when you told me thatthat, yeah, but that's why I think fitness is so important.It's not necessarily fitness for skiing or fitness for running,which of course is fun if that's what we want to do.It's being fit for life.
20:04Yeah.Like you had to, you had to make.a call, I'm going to miss my train up to the northwest. I'm not going to make the slot forRongo's podcast. I have to sprint now. It's an interesting part of the chain. I say the chain oflike preparing with your own physiology. I would not have made today. And in the finite momentof like living in a different country to being in the UK for a limited amount of time to thispoint where we talked for however long we talked for to try and bring this this conversation abouton your show. The sprint I did, and this is not a joke, you know, I'm 53 now. And I've,
20:40and I've had injuries. And when I was younger, I used to, you know, box, I used to play basketball,and I've always biked and always cycled. But I could feel myself like, I made it, thankGod. And the sprints between stations and, you know, getting off at Green Park to get onto theVictoria line, to get up to Houston, those sprints that I did to get to the train where the guywas blowing the whistle, you know, got on the train.Like you said, if I hadn't kept fit over the course of the last couple of years,because I've been through injury, I should have probably lost my fitness level.And I was quite conscious going through injury that on the rehab side, I had to stay fit.
21:19Yeah, that brings up an interesting point about confidence.So to perform well at anything in life, we need a degree of confidence.Yeah.Okay.and I feel from what you just said that confidence or part of confidence can be related to preparation.We're talking about this big theme that preparation is really important, right?Preparations go up on the mountain. Preparation before you go to work, whatever it might be, right?Preparation before you take your kids away for the weekend camping.
21:52If you prepared and got everything you need, even if the weather goes off or whatever, it doesn't matter.Because you did the work so you can.you can cope, right? So the confidence comes from the preparation. So you, for example,by, yes, you had knee surgery, you've done your rehab, you're always paying attention toleft and right symmetries to make sure your body is as balanced as you can be. That then meansin a kind of, you know, I was going to say a stressful situation in life. Look, I get you makingthe train to come on my podcast, it's not life-threatening, right? You know, we're mates. Had you missedit, we would have set up another slot, right? Yeah. But the
22:29point is that you actually have this inner confidence and trust in your body because you'veprepared and you've done the work. Yeah, yeah, 100%. That's kind of, that's what's keeping mein my game of skiing. You know, I have an element of my job is office based, but my job relies ona physical part to make the whole job work, obviously, because I'm on the mountain, I'm skiing,and I'm up at altitude.And I wouldn't say I've been unlucky,but I've just had accidents in cycling,bike accidents actually that have really unrailed me a bit,
23:06you know, got me off the track.And that thing that happened with a mountain bike accident in 2023,as now finished its three different surgeries on the left kneeto get back in the game of skiing.The other thing I noticed about today,and it sounds like quite unrelated, but it's not.It's really related.that sprint didn't hurt me
23:25and I took away from todayI don't know how deep you want to get on itbut I sat on the train when I finally made itand went to the loo, took my shirt offbecause I was literally dripping my sweatbut I was like God, that's brilliantbecause actually now I've just runthat at that pace, that distance
23:44like launching up stepsI've never been put through that tolerance testyeah and now I'm likeoh my God I'm skiing on SundayI'm going to take my little one in VerbiayThe Resort, I mean, opens tomorrow.I'm going to take him skiing.My confidence level, because I'm a preparation,
24:01given an extra little gold medal today.Because it could have easily gone wrong.I didn't have a choice,but because there was two-month, three-month lead time of prep,which is what we're trying to get across to people for skiing.But it applies way beyond skiing.It applies to every sport you do.And if someone wants to avoid injury...
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28:38which people try and cram inbecause it's such a limited time.If you are going off to play paddleor whatever it is,you're going to go off to runor you're going to go and bike,that preparation could be somethingas simple as being in the office
28:50thinking, right, I ain't going to goand just do this stuff blind.I'm going to get out there,I'm going to put 15 minutes asideor might even do it in my lunchtimeor whatever because I'm going to do something active.People don't do that.They don't do it.
29:02And there's two elements of thatwhich come up for me.One is to do withenjoyment and want us to do with health, right? So enjoyment, which is an important part of health,we know that people who enjoy their lives or do things that they love are more resilient tostress. So it's absolutely very, very relevant. But how many people think that, I don't know,skiing is not for them. And I'm conscious that a lot of people think skiing is not accessibleand that, of course, for many people, there is a cost element to skiing. And I'm very aware of that,
29:35which is why I want to make sure these principles are universaland go beyond skiing.But some people will maybe go on a week's ski holiday.I go, oh, skiing's not for me.Well, maybe it's not for youbecause you haven't done any preparation.And this imbalance that you have in your day-to-day live,you're taking onto the mountain.
29:54So, of course, you're going to get found outbecause skiing is a symmetrical sport.You can't just turn one way.So if one of you, you can get away maybe with tennis one wayor table tennis one wayor do you know what I mean?To a degree.You may not be able to a degree.
30:10But it'll still affect one element of your gameor even five elements of a game.Yeah, or how many people think that running is not for them, right?And it may not be that running's not for them.It may just be that they haven't put in enough timeto actually work on their imbalances,turn their weakness into their strength,figure out, oh, my right quad, for example,
30:31is way stronger than my left quad.Well, you can address that in five minutes a day.I talk a lot about this five-minute strength workout I do every morning.That is five minutes.And that keeps me in really good shapebecause it's a diligent daily practicewhere I'm constantly working on this stuff.So if I need to sprint up some stairs to get a train,
30:52you're ready.I am ready.And what I think people don't understandis that this is how you build trust in yourself and confidenceis through doing that small bit of prep consistently.Do you know, it's really interesting what you just said.It really brings home a big pointwhich we try to get across on this year's tour.
31:10So Ski Technique Lab, if anyone's listening to the show,if they Google it or look at what it is,it's basically looking at six functional movement patternswhere you need to gain range of movement,you're usually going to be different on left and right.And you have to gain stability of movement,the quality of the control of it.And on our tour this year, like I said,
31:28we got through about 2,000 people,and people asked us like, so what's the key pointto, you know, what is going to be the bit of this?Well, you've got to do it.And actually, no, no, no.But we said, go and get your phone out now or your phone.Go to your calendar.And what you just said really hit home.
31:43So we just said, put in an actual reminder, but do it now.Because you'll forget about what we just talked about.The intensity of the talk will die off a little bit.And it was all great and it sounded brilliant.And wow, this is going to change things.And in two weeks, it'll be like, you'll be cracking on with the busyness of life.They also let's go of all these kind of key points sometimes.And one of the things we tried to push across this year was open your calendar, put it in now.
32:09It's the Ski Technique Lab, five-minute session every night.We've called a boot flexing test, a Netflix ski boot test, you know, trying to gain muscle memory in your ski bootbecause you think it's going to work when you clip onto your skis on a Sunday morning and finish skiing on a Friday.Do you know what?You haven't even rehearsed it.And it's not like you go down to the local supermarket in your ski boots.have all that muscle memory, you don't go and run for a train in your ski boots. They're onfor this alien tiny bit of time. So now go and do the prep work. But that's just hit home
32:40with me what you've said about the five minute a day. And we're finding already when people areputting this in preparation, not just of your body, preparation of the preparation, which soundsridiculous, but it's actually that's sometimes the only way you're going to get it. Yeah, but the thingis, a lot of people might be thinking, well, I'm not that obsessed about skiing orrunning or hiking, you know, I just like to go and do it now and again and have fun.And I get that, and I have to respect that, because everyone's their own person, they're entitledto see life in the way that they want to. I would frame it slightly differently. It's not aboutobsession. It's just about basic preparation. It's about, you know, there's all kinds of
33:26beliefs about life and actually what this life actually is. Do we have one life? Is therelife after death. You know, everyone's got different views on that stuff, right? Yeah. Butwe've only got this one body to experience this current life. Yeah. Right. And I really feelI owe it to myself. Yeah. And this experience of being a human for whatever, the 90 years,I'm going to be on the planet, or 80 or 100, who knows? Yeah. To keep this body in as goodshape as I can so that I can enjoy things like skiing or running or hiking with my matesso that I can help someone on the plane who needs me to lift up their suitcase and put it upfor them. Yeah. So that when hopefully one day I become a grandfather, I can lift up my
34:15grandchildren and still ski with them. And ski with them. But I honestly feel on a personal level,me spending at least five, ten minutes a day on mobilityand making sure both sides of the body are equal,I guess it's a sign of love to myself.Yeah, it's longevity.It's love, but it's going to give you longevitybecause whatever happens is, you know,you get people, we get people certainly from the ski environment,
34:38like, oh, my left knee is getting worse,I da-da-da-da-da, and you look up the chain of the body,the chain of the body, if it's out of alignment,it isn't going to go on that longer journey,it isn't going to last to 80, 90,is going to conk out at 70 years old because it got ground down.It was off alignment.And quite often in skiing, as you said earlier,
34:57that left and right side of the body imbalancewill interrupt the flow of someone's experience in the sport.I certainly know that from a personal perspective,I have to on a daily basis manage my body now.If I don't, I feel it.I know that I can't usually perform to my best of abilityand I can't give to the clients.And it feeds back into confidence, right?
35:21So a lot of conflicts comes from preparation.The more you repeat it, the more you prove to yourself that you can do it,the more competes you start to build.You mentioned injuries before and you've had a lot of injuries over your career, right?But you can get away with stuff when you're younger.You can have these big imbalances and somehow,kind of sail through, right?But as you get older, injury is not just about that injury, right?
35:55Let's say you're out of something, you can't run for three monthsbecause you pushed it too hard or whatever.That three months where you can't move,it's not a neutral three months.What I mean by that is it's not only a you not,you know, you can't do that sport that you love.By you not being able to move your body properly,your body's starting to atrophy, your muscles are starting to atrophy,
36:18your tendons, your ligaments.So even when you do pick it up again three months later,you are way further behindthan where you would have beenhad you not got that injury.Yeah.Does that make sense?100%.
36:30There's something that happenslike around the...the joints, the parts of the body,the whole system slows down.You can't afford injuries too much as you get older.What happened to me wrong?And I was skiing.I'm not sure if I was...
36:44I mean, it was in Japan, basically.I was skin in Japan.I was unlucky, a tip of one of my skis went under the root of a tree.Root of the tree, caught the ski, a ski moved forward.I was going forward at 30 miles an hour,but my binding of my ski didn't release for a variety of reason,whatever it was, and my Achilles went bang, as in like shotgun sound.So I snapped my Achilles in Japan.
37:09Was this 2010?Yeah.Mate, I've got a memory of this.And we were the first people.We kind of ground broke the whole thing in Japan.like you're not allowed to ski off peace in the sacred trees.Well, we did that in 2008, got arrested, got my lift pass taken.We just went in the forbidden area.
37:26Turns out it wasn't forbidden.It was only forbidden because it was privately owned land or something like that.Long story short, by 2010, we'd opened up a resort of Ferranoto allow us to ski off peace legitimately.So that's the big thing.A lot of people, when they learn to ski,a goal for some people is to ski in the powder.It's a bit like what surfing would be like for, you know, anyone going near the water.
37:48That sensation.So for us, it was to get people into powder, that incredible feeling around the body.We'd achieved it in 2010.We'd had quite a lot of groups, about 50 people, going to Japan with us.And it sort of backfired on me because when we did it, all the security guards in the resort were being used with our groupsto delicately, carefully take them into off-piece environments.I was filming for vocal, which is my ski brand,and I was being filmed by a young British athlete called Nick Southwell.
38:23He put the camera, I skied down, had a great run,and then the tip of my ski, unlucky, went under a tree branch.It was out of sight, and it went under the tree branch.I went flying forward.Ski stayed back at the tree at 30 miles an hour.I was traveling.And then I heard the Achilles snap.And it was an awful feeling, if anyone's ever done that, listening to the show.
38:45But what I had to do was get my ski back on.And we waited for a little while to try and get the security to come and help me.And all the security guys are gone.And it was like, oh, no.So I ski down with this snapped Achilles on my leg.And it was like one-legged skiing all the way from the top of the resort down to the bottom.And it was going great.And I thought this is going to be fine.
39:08So I'd just ski down very slowly on a blue run style piece.hit a mogul field anyone that doesn't know what moguls arethey're kind of an undulating thing going up and down up and downtheir bumps so ski down the moon inverted sort of egg container right exactlyinverted egg container is the best way to describe it went through that with thesnapped Achilles got to the bottom got fixed had the surgerybut the problem with that is that that Achilles that got snappedyes psychological effect massive pain on the moment loads you know
39:37having your boot ski boot cut off with a Dremel or that sort of thingall of this happenedbut the weirdest thing wasa year and a half laterI had surgeryon my backmy lumber spinebecause the compensation
39:52of hobbling aroundand getting aroundoff balance off alignmenteven with the best willin the worldit has a knock on effectthe knock on effectwas in my hip positioning
40:02so everything goes up the chaineverything's connected rightso you're managingyour Achillesnot having surgerybut your walldifferently, you're moving your body differently, so the strain goes up after you, it was inyour back, which then causes the back issue, which goes back to the point we're trying to make,
40:19which is, you shouldn't, don't ignore these little nickels. Or if, I don't know, if every timeyou do your Saturday Park Run, if at 3KN, you're always getting right, hammy discomfort,but you push through and you do it, great, but you keep doing that week after week, month aftermonth, something's going to happen at some point. You've got an early warning sign saying,hey, listen, you're able to do this. Your body's strong enough and resilient enough, but there isan imbalance here. Yeah. You know, go and see something. Or maybe, you know, even if you're a runner,I would say the Ski Technique Lab program that you've got, there's sort of six core moves thatwe all need, right? So even a runner could go onto your website, for example, and look at them,
41:04and do them, and it would help them identify these imbalances. The Ski Technique Lab appliedit's to nearly every other sport.So ours is just based around skiing.But the general point is it's functional movement patterns of the body.And whether you do or do not sort of understand it,once you've dipped your toe in it,you're very quickly within half an hour of trying and testing yourself.Be like, oh my God, I can see, I can feel the difference between left and right.
41:31You can't unknow it.That's what I found the first time I did it with you many years agois that once you've done it and you're like, oh wait,Like, to my right is super easy.70 degrees.Right.But then to my left, it just feels stiff.You can't unknow that.
41:47Yeah.But I think fear comes in here as well, right?Because this core theme of preparation being important for skiers and non-skiers, I think, is massive.The more you prepare, the more confident you become, at the same time, a lack of preparation can massively contribute to an English.increase in fear, can't it?Yeah, absolutely. So, like, even on that point there, the preparation that should be in thereby doing biomechanical functioning, testing, when you apply that to, let's say, I'm skiingdown the slope, I'm going from a blue run to a red run, or a red run to a black run, for example.
42:26And for someone who's never ski before, can you just explain what that means?Yeah, so a blue run is what your first week of your skiing is going to be on, probably.Red run would be your second, third, fourth week exploring and getting better to ski.So they're getting steeper and steeper.steeper and steeper and more challenging. But when you're on a slope that's quite steep and you'rebeing tested and it might technically feel more difficult. But the outcome is like, oh my God,I'm traveling 40 miles an hour faster here. I'm dropping 40 meters where I should have onlybeen dropping four on the descent at the slope. That can get really scary. So what wasn't prepared
42:59from a physiological point of view, simple preparation can lead to a huge psychological challenge.And the psychological challenge sometimes can even put you off doing the sport.It can make you walk away.Or it can put you at a much higher risk of injurybecause you are being put into a situation or a zonewhich your body wasn't prepared for on one side.And that can get quite confusing.It's like, hang on a second, I can do this one way.
43:26I'm really confident.That first turn got you into a very confident place.But the second turn, in my world, this is ski specific.unfortunately you skied across the slope and that second turnwas on 10 degrees steeper just happened to bebut you unluckily were on your weaker turning direction to the leftnow that that adds up that that's where you're working in terrainand working with biomechanicles yeah there's another point that for me warren
43:50which i think it's really it's really key which is this idea thatso we're talking about these gradients of a ski slopebut you can apply that to you know you know just as your sportgets harder or you're running steeper and steeper hills, whatever it might be, okay, it's the sameprinciple, but the blue slope being quite shallow, the red being a bit of steeper, and the blackbeing the steepest, right? If we just take blue, red and black as a way of simplifying this,those imbalances that you have in your system, they're still affecting it on a blue slope,but you're getting away with it. Yeah. Because it's not steep enough to push you, you've got enough
44:32compensation within you to get away with it.So you think you're fine.But actually, to your eye, and I would say my eye now,you can easily see it in people on a blue slope.But they're thinking, well, I'm sailing through a blue slope.My, skiing's great.I can ski both ways.And then the reason they're struggling on a black often
44:51is because actually, no, you just,you sort of didn't address the problems that were thereeven when you skied on a blue slip.Yeah, this is brilliant what you're saying.In fact, if anyone wants to ski lesson, that's one of the most important points,is the prep work done at the lower stages.I can relate to this when we do instructor training programs,and you take someone who can already ski quite well back to a beginner scenario,
45:14learned to do a snowplow.And in fact, someone, a journalist, who came to a ski session of ours in Hemel, the Snow Center,which you guys in Manchester have one of those as well, the indoor snow dome.We were running a ski course, and it was for advanced skiers,you know in all fairness um and the lady that was interviewing me sort of said oh you know skitechnique lab it's tech and it's you know lab and it's all this stuff is obviously just for advancedskiers right and i was like do you know what absolutely not if anything and i was so lucky in thismoment um that happened to be a beginner lesson going on so anyone like trying to dip their toe in
45:52like do i want to do snow sports you know we'll come to it later like there's one big reason from apsychological point in view why it's worth tryingthat snow sportsbut in terms of what this woman saw as like I know what youjust said you think it's tech it's techit's high tech it's advanced it's like thisthat and the other we saw the beginner lessongoing on and it was just about to get to that stage
46:14which some people might be experiencing this window for the first timewhere you're snow plowing snowplow is your firstpart of your progression and they were just about to learn to snowplow turnand I said I know you say what you say but just watch this these guysfor the first time in their lifeare going to do a turn on skisand every single person like clockworkthankfully for me trying to explain this to a journalist
46:36who thought it was just advancednaturally steered one waytheir success was so so apparentand they went to turn the other wayand rather than just repeating back the other directionthey swung their shoulders and upper bodyinto that direction because something down there didn't functiondidn't work it didn't work and it was like
46:55there you go point blank likeright at the beginning of the journey in skiing,or in this sport, let's just say this sport.Could be something else for someone else.You know, it could be cycling, it could be tennis,it could be whatever it is you do in your leisure.But straight away there, it happened.Now, I relate a solution in this kind of point as well.
47:15My solution to most people is to say to them,go away and prep yourself for skiing with Pilates or yoga.But in yoga, when I go to yoga after having a breakfor, you know, three or four months away from it,I feel good one side, and I know, you know, I know damn well on the other side,it is really tricky for me to hold that same stance,whether it's stability or make that same range of movement.And if anything, I almost feel quite pinched and unbalanced,
47:42sometimes painful on one side.But yoga, for me, shows it up.Yeah.Fear is quite an interesting one when we think about it through the lens of skiing, right?So people are up on a mountain, which is an unfamiliar.familiar environment to many people, right? But let's say a client with you and you guys havegone down far enough where there's no real way out. You've committed to getting down themountain on skis. Yeah. Right. But let's say either you or your client has suddenly got the fear
48:18or is like, oh wow, this is way harder. We shouldn't be here. But you know, this is what happens inlife, doesn't it? Absolutely. You still have to deal with it. Yeah, yeah. So, II guess a couple of questions, Warren, how do you stay calm in those situations?Or how do you help a client stay calm?And then the second part is, well, what do you actually do?This episode is brought to you by Airbnb.Now, at the moment, I'm starting to plan next year's summer holiday with my family.And I know full well that for us, the places we choose to stay in, can make.
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51:22Just head to bondcharge.com and your 25% off code will be automatically added to your order.This sale will end on the 31st of December 2025, so hurry and don't miss this massive chanceto save big on your favourite bond charge products.So to calm them down,you've got to visualize the pathway for them.If they've just seen a moment, a glimpseand don't, you know, the fear is in thembecause they've looked down on a gradient
51:55and they don't want to ski,you take them very calmly over to that gradientand you pinpoint and you map outand say, right, our first processis to get ourselves to that point.That's point number one.Okay, point number two,we're going to try and side slip down
52:08to this next area.In that next area where a point number three is,we'll be able to start making ski turns.In their mind, in their mind,they're going to turn, turn, turn, turn to get down this slope.You actually have to interveneand spell it out like a children's book,literally going back into the point of like,
52:26that's point number one, we are stepping down here.Point number two is side-slip.Point number three, we're going to put in some basic turns.We may even use a snowplow turn at that point.But if you don't break down the map of this entry pointthat builds fear, if it's all just chucked into like,it's that.Yeah, the whole thing is how am I going to get down?
52:44Yeah, yeah.They're going to, fear is going to sit in them.So it's the explanation of a real tactical approach.The tactical approach has to be broken down into bite size, smaller pieces.This run, it might only be 20 metres, but I've broken that run down into two meters there.That next three and a half meters is this part.The next four and a half is there.And every little past this jigsaw puzzle has a different tactic, has a different technique, has a different part of it
53:14where we're going to be holding hands to step down this little areabecause I don't feel I want you in an environment independently.I'm going to be your buddy.I'm going to hold your hand.We're going to step down there.And by the time you've finished it,you've segmented this horrible dark gloominto bite-sized little chunks of something that's achievable there,
53:33achievable there, achievable there.That's life, right?Yeah, totally.You end up in a sense you don't want to be in.Instead of looking at the totality of that situation or how, I don't know,my to-do list is through the roof.How am I going to get it?It's like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
53:46You've done this with me.You know, you've done this with me on my physical state sometimes.Yeah.You know, and I've come to you and like, Jesus, yeah, I've got all this going on and da-da-da.Mine's the same brainstorm.You know, my brain goes like that.It goes over speed and it doesn't stop to think sometimes.So it's exactly the same.
54:02I love what you said about breaking it down because that is how we get through anything in life.A big problem.Well, it's kind of five mini problems.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.And I love that, you know, what you say like, oh, that bit,you're just going to side step down.You're not going to ski itbecause the person's scared
54:17because they think they have to skiit. How will I stop the ski there?No, no, no, no, no, we'll step that bit.And then I guess what you'll also do,and I know you do this,is that you'll know that,ah, their strong turn is their one to the left,their weak one is the one to the right.
54:31Ah, you know what?So on that little steep bitwhere they have to make a turn,I'm going to make sure that they are approaching itwhere it's on their strong side.100%.And not their weak side.Because then that, you then help them build
54:43the confidence by a strategic approach.But it's in day-to-day, Ronan,because one of the things that will affect my jobis part of my personal life.So I've got, you know, with my oldest is almost,youngest is almost five, my oldest is 24.And with my youngest, he's sort of neurodivergent,he's a great kid, he's always smiling, super happy.
55:09But my preparation work that I've had to learn,which I didn't actually have, you know, I didn't have it before.For him, is make or break.It's make or break on whether his mood changes, if it's regulated,it's make or break in terms of what he eats and how it affects his mood.It's make or break in trying to almost like seeing two steps ahead.Or it changes very greatly his day, which I don't want to do,and it changes mine as well because my fatigue, by not prepping, planning strategically,
55:42tactically his day of his things we need to docan end in an explosion like an eruptionit's literally like skiing somewhere steep where you lost itlost the turn and your equipment came off and you started tumbling down the hillit's an eruption it's an explosionbut in ski terms you're exactly rightand like to it's the best explanation of that steep facewhere someone can only see down the whole of that radius
56:10and if you want to sort of calculate it,it's 500 metres downand it's 70 metres across.That's what they see.And what we're talking aboutis literally 20 meters at a time in that space.But what do endurance runners door people who run half marathons
56:25or marathes when they're feeling tired,they break it down.Like, oh, I'll just go to that next lamp post.Let me just do one more mileand see how I feel.They don't think, or the best onesare not looking at, man,they're still 15 miles to go
56:36because it doesn't help you.you have to break it right downinto those small bite-sized piecesand then you do enoughof those small bite-sized piecesbefore you know ityou're at the bottom of the mountainor you're the end of the race
56:49right?It wasn't the big thing,it was the small things.Yeah, and one thing I will saybecause I've been on manyof your five-day coursesbecause I love the approachthat you and your academy take
57:02always have done.It's always made sense to methat you do it the right way.But, you know,you guys at 10 a.m. when everyone meets up, you split us into groups,we're doing warm-ups for 10 minutes, right?A lot of people don't want to do a warm-up.It's like, what are you talking about? I've got my gear, I just want to, let me ski now, right?
57:20You're doing warm-ups.Then we're doing low-speed brach-hage drills, right?Which actually are really difficult when you first do them, right?Because you don't have momentum, so you're having to just in a very small arearotate your skis aroundwithout using your upper bodybut then as I reflect back nowI think that's why
57:42your you knowyour flagship five day courses that you guys runfor people yeah are just sophenomenal becauseyou get to do all the cool fun stuffthat you're hoping but you guys mightspend the morning preparing usso that in the afternoon we can go and do one of the
57:58cool slopes but wewe don't come back to preparationyeah we prepared all morningwe've built up our skills, we keep getting better,our confidence gets higher,which means by the time you take us up there,we're like, yeah, actually, you know what?And we've also built trust in you when you're instructors.
58:15Yeah.Which then it's less likely to freak us outbecause we've built that confidence in ourselvesand with you guys, right?Yeah, absolutely.Another one of these universal principlesthat apply to skiers and non-skirts,I think it's to do with perspective.
58:31Yeah.So you are lucky,enough to live in the gorgeous mountains of Urbay.Yeah.So the views are stunning.And you shared before that there have been some challenges in your personal life.Yeah, absolutely.Okay?
58:47Over the last few years.Yeah.Can we talk a little bit about perspective?What does it do for you when things are going off in your personal life?Yeah.But then for your job, you get up out into the mountains.Like, what do you help us understand that?Yeah. So for me, personally, having the view or the perspective of looking out and seeing when you're elevated, you're sort of, you're not just elevated in terms of altitude. It feels like you're elevated in perspective where you can see a greater distance. And there's something just for me, and I know other people do feel this, that you're, it kind of weirdly for me, I find it difficult to switch off, right?
59:33So I sometimes I'm not brilliant at sleep.Brain goes about 1,000 miles an hour.And I have to like, you know, sometimes, you know,figure out a way that I'm going to get the sleep to tryand get the energy back up.When I've got the perspective of a huge viewand espass of like a distance,I naturally, something in me naturally switches off and unwinds.
59:57We've often done things with a charity we work withcalled snow camp. So snow camp is where we get a chance as skiers. So we've we've done all rightin the ski industry. We want to give back to things that we've, we've been lucky enough to comefrom. And we've taken a lot of kids who have been in really sort of rough situations. It's usuallyLondon based, South London base, but the snow camp charities exist all over the UK. The ones that weworked with were London sort of scenarios. And we got kids out of bad environments,bad environments that were triggering them to do bad thingswasn't their fault that they were just in the place
01:00:35where whether they liked it or notthere was a strong percentage outcomeof things would go negatively for themif you measured it.When they came out to the Alps,the same kids put into a perspectivewhere they, that's just say their vehiclewas the fact they did our ski instructor training program.
01:00:51So they came to Verbiay,we sponsored these guys through Snow Campand they did a ski instructor training programAnd they, it was incredible to watch how they turned up in the resort, quite edgy, quite, not chippy's the wrong word, but quite tense and stressed, you know.Their natural perception and their demeanour within a week completely changed.Their performance, their ability to perform was excellent.A lot of these kids who had survived through, you know, a lot of street life and broken homes, came out and ended up being like the upper, upper level.of performance in our skiing structure training program.
01:01:30They worked for us.One of them came out and worked for us.I ended up teaching members of the royal family I was skiing with.And you almost couldn't explain it, but it was like, wow, you know,I'm in a completely different environment.Now, not so much to do with us and what the content of the program was.The individual you could see by perspective and elevation and distance and like,you know, forget.
01:01:57about the postcard looking beauty of the place or a lovely chalet but you forget about that just the simpleelevation of seeing a greater distance as opposed to the opposite of being low down with a really tallskyscraper around you whatever you want to call it but basically if you're if you're continually down therein an environment that's trapped you know that's darker it's more dingy you're boxed in and whateverand you flip it upside down and this person then gets elevated and stuck on this for us we're luckyor on the mountain and get even coolerwhen you're really high upand you've achieved
01:02:29and you've hiked up to a peak.But the mental side of thatand how it physically reflected,if you just look at the shouldersand someone's stanceand someone's, you know,you've seen it where someone's gotthe tension in their body.
01:02:41It kind of, for me,the mountains unwinds.People just switch offand everything becomes a lot more like,oh, I can breathe out.Personally, I actually used it.And we talk about personal scenarios.I had a really bad road cycling accent
01:02:54in 2017 when my front tire blew outand I ended up in hospital for 10 daysand shattered my hips,dislocated my shoulder,twisted my lower leg the wrong way around.It was all sort of terrible for my ski career.And I ended up having to have therapy for itbecause I didn't get knocked out when I hit.
01:03:15My bike was going downhill about 75K.Front tie blew out, bang, hit the ground quite hard.And I kept having these things at nightwhere I was like, I was re-picturing it.I couldn't switch the picture off.And I went to a therapy session, which was labelled EMDR, right?So, and I didn't believe in it, because I kind of, I'm the hardest person, like, you know, lights going, like, Zubber just reminded me a clockwork orange.So I was like, I don't believe in this stuff.
01:03:45So this woman was persistent, she was brilliant, and she said, I went to a place called cognacity or cognicity in London.Anyway, I did this thing, sat in front of the lights,and we went for a process, and she was writing his notes,and she asked me to pick your happy place, right?And at the time, I was breaking up in a relationship with someonethat was quite stressful, and it had other factors of, like,my son being involved, and all solutions were made,and it was all ended up well and good.
01:04:10But in her process of where she found me my happy place,what is your happy place?I couldn't really think of anything, and I just said,actually, it's my balcony.It's my balcony of my house.I live in Switzerland.And actually, I brought the house in 2002, that has been my happy place.It's been the only place I think I could go outside and, like, take a breath out and feel,
01:04:35not that I'm protected, but just feel like I've got a moment of peace in a moment to let thebody, let the mind sort of reset, recover.And weirdly enough, there was almost like a delayed effect of this EMDR therapy.working. And to this day, whether it was how she used my happy place, being elevated in mybalcony and my view, I'm lucky that I've got like a 180 degree view. I could see over to theface we were talking about there from a chalet. There's lots of memories that are positivestuff. But there's a lot about it. It's like the breathing in of the fresh air, you know,wherever you are. In the UK, I can pick any number of places I choose to.
01:05:21go to, jump in the car, they're right, I'm driving up to the top of that. The air's fresher.The views more. The emotional state of it, it's calmer. So elevation for me, you know,it's one of the reasons that's magnetized me towards the mountain and my day-to-day job, whichI love. But elevation is a cure for a lot of the day-to-day that we get sort of suckeddownwards into, you know. And I would recommend it. I'd strongly recommend it. I did a thingfor one of my partners, Heli, a sponsor, Heli Hansen. And it was mountains. It wasabout getting people to go to the mountains, go to the hills. And we've got loads of them in theUK. I mean, I know this goes out internationally at this show, whichever city or town you're in,
01:06:02close by, you ain't going to be that far away from something which is elevated, which gives youa view back down looking at everything. You know, it's pretty. It's profound. And it's, again,as you sort of mentioned, we're not all lucky enough to live in the mountains, right? But many ofus do have access to some form of hilly area. Not everyone, of course, but many of us do.And if you can access it, if you're struggling in your life, if you're feeling stuck, if you'refeeling lost, if you don't, you can't see through the problems, you think you're in the wrongjob, whatever. Yeah. It is amazing how getting some elevation, getting out to some or inspiringnature, if you can, will just start to shift your perspective. Yeah. And, you know, hearing your
01:06:46individual experience was wonderful. And, you know, I love hearing people's individual take onwhat it's done for them and how being in the hills, for example, gives them a differentperspective. There is also a lot of science now to support it. There's science showing us thatsimply being out in nature will lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Yeah. Okay, so itliterally changes you physiologically. Yeah. There's also science showing us that when you havethis big panoramic view and your vision becomes more peripheral, right? So, you know,if we're on a screen, right, our vision is not peripheral. It's central. Yeah. It's all lockedin in front of us, right? Which, actually, if you think about it on an evolutionary level,
01:07:33that's kind of where we look when we're stressed, right? We're not looking around us. We'rejust focusing on the problem at hands. Yeah. When people get out into nature, whether it's a mountainor not, frankly,and if they're not looking at their phone at the same time, right?Which, of course, these days a lot of people are.And you just soften your visionand you start to take things in from the sideand more peripheral.
01:07:58We know that that turns down,the dial of your stress system.Yeah.Right?Your sympathetic nervous system,the stress arm of your nervous system,starts to come down,and the parasympathetic arm,
01:08:09the relaxation arm,starts to get amped up relatively.Yeah.Right? So it's not just, oh, it feels good.It's scientifically good.Yeah, it changes you physiologically.So I think what you guys are doing with your charity to try and get people out to the mountains to experience this.Just helps people see a different perspective on life.
01:08:31You know, I totally agree.And if you look into it, I mean, snow cab's a brilliant thing.Is that S&O?S&O at W and then camp.So you go online.Google snow camp you'll find it straight away but snow camp operates at the you know many venues aroundthe UK but even if you don't go to snow camp and you don't ski go and over look at where the localski slopes are the dry slopes and go walk up to the top of one of them yeah it is incredible in
01:09:00Dublin on Saturday when I was coaching there um the view that we got just because the dry slope wassituated on the hill it has to be right um was incredible we saw right into the bay in in Dublin you youyou saw more, and that was a buzz.I mean, I'd strongly encourage, I mean, this weekend I get to Verbiere, right?So I'll be in Verbié, I'll be getting back in the swing of things.And the first thing I'll do is go and enjoy the altitude and the view.Now, elevation doesn't have to be going up to a ski resort high.Elevation can be going up 100 meters or two somewhere around the hills, you know,
01:09:37anywhere you are.But taking a few deep breaths and just let your system switch off.and reset.Talking about perspective, I think about the fact that you were caught in an avalancheearly on in your career.Yeah.And I'm really interested to know, Warren, well, if you could tell us a little bit about thatexperience and what you learnt or what changed in you from going through it.
01:10:07Yeah, so the avalanche I was caught in, I was quite lucky, actually.You can be in an avalanche where you're caught.in it and you're sort of a bit like been in a washing machine effect you can end up wheneverything stops head down feet up I was the other way around my head was right next to thesurface anyway I got caught in it and I was lucky I got out but but to me it really it made mereflect a lot on life I remember getting in the car that afternoon and driving to a trade showto go and see one of my ski sponsors like you mentioned vocal and going through your mindall that drive is like, God, what if?
01:10:45You know, what if that was just a bit different?What if the outcome was different?What if I was further across an extra 10 meters over?Would it have been a more intense strike by the avalanche?If I was 10 meters lower, would I have ended up the other way around upside down?So it really woke me up.I dealt with scenarios in skiing in my early days where I did silly things,took high risk.
01:11:08My first child came along and I definitely lowered the tone of the risk taking,but I still took the risk.After that avalanche in 2008,I definitely changed a lot about it.You know, sometimes we are just caught in the,with the blinkers onand we're just going full speed aheadwith not much time to think
01:11:27laterally or sideways.And that moment, that incident,definitely made me wake up a little bit,think about the sort of longevity,how long is life for me,how long does that picture look like?Yeah.It's kind of,
01:11:40we're talking about avalanchesand when you come close to deathhow it changes the way that you value lifeand appreciate life.You have an increased sense of gratitude usually.But of course,skiing these days,certainly not when you guys teach
01:12:00or academy which is very, very safe,but a lot of people out with those things,a lot of people by themselves oftenwill go into some quite gnarly ski terrain.Yeah.I've done a couple of ski seasons in Chamoniewith my band earlier on,you know, maybe 20 years ago or so.
01:12:20And, you know, every year people die.Yeah, 100%.Usually not when they're being coached and doing stuff,it's off doing crazy stuff usually, right?You've had friends, I believe,who have died when out in the mountains.What has that done to how youview life yeah i think knowing and seeing uh the repercussions it's made us try and raise awareness
01:12:48for sure that i one of the first things that when you see the damage it does when someone'staken before they should be and and leave it's it's something that affects such a big wealthof people that you you want to do something about it and you run away raise awareness in our gameum we often see scenarios nowadays wheresomeone didn't expect itsomeone did all the preparation workbut because of the environmental elementof the way the planet's warming up
01:13:17and the way that things are changing in the winterpreparation preparation, preparationdidn't always get the outcomebecause there was some chance involvedbut it still remains the factthat if you can educate someone a little bitI mean our bigger issue at the moment istemperature shifts
01:13:34so we are getting now in a winter seasonand that's like you saidmore and more people have been caught in avalanches in recent years, especially.But in January last year, you've got a temperature shift of minus 10 to plus 10 in the space of 24 hours.That's too much.And what people are not understanding yet, not to my knowledge in terms of the degree of the volume of people who want to understand it,is that, you know, it's the temperature shift that's making the snowpack week, which wasn't there 20, 30 years ago.Now it is.
01:14:07we've got to be more aware of itand if there's one thing that someone's lifebeing taken in the mountainsin an avalanche has donefor me it's waking up the ideathat let as many people know about itas we possibly can educate peoplehelp them prepare
01:14:23you know help them realize that there's aset bunch of pointers you've got to checkbefore you go thereand it comes back also to greedand want and desire foryou know you now look at a traverse lineto traverse into a beautiful off-piece.Imagine that lovely open powder field.
01:14:40And there's tracks in the powder field.But do you traverse the extra 10 or 20 metersto get something that visually had a perfect flat surface?But above you took a huge amount more riskand risk to life because you were just a bit too far outin that risky zone?Or do you sort of back away from it a little bitand say, I'm going to ski this line?
01:15:01It's still awesome.It's 90% of the awesome that the one that tookhigh risk was going about the 10, 20 meters further across.They're the bits we want to get across to people.And that's playing with a few different, like technical knowledge of the mountain,but also the ego as well.And like, do we go and grab that part?I mean, I certainly know that the client of mine that once, once, once, get that got this,
01:15:26got to grab it, take it home and turn the trophy on it on the Instagram, photographon their phone, that's the extra 20 meters that can cost the life.and so we're playing with technical knowledgebut also ego.Yeah, it's amazing greed and desireget humans into all kinds of problemswhen it unchecked.Yes, on a mountainside,
01:15:48but also in life.Yeah, yeah.You know, that desire for more.Yeah.You know, I want to keep pushing.I want more, I've got enough alreadybut I need more, I need more money,more promotions, more whatever.
01:15:59You know, again, it depends on what you start point is.It depends where you are in life.Yeah.But I think one thing humans are not very good at is knowing when enough.When enough is enough.Yeah.Yeah.And it's something, you know, I've said it before on the show, but I can't reiterate enough.
01:16:15One of my very favorite phrases is from the old Chinese philosophy text, the Daouda Ching.True wealth is knowing what is enough.Yeah.Yeah.And I think about it all the time.What does enough look like?Because often the quest, the greed for more, starts to decimate what you want.already have. Yeah. And of course, on a mountain, that could be fatal. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,
01:16:39I think that's really important is to get some form when someone's learning in our world ofthis is your expectation. This is what we're going to go for. The problem in the modern world isthe videos you watch online. The videos you watch online now, every kid coming up, age 15 to 20,have got to prove themselves because the videos are so much more extreme. They're jumpingoff of a bigger cliff.They're doing more backflips.They're skiing powder in the most remote places.Then it's coupled with the ego and the expectation of what their Instagram feed
01:17:13compared to their mate's Instagram feed is looking like.And what at risk have they got to take to go and get the better picture?It's really important education at this stage.It's where education is key.It's where education kicks in and says, right, you've got to learn.Like we work with We Mountain.your wee mountain is a bit like if anyone's dived it's a bit like the paddy explanation book for off-piece knowledge we've got to get people with more off-piece knowledge and when they get that knowledge they pass that knowledge on definitely passing on to your friends and family once you've got the knowledge you can then go and exercise your technique and practice it safely but within all of those elements you've got to respect the current situation of what the weather history is like you can't just get out there and just run for the mountains like you'reused to you've got to have preparation so much more so now because we're dealing with a different
01:18:08type of media we're dealing with a different type of expectation that you've got to be you knowputting out this content on your on your on your Instagram which is crazy in our environmentit's just like a mega risk take inside of things coupled with an environment that's a hotter planetyou know so it's like it's really difficult to manage that but the best we can do is make peopletechnically, prepare better in what they do.But respect now, more so than ever, respect the mountain itself.Because there is no, the mountain doesn't forgive.You know, you get one chance to sort of look at it and treat it the way it should be treated.
01:18:47But it's really important to respect that.As someone who's been a coach for several decades,what would you say is the number one skill that you need?The number one skill to ski.No, the number one skill you need to be a good coach.wowlistenI mean for me
01:19:06it's listeningand understandingthe personbecause my jobis to give that persona great experienceand it's very easyto get carried away
01:19:16because we've got the knowledgeto give them all the right ingredientsbut you've really got to knowwho the person isyou're going to coachand what their expectation isyou've got to listen tonot just verbally listen to them
01:19:27but listen to theway that they portray themselvestheir expectations, what they want to get, gain from it.What their history and their profile is, listen to what they've done,listen to the fact of they, have they done a lot of sport in the past?Are they fragile? Are they agile?Are they, you know, are they confident?Are they underselling themselves?
01:19:48What type of it, a person, is it?You know, so the listening game covers way more than audio, way, way more than audio.I think that's the same thing I would say as a doctor.I think the number one skill is your ability to listen.listen without pre-conceived ideas.Well, and I could talk to you for hours.I love what you have given to me over the years.I love what you brought to the ski industry,
01:20:16and I love the fact that you are keen to get these principles,particularly around our body,where I have biomechanics out to everyone's skiers and non-skiers alike.If people want to find out more about youand sort of ski with your academy or get hold,of this gorgeous Ski Technique Labsort of program now.Where should they go?
01:20:36I mean, it has a big question there.95% of people don't take ski lessons.5% of people do.So in terms of the millions of people that ski,if you're a skierthat doesn't take ski lessons,the Ski Technique Labthat sits within our academy
01:20:51and it's called the Warren Smith Ski Academy,you can Google that.But the Ski Technique Lab is the contentthat will help someonethat doesn't take a ski lesson.improve their skiing techniquejust because of being betterat functional movement patterns
01:21:07and there's an understanding that goes with that.You can find a lot of that content online.If you are a person that likes ski lessons,the chances are globallyyou probably might not be skiing with us.You'd be skiing with a ski school,in a resort, wherever you go.If you're going to invest money in a ski lesson,
01:21:23we'd urge you, like beg you,to go and work on the functional movement patternsof ski technique lab.because if you do so, the value for money at your ski lessonwill be at least doubledbecause the one side of the body is going to absorb itwhich might not have done.And it goes the same for someone buying ski kit as well.
01:21:41You know, one side usually works better than the other.If you are skiing with us, fantastic.You know, come and say hi.We're based in Verbiere, but also we're quite often accessible in the UKat the snow centre in Hamlethempsteadand the snow centre in Manchester.And these are brilliant indoor ski venues.that gives someone the chance to ski on real snow, which is unusual.
01:22:05And this sort of new magazine, what it's not a magazine, it's your ski technique lab expert program,which I love, I'm looking through it, and although it revolves around skiing,you think, well, actually anyone's going to benefit from trying to do these simple exercises.If they go to your academy websites, can they find the ski technique lab stuff and this little program on there?If they go to our academy website, along the top bar, there's an option that says Technic Lab.And if you're going to Technic Lab, you'll find the content in there.One of the things will evolve and people can do is if they don't get a chance to ski with us,is run an online coaching session with somebody.
01:22:44And that's a way that, okay, I'm not going to Verbi A, I'm not going to get a chance to see you guys.But if you want to access and work through the functional movement patterns,you can hire us, you can book that online.And quite often that might be all you need.It's been so fun talking to you.To finish off, Warren, for that person who's been listening,and let's say that they don't ski.Yeah.
01:23:06But they want to stay active.And there are sports that they want to dobut feel that they can't do because they're scaredor the state of their body or whatever it might be.Yeah.You are an elite coach.For that person, what would you say to them?I would say to get out there and try.
01:23:28I would say that you have to look at the idea of your sport you want to do,how you're going to prepare for that sport.And in the preparation phase that we've been talking about,you know, being functional and moving, movement itself,is something that will improve so many elements of life.If you choose a sport, and let's just say you want to be good at paddle or runningor whatever it might be, go behind the scenes of your body.you know go behind the seeds and see what your body can do you're going to quite often as we've been
01:24:02mentioned throughout today's talk you're going to find a difference between left and right side thebody once you've identified it you might find that it was only one side of the body that drew youaway from something that stopped you go in there and you can you can make the changes in that youcan make it balance but you can only make it balance by finding out about it first that that's howwe've made our life and our business work in skiingIn terms of that word, in terms of preparation, I think the big thing for me personally is I've got through areas of my life where outside of work in personal life, with preparation I've learned to be a better dad, with preparation I've learned to manage my time, and try and find a balance between sort of work life and home life, which is a really important thing for me.and then the other part i think from today from what i would advise to someone is i want to personallyand you were saying the same i want to do sport until i'm older much much older i want to enjoy all these
01:25:04things for as long as i possibly can and if you get to work at it right now but trying to look atwhat your body's capabilities are um your machine will go on lasting longer and longer and longerbut if you're grinding down one side of your unbalanced body you're going to know about itAnd those joints won't last forever.Yeah, I love it, Warren.Fantastic advice.It's been fantastic having you on the show.Such a fun conversation.
01:25:30I really hope we get to have a little ski adventure at some point over the winter.Absolutely, man.And until next time, I'll ski you later, mate.No, ski you later.I like that.Cheers, man.Really hope you enjoyed that conversation.Do think about one thing that you can tell.
01:25:51take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversationthat you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them. It alsohelps you learn and retain the information. Now before you go, just wanted to let you know aboutFriday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health andhappiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else,including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I'd beconsuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world ofendless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly
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