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Chairlift Chat: Warren Smith
by Jacob Banfield & Daniel Clark Earlier this season, we met up with Warren Smith and talked about what it means to be a skiing entrepreneur and a world renowned coach. Warren Smith's skiing academy is dedicated to improving the ability of skiers of all levels. This is a look behind the scenes of one of the world's best ski instructors and he gives us some tips on mogul skiing! When did you form the Warren Smith Ski Academy? The academy as it is now was formed in 1998. I originally started skiing at the Hemel Hempstead dry ski slope years and years ago. I used to skate board there, when there was a skateboard park, then they built the ski slope and I got into skiing that way. I moved to Verbier in 1994, tried to figure out what to do and got into freeskiing. I still ski on the Volkl international freeski team, not competing. I’m waiting to get kicked off the team now. What do you get up to during the season? I ride for Volkl and still do a lot of product testing for those guys and I coach as well. I’m now assistant coach to the GB freeski team and I coach a lot of instructors. Its Verbier, so you get some wealthy people and sports stars, I’ve been lucky to coach a few of those, such as Lawrence Dallagio. What have you got planned for the academy this season? We’ve launched our first ever courses in Zermatt, to try and save our clients some money for our summer and pre-winter courses. By staying in Cervinia we’ve managed to knock the price right down. And for the winter season, in Verbier, we’ve teamed up with Inghams who are now our accommodation partner. They offer a fantastic deal on flights, accommodation and half board. It just makes everything more manageable and we can focus on what we do best, coaching. What skis are you riding on at the moment? I ski on a Volkl Katanas, a general freeride ski and it is long at 198cm. It is a bit like the Mantra but a bigger version. For the deep stuff I ski on the Kuro or my Shiros. But I also like to do GS as well. Do you set up a GS course for your clients? We do sometimes, you know 3 or 4 times a season but most of out skiing is focused off piste. Do you want to do this forever? I hope so, I mean I had spine surgery last year… 10 years ago I had a severe compression on my spine. I went off something and landed on what I thought was powder but it was actually rock. I finally had it operated on, so last season was sort of a half season really. Are you still pushing your skiing? Definitely. Skiing wise you can have days when its fantastic and you can still have off days. I’m actually doing some training this season with a Red Bull coach, Faye Downey, she works for team GB and the England rugby team. She has given me some amazing 3-dimensional exercises to improve my dynamism. I’m still learning, I don’t think I ever stop thinking about something to do with my skiing, not in a boring way, just trying improve. For instance my left turn is my weaker turn so I’m always trying to improve on that. How many people work for the academy? During the season, we have a full time team of 8. We are all very good mates. We always get up before the lessons to go out and smash it for a good hour. Do you après? Haha, I used to do more. But now, I make sure I’m on it for at least a couple of days a week. A friend of mine actually owns a hotel called the Farinet, and they have arguably one of the best après ski scenes in the Alps, in Europe really. All sorts goes on there. In fact, when we have 70 clients out and they’ve had a buzzing day its great and you know après is quite good because you get drunk early on so you have your hangover and get up the next morning feeling quite fresh. Did you see any cool gadgets at the ski & snowboard show? Only the good looking girls over on the Heavenly stand. (Laughs) Perhaps other than that, the rivalry between the new GoPro 3 and the iON Action Camera. It is quite interesting because we’ve produced instructional films over the years and these cameras have made things much easier. Now everyone can watch their footage, upload it and it is useful for them and us from a learning perspective. What do you do in the off-season? Haha, we don’t have one. We finish in Verbier in April and travel back to the UK to do indoor courses for a month. And also during May we do a lot of planning for things like the Ski & Snowboard show. In June we try to take the month off and then July, August and September we run the BASI camps, training a lot of the juniors coming through and the Team GB guys. If anything I’m grateful for being busy in this industry. And finally, can we have 5 tips for mogul skiing? Okay so the biggest problem with mogul skiing is that everyone goes into the moguls with the technique that they use on piste. They’re carving too much and going too fast. 1) Get your speed under control by the use of skidding and side slipping 2) People need to work on simulating the pace of a mogul turn outside of the moguls. Go to the side of the mogul field and look at how they are roughly spaced apart, usually 1-2 metres. Practice turning in that space, it is called a braquage. 3) Get back in the moguls and start to find your line, visualise where you are going to ski and bring those short radius sharp turns into the bumps. 4) Now you’re getting confident, you need to learn the absorption and extension over the bumps. That is how you create friction and keep control, by staying in contact with the snow. It is good to practice one bump at a time. 5) Finally, a good solid pole plant aimed at the top or just over the bump is vital. Many people hit it on the front face and it jerks them out of rhythm. The big thing with the pole plant in the bumps is to get the elbow outside of the line of your hands and that stops you from over-rotating. |
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