Dr Rangan ChatterjeeHow This One Habit Built a Life of Confidence, Resilience & Success | Warren Smith
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
80 min read · 15,962 words- 0:00 – 1:37
From council estate to elite ski coach: the unlikely origin story
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Your backstory is actually really, really interesting because ultimately, you grew up in a council estate-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and now you're considered one of the world's best ski coaches in this incredible elite prestigious resort of Verbier, having taught Prince Harry and whoever. Like, I could just list off these kind of A-listers or, or whatever you want to have, uh, you have taught.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Tell us a little bit about that journey. You know, how did a boy from a council estate in Hemel Hempstead end up doing what he's doing today?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was quite lucky. My, my council estate, we, we, you know, in Hemel, we, I liked it. I, I don't, I don't see [laughs] you know, the... To me, it's got a lot of, uh, qualities that could be higher than, than the town of Verbier, and it taught me quite a lot of principles in life, you know. Um, I was lucky, this is where the luck part comes in, um, or it's destiny, that they built a dry ski slope, which still exist all over the UK, and they're mega accessible. They're mega affordable. Even if someone never, ever goes skiing on snow, it doesn't matter, you can still learn this brilliant sport, um, on a dry slope, and it costs next to nothing. In fact, quite a lot of other sports cost more. So nowadays, skiing's become really accessible. From where I learned, I used to BMX as a kid, uh, in my sort of area. They built a skateboard park, um, in the late '70s, early '80s, which was phenomenal. You know, it was like, if anyone's ever seen Dogtown and Z-Boys, we, we were lucky enough in Hemel Hempstead to be in that wave.
- 1:37 – 3:42
Vandalism, getting caught, and a life-changing redirection
- WSWarren Smith
So they built, um, a skateboard park. We were in the, we lived in the skateboard park. Um, and then they demolished it, and we, we were all, you know, we were very unsatisfied kids in our local area, and what re-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Unsatisfied is a nice way of putting it.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah. [laughs] They, they built a dry ski slope, right, so they built a dry ski slope-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So they, so they knocked down the skate park-
- WSWarren Smith
They, they-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... where you and your buddies hang out-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, exactly
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and in, in its place-
- WSWarren Smith
Was a dry ski slope
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... they put a dry ski slope.
- WSWarren Smith
Yes.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
How were you and your mates feeling?
- WSWarren Smith
Uh, we, we weren't too happy about it. [laughs] So we, we would spend our time, um, you know, probably not doing great things to this slope. Don't want to get us into trouble, but yeah, we, we used to do things like burn it and, uh, whatever. We used to key the cars. We did some horrible stuff.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So you, you were kind of, um, you and your mates were showing your frustration-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... with a bit of vandalization.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Keying some of the cars. Stuff that, you know, you're a lovely guy. You would [laughs] never do... You know, this is, this is back in your youth, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's a long time ago.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But weren't you caught?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, so that was, 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, to work at the, the, um, the dry slope. Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
This policeman who caught you-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... I guess there are a number of options that were available to him, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So 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 way where I don't have to, I don't know, take him into the station" or what? Do you know what I mean?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, I mean, I've, I've often reflected on that. It's the same with my school teachers because our school was at the back of, of, uh, the dry slope that was built. Um, there are many people along that journey that, that were critical at the point of your, your career development, and it could have gone the other way really easily. Um, but, but someone that had a, a positive outlook on life rather than sort of drawing on the negative helped me through a situation and just redirected me, redirected my energy.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So you had to, as I guess part of your punishment, I think-
- 3:42 – 5:08
Discovering skiing on a dry slope: accessibility and natural crossover
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right. So do you remember how you felt the first time you went in? You know, this, this kind of slope that was put in on top of-
- WSWarren Smith
Our skateboard park
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... your fun place, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Were you a bit resistant when you went in for the first time?
- WSWarren Smith
We- weirdly enough, I think there was a, a, um, a bit like a skateboarder can relate to snowboarding. A skier, um, has a really strong crossover with cycling. Um, any cyclists out there that-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right
- WSWarren Smith
... know the feeling of pushing your left pedal down, pushing your right pedal down, and the continuum of that is what relates to skiing. It, it's how we ski. We put pressure against one ski and then the other, and it's, it's very much like having sort of leg extension and flexion movements. Soon as I jumped on skis, I kind of slipped into skiing-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Wow
- WSWarren Smith
... uh, quite naturally. So I, I was sort of straight at it. I, I felt the balance of skiing. I learned everything for my career, and this is one thing I'd love people to understand, that everything I learned for my career was accessed locally in the UK at 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. Learned to ski at the Sheffield, uh, Ski Village, Sheffield Dry Slope.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Wow.
- WSWarren Smith
That, that isn't there anymore, but there are hundreds of these venues around the UK. I was skiing on one in Dublin on Saturday, uh, running a ski instructor training program for them, and they're there. They are accessible. You can go and see how you, how you-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- 5:08 – 5:59
Obsession to vocation: from local slope to Verbier
- WSWarren Smith
... get on with skiing, but that's what helped me with my career. I was lucky enough, stone throw away from where my mum lived, um, and skied on Hemel and lived there. I mean, that became my second home.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
I spent more time at the dry slope. I was became fanatical at the dry slope, and, and then that linked me into a connection of someone who skied at the dry slope who said, "Oh, come out and ski in this resort. Uh, we'll get you a job, and you can be a ski instructor and learn the ropes." And then my passion was kind of, you know, ski coaching, um, and then free ride skiing, off-piste skiing. That was my goal.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
And that, that led me that pathway to Verbier. So I, I'm, I'm forever grateful to what is now the Snow Centre in Hemel. It was the dry ski slope, the Hemel Ski Slope. Um, you know, those guys sparked my career and, um, and I'll, I'll never forget it.
- 5:59 – 8:48
Calm under pressure: money stress, early work, and resilience
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You said that growing up in a council estate was... was really impactful, it's taught you many lessons, and that you really enjoyed where you grew up.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? One thing I've noticed being around you and knowing you for a good two decades now-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... is how calm you always seem to be. Right? I've seen you in stressful times or when things are going off or whatever, but you always seem to have this calmness, which I can see why it would be so important for a ski coach, you know, with clients, uh, feeling stressed, whatever.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You know, you need someone who's not getting caught up in that. But do you think that ability to stay calm in the face of a lot of stress or perceived stress by others is something you've learnt as a kid?
- WSWarren Smith
Possibly, yeah. I mean, I was very lucky in my upbringing. I had two loving parents, but I, but my, my, um, parents were divorced. It's a broken sort of home. Um, and, and there was money issues and, you know, things like, um, making sure the electric's on in the electric meter, putting 50 Ps in. Um, sort of, I guess it taught me the challenge of, like, didn't really have time to sort of be, uh, upset in the moment about something. I had to go and do something about that moment. Mine was going out and washing cars or cleaning cars in the local neighborhood-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
To get money for the meter
- WSWarren Smith
... to get the money to stick in the, yeah, the, the, the electric meter. And my mum was brilliant. You know, she had two or three jobs. Um, and, and my dad, my dad, you know, he, he did his best, um, but he didn't really, um, manage to, uh, provide in, in the way you'd sort of need to financially. So, so what ended up happening in my scenario, I kind of went out to work a bit early. Um, weirdly, I, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, for me, it built resilience. Um, for me, it taught me to get on with it, you know-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
[laughs]
- WSWarren Smith
... no one else is gonna get on for it for you. Uh, you know, not in my scenario anyway. And it gave me, um, a bit of independence, made me feel good actually, going out and earning a, a few bucks. And it-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... and I, and I remember paying for my first ski trip myself. Um, and I don't think anything's ever been that different in, in my life. You know, I've, I've, I've gone out there and got it. But my, my job, um, and the success perhaps of, of our academy and pushing my way... I mean, a- again, you, you, you become quite pushy, not in a rude way, in, 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, I kept on going with it, and I, I think it's installed something in me, and there's an in- inner engine I think that got, got developed from perhaps coming from the background I did.
- 8:48 – 12:00
Why technique fails without biomechanics: the ‘preparation before coaching’ principle
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. What you teach people to help them ski better and more efficiently, and what you've learnt along the way, I think absolutely apply to non-skiers as well. So this idea that, oh, you know, to ski well, you need to keep your upper body facing down the slope-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... 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.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? And 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 that-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... if 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-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... well, you're probably better off spending time on your biomechanics first. That applies to anything, whether it's running, golf, swimming, right? Whatever you wanna do, 'cause preparation for me is also about biomechanics before technique.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. I, I think you've just, um, hit the nail on the head. If you want loads of things to go right, whether it's the psychology of the sport, um, whether it's the fatigue you might get that could lead to psychological issues, you know, whatever it might be in your day that goes right or wrong in skiing, the biomechanical functional movement pattern of the left and right side of the body being even is essential. And nearly everyone, and this is, this is a bold statement to make on your show, but I would say in 35 years of coaching people, I've rarely come across a person that is even. And the work that goes on during that, that thing you said, the lesson, um, is usually always focused on the side that's, that's starved or strangled of a movement range. So if people went away and did the preparation work, and it doesn't take as long as it sounds, but skiing is based around turning left and right. Unless you're gonna plan on skiing in a multi-story car park and work your way around it on-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
[laughs]
- WSWarren Smith
... on one of your turn directions, um, you're gonna get caught if you haven't prepared, and you're gonna get caught on biomechanical restrictions on one side of the body. Now, it's not because y- you're walking around and like, "My God, that, that person is so unfit. Look at, look at the state of their biomechanics." Biomechanical 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, if you want to take a lesson, and let's, let's say skiing as one, you know, you, you could hire me for the day, and if you're blocked and I'm spending my whole day screaming, "Finish your left turn off," mainly because you've got a restriction in your inner rotation of your outside leg steering towards the left. Now, on a test like that, measuring leg steering, there is a national average, this is, this is no word of a, a lie, we've just finished our UK tour, of 30 degrees as average. So people, before they've even started to put skis on, uh, will have this left and right side difference. It will 100% affect their technique.
- 12:00 – 15:55
The hip rotation test and the ‘weakest link’ problem (65° vs 35°)
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
L- let's just go into that. So what do you mean 30 degrees? So we- we're currently talking about, just, um, for people who are listening, like, I guess if you were-If you had your back against the wall-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and you weren't moving your pelvis to the side-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... how far could you sort of rotate your leg s- in your hip?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. So, so to explain this for people that can't see, um, if you stood up and you were looking in the mirror and you l- held your hands on the sides of your hips and you stepped your feet to one direction, let's say towards the left, you'd measure your right leg's ability to inwardly rotate to the left.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay.
- WSWarren Smith
It 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 wall, it gets blocked halfway through the movement. Now, that, that for me fundamentally is one of the biggest secrets in learning and understanding why technique doesn't always feel perfect when you try the sport.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
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.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But the principle applies beyond skiing. It applies to martial arts-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, 100%
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... to, you know, yoga, to running, to even one-sided sports it probably applies to as well.
- WSWarren Smith
That's exactly it.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And what should we have rotation-wise in our hips?
- WSWarren Smith
You should, you should have, you should have the ability to rotate your leg to a degree where your foot eventually ends up at 70 degrees.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
70 degrees, right.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So we should be able to go 70 degrees in both directions.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And what are you saying, um, most people do?
- WSWarren Smith
So nat- national average of what we've just completed with another 2,000 people we've tested is 65 degrees one way, 35 degrees the other way. That's a national average.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right. So the average, so hold on, 65 degrees one way, not bad.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
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, this idea that you're only as good as your weakest link.
- WSWarren Smith
100%.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? So if one side is only going to 30 degrees or 35 degrees and you put yourself on a steepish ski slope-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... it doesn't matter how good your coach is [laughs] -
- WSWarren Smith
Absolutely
- 15:55 – 23:14
Fitness for life → confidence for life: sprinting for the train and rehab mindset
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So I, I know we had a joke when you got here, 'cause you, your Ubers didn't turn up this morning.
- WSWarren Smith
Oh, my gosh.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And so you were about, what, 10 to 6:00-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... in the morning.
- WSWarren Smith
Stressed. [laughs]
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Are stressed out, 'cause you know you have to get here.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And you, you had to sprint all the way to Hammersmith tube.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But I just said to you when you told me that, that, yeah, but that's why I think fitness is so important.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's not necessarily fitness for skiing or fitness for running, which of course is fun if that's what we wanna do.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's being fit for life.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Like, you had to, you had to make a call, "I'm gonna miss my train up to the northwest."
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
"I'm not gonna make the slot for Rangan's podcast. I have to sprint now."
- WSWarren Smith
It's a really interesting part, the tr- the chain, I say the chain of, like, preparing with your own physiology. I would not have made today, and in the finite moment of, like, living in a different country to being in the UK for a limited amount of time to this point where we talked for however long we talked for to try and bring this, this, this conversation about on your show, the sprint [laughs] I did, and this is not a joke, you know, I'm 53 now, and I've, and I've had injuries. And when, when I was younger, I used to, you know, box, I used to play basketball, and I've always biked and always cycled. Um, but I could feel myself, like, I made it, thank God, and I sprint, the sprints between stations and, you know, getting off at, um, Green Park to get onto the Victoria line to get up to Euston, those sprints that I did to get to the train when the guy was blowing the whistle, whew, you know, got on the train. Like you said, if I hadn't have kept fit over the l- course of the last couple of years, 'cause I've been through injury, I, I should have probably lost my fitness level. A- and I was quite conscious going through injury that on the rehab side, I had to stay fit.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, that brings up an interesting point about confidence. So to perform well at anything in life, we need a degree of confidence.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
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's really important, right? Preparation to go up on the mountain, preparation before you go to work, whatever it might be, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Preparation before you take your kids away for the weekend camping. If you've prepared and got everything you needEven if the weather goes off or whatever, it doesn't matter-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... 'cause you did the work, so you can, you can cope, right? So the confidence comes from the preparation. So you, for example, by, yeah, so you had knee surgery. You've done your rehab. You're always paying attention to left and right symmetries to make sure your body is as balanced as you can be. That then means in a kind of, you know, I was gonna say a stressful situation in life. Look, I get you making the train to come on my podcast, it's not life-threatening, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You know, we're mates.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 23:14 – 28:52
Make the habit inevitable: scheduling five-minute prep and building consistency
- WSWarren Smith
Do, do you know what's really interesting, what you just said, it, uh, it really brings home a big point which we tried to get across on this year's tour. So Ski Technique Lab, if anyone's listening to this show, if they Google it or look at what it is, it's basically looking at six functional movement patterns where you need to gain range of movement, and you're usually gonna be different on left than right, and you have to gain stability of movement, the quality of the, the control of it. And on our tour this year, like I said, we got through about 2,000 people, and people asked us like, "So what's the key point to, you know, what is gonna be the bit of this?" I'm like, "You gotta do it."
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
[laughs]
- WSWarren Smith
And actually... No, no, but we said, "Go and get your phone out now, or your phone, go to your calendar," and y- what you just said really hit home. So we just said, "Put in an actual reminder, but do it now," 'cause you'll, you'll forget about what we just talked about. It'll, it, the, the intensity of the talk will die off a little bit, and it was all great, and it sounded brilliant, and wow, this is gonna change things, and in two weeks, it'll be like you'll be cracking on with the, the busyness of life, that also lets 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. It, it's, it's the Ski Technique Lab five-minute session every night. We- we've called a bootflix- a boot flexing test, a, a Netflix, uh, uh, ski boot test. You know, trying to gain muscle memory in your ski boot, 'cause you think it's gonna 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 and have all that mus- muscle memory. You don't go and run for a train in your ski boots. They're, they're on for this alien tiny bit of time, so now go and do the prep work. But that's just hit home with me, what you've said about the five minute a day, and, and we- we're finding already when people are putting this in, um, preparation, not just of your body, preparation of the preparation-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... which sounds ridiculous, but it's actually, that's sometimes the only way you're gonna get it.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah, but the thing is, right, a lot of people might be thinking, "Well, I'm not that obsessed about skiing or running or hiking. You know, I just like to go and do it now and again and have fun."
- WSWarren Smith
Mm-hmm.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And I get that, and I have to respect that because everyone's their own person. They're entitled to see life in the way that they want to.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
I would frame it slightly differently. You ma- it's not about obsession. It's just about basic preparation. It's about, you know... There's all, there's all kinds of beliefs about life and actually what this life actually is.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Do we have one life? Is there life after death? You know, ev- everyone's got different views on that stuff, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But we've only got this one body to experience this current life.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? And I really feel I owe it to myself-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and this experience of being a human for, whatever, the 90 years I'm gonna be on the planet, or 80 or 100, who knows-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... to keep this body in as good a shape as I can so that I can enjoy things like skiing or running-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... or hiking with my mates, so that I can help someone on the plane who needs me to lift up their suitcase and put it up for them.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So that when, hopefully one day I become a grandfather-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... I can lift up my grandchildren.
- WSWarren Smith
And still ski with them.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And ski with them.
- WSWarren Smith
[laughs]
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But I honestly feel, on a personal level, me spending at least five, 10 minutes a day on mobility and making sure both sides of the body are equal, I guess it's a sign of love to myself.
- 28:52 – 37:36
Injuries and the chain reaction: Achilles rupture, compensation, and back surgery
- WSWarren Smith
What, what happened to me, Rangan, I was skiing. I'm not sure if I was... I mean, it was in Japan, basically. I was skiing in Japan. I was unlucky. A tip of one of my skis went under the root o- of a tree. Root of the tree caught the ski. Uh, ski moved forward. I was going forward at 30 miles an hour, but my binding on my ski didn't release for, for a v- variety of reason, whatever it was, and my Achilles went bang, as in, like, shotgun sound. So I snapped my Achilles in Japan. Um-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Was this 2010?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mate, I've got a memory of this.
- WSWarren Smith
So I [laughs] ... And it, we were the first people, we kind of br- ground broke the whole thing in Japan, like you're not allowed to ski off-piste in the sacred trees. Well, we did that in 2008, got arrested, got my lift pass taken. We just went in the, the, the forbidden area. Turns 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 Furano to allow us to ski off-piste legitimately.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
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- WSWarren Smith
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. You... That sensation.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm-hmm.
- WSWarren Smith
Um, so for us, it was to get people into powder, that, that incredible, um, f- feeling around the body. We'd achieved it in 2010. We'd had quite a lot of groups, about 50 people, go into Japan with us, and [laughs] it sort of backfired on me because when, when we did it, all the security guards in the resort were being used with our groups to, to delicately, carefully take them into off-piste environments. I was filming for Volkl, which is my, my ski brand, um, and I was being filmed by a young British athlete called Nick Southwell. He, uh, put the camera, I skied down, had a great run, um, and then the tip of my ski, unlucky, went under a tree branch. It was out of sight, um, 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. Um, and it was an awful feeling, if anyone's ever done that listening to the show. But what, what I had to do was, uh, 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 then it was like, "Oh. Oh, no." So I... So we... I w- I ski down, um, with this snapped Achilles on my, 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 gonna be fine," so I just ski down very slowly on a, on a blue run style piste. Hit a mogul field. Anyone that doesn't know what moguls are, they're a kind of an undulating thing going up and down, up and down. They're bumps. So I ski down the mo-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Like an inverted sort of egg, egg container, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, exactly. Inverted egg container's the best way to describe it. Went through that with the snapped Achilles. Got to the bottom, got fixed, had the surgery. But the problem with that is that, that Achilles that got snapped, yeah, psychological effect, massive. Pain on the moment, loads. You know, having your boot, ski boot cut off with a, a Dremel and all that sort of thing. All of this happened, um, but the weirdest thing was, a year and a half later, I had surgery on my, my back, my lumbar spine. Because the, the compensation of hobbling around and getting-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- WSWarren Smith
... around off balance, off alignment, you know, even with the best will in the world, it has a knock-on effect. The knock-on effect was in my hip positioning, um-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So everything goes up the chain. Everything's connected, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So you're, you're managing your Achilles-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... not having surgery, but you're walking differently. You're moving your body differently, so the strain goes up.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
For you, it was in your back, which then causes the back issue, which goes back to the point we're trying to make, which is-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, 100%
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... you shouldn't... Don't ignore these little nickels.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Or if, I don't know, if every time you do your Saturday park run-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... if at 3K in, 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 after month-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... something's gonna happen at some point. You're, you're... Y- you've got an early warning sign saying, "Hey, listen, you're able to do this."
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
"Your body's strong enough and resilient enough, but there is an imbalance here."
- 37:36 – 52:14
Fear on steep terrain: how to calm people by chunking the problem
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Ab- absolutely. So like even on that point there, the preparation that should be in there by doing biomechanical, um, functioning testing, um, when you apply that to, let's say I'm skiing down the slope, I'm going from a blue run to a red run, or a red run to a black run, for example.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And for someone who's never skied before, can you just explain what that means?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. So a blue run is what your, your first week of your skiing's gonna be on probably. Red run would be your second, third, fourth week e- e- exploring and getting better at skiing.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So they're getting steeper and steeper.
- WSWarren Smith
They get steeper and steeper and more challenging. But when you're on a slope that's quite steep and you're being 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 only been dropping four on the, the, the descent of the slope. That can get really scary. So, so what wasn't prepared for from 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. Um, or it can put you at a much higher risk of injury because you are being put into a, a situation or a zone which 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, I'm really confident. That first turn got you into a very confident place, but the second turn in my world, this is, this is-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... ski specific. Unfortunately, you skied across the slope and that second turn was on 10 degrees steeper, just happened to be, but you unluckily were on your weaker turning direction to the left. Now that, that, that adds up. That, that's where you're working in terrain and working with biomechanicals.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. There's another point there for me, Warren, which I think is really, is really key, which is this idea that, so we're talking about these gradients of a ski slope, but you can apply that to, you know, you know, just as your sport gets harder or you're running steeper and steeper hills, whatever it might be, okay?
- WSWarren Smith
Mm.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
It's the same principle, but the blue slope being quite, um, shallow, the red being a bit steeper, and the black being the steepest, right? If we just, 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.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Because it's not steep enough to push you. You've got enough compensation within you to get away with it.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So you think you're fine. But actually to, to your eye, and I would say my eye now, you can quite eas- you can easily see it when in people on a blue slope.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
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-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. It's because-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... often is because actually no, you just, you sort of didn't address-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... the problems that were there even when you skied on a blue slope.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Yeah. Th- th- this is brilliant what you're saying. In fact, [laughs] if anyone wants a 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, a beginner scenario, learn to do a snowplow. And in fact, someone, a journalist who was, who came to a ski session of ours in Hemel, uh, the snow center, uh, which you guys in Manchester have one of those as well, the indoor snow dome. Um, we were running a, a, a ski course, and it was for advanced skiers, you know, in, in all fairness. Um, and the lady that was interviewing me sort of said, "Oh, you know, Ski Technique Lab, it's tech and it's, you know, lab and it's all this stuff. It's obviously just for advanced skiers, right?" And I was like, "Do you know what? Absolutely not. If anything..." And I was so lucky. In this moment, um, there happened to be a beginner lesson going on. So anyone like trying to dip their toe in like, do I want to do snow sports, you know, we'll come to it later, like there's one big reason from a psychological point of view why it's worth trying, uh, the snow sports.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- WSWarren Smith
Um, but in terms of what this woman saw, I was like, I know what you just said. You think it's tech, it's tech, it's high tech, it's advanced, it's like this, that and the other. We saw the beginner lesson going on, and it was just about to get to that stage, uh, which some people might be experiencing this winter for the first time, where you're, you're snowplowing. Snowplow is your first part of your progression, and they were just about to learn to snowplow turn. And I said, "I know you say what you say, but just watch this. These guys, for the first time in their life, are gonna do a turn on skis." And every single person, like clockwork, thankfully for me, trying to explain this to a journalist who thought it was just advanced, s- naturally steered one way. Their success was so, so apparent and they went to turn the other way, and rather than just repeating back the other direction, they swung their shoulders and upper body into that direction because something down there didn't function.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Didn't work.
- WSWarren Smith
It didn't work, and it was like-There you go, point blank. Like, right 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, in your leisure. Um, but straightaway there, it happened. Now, I relate a solution in this kind of point as well. My 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 break for, you know, three or four months away from it, I feel good one side, and I know, you know, I know-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- WSWarren Smith
... 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 un- unbalanced, sometimes painful on one side. But yoga, for me, shows it up.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. Fear's quite an interesting one when we think about it through the lens of skiing, right? So people are up on a mountain-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... which is an unfamiliar environment to many people-
- 52:14 – 1:03:31
Perspective and elevation: mountains, nature, Snow Camp, and EMDR ‘happy place’
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
to skiers and non-skiers I think is to do with perspective.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So you are lucky enough to live in the gorgeous mountains of Verbier.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay? So the views are stunning. And you, you shared before that there are, have been some challenges in your personal life.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. Absolutely.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Okay? Over the last few years.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Can we talk a little bit about perspective? What, what does it do for you when things are going off in your personal life-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... but then for your job you get up out into the mountains? Like, what, what... Do you... Help us understand that.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. So, so for me, um, personally, having the view or the perspective of looking out and seeing, when you're elevated, you're, 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, and I know other people do feel this, that you're... It kind of weirdly, for me, I, I find it difficult to switch off, right? So, so I, I, sometimes I'm not brilliant at sleep. Uh, brain goes about 1,000 miles an hour. And I, and I have to like, you know, sometimes, you know, figure out a way that I'm gonna get, get the sleep to try and get the energy back up. When I've got the perspective of a, of a huge view and a space of, like, distance, I naturally, something in me naturally switches off and unwinds. Um, we've, we've often done, um, things with a charity we work with called Snow Camp. So Snow Camp is where we get a chance as skiers, you know, so we've, we've, we've done all right in the ski industry, we, we, we wanna give back to things that we've, we've, we've been lucky enough to come from. And we've, we've taken a lot of kids who have been in really sort of rough situations. Uh, it's usually London-based, South London-based, but the Snow Camp charities exist all over the UK. The ones that we worked with were London sort of scenarios, and we, we got kids out of bad environments, um, bad environments that were triggering them to do bad things. Um, wasn't their fault, that they were just in the place where, whether they liked it or not, there was a strong, uh, percentage outcome things would go negatively for them-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... if you measured it. When they came out to the Alps, the same kids, put into in perspective, um, were they... They- their- Let's just say their vehicle was the fact they did our ski instructor training program, right? So they came to Verbier. We sponsored these guys through Snow Camp, um, and they did a ski instructor training program, and they... It was incredible to watch how they turned upIn the resort, quite edgy, quite, not, chippy is the wrong word, but quite tense and-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- WSWarren Smith
... and stressed, you know? Their natural perception and their demeanor, uh, within a week completely changed. Their performance, their ability to perform, um, was excellent. A lot of these kids who, 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 ski instructor-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Wow
- WSWarren Smith
... training program. They worked for us. Uh, one of them came out and worked for us, ended up teaching members of the royal family I was skiing with. And y- you almost couldn't explain it, but it was like, wow, you know, I'm, I'm in a, I'm in a completely different environment. Now, n- not so much to do with us and what the content of the program was, the, the individual you could see by perspective and, uh, elevation and distance and, like, you know, forget about the postcard-looking beauty of the place or a lovely chalet, but you forget about all that. Just the simple elevation of seeing a greater distance as opposed to the opposite of being low down with a really tall skyscraper around you, whatever you wanna call it. But basically, if you're, if you're continually down there in an environment that's trapped, you know, that's darker, it's more dingy, you're boxed in and whatever, and you flip it upside down and this person then gets elevated and stuck on this... For us, we're lucky 'cause we're on the mountain, and it can get even cooler when you're really high up and you've, you've achieved and you've hiked up to a peak. But the mental side of that and how it physically reflected, if you, if you just look at the shoulders and someone's stance and someone's... You know, you've seen it where someone's got the tension in their body-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... where it kind of, for me, the mountains unwinds. People just switch off, and everything becomes a lot more like, "Ah, I can breathe out." Personally, I actually used it, and we talk about personal scenarios. I had, I had a really bad road cycling accident in, um, uh, it was, uh, 2017-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- WSWarren Smith
... where my front tire blew out, and, um, I ended up in hospital for 10 days and shattered my hips, dislocated my shoulder, twisted my lower leg the wrong way around. It was all sort of terrible for my ski career. Um, and I ended up having to have therapy for it because I didn't get knocked out when, when I hit. My bike was going downhill about 75K. Front tire blew out, bang, hit the ground quite hard. And, um, I, I, I kept having these things at night where I was like, I was re, uh, picturing it. I couldn't-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... switch the picture off. And, um, I went to a therapy session which was labeled EMDR, right? So, uh, and, and I didn't believe in it 'cause I, I kind of... I'm the hardest person. Like, you know, lights going like zoom, zoom. It just reminded me of Clockwork Orange. So I was like-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
[laughs]
- WSWarren Smith
... I, I don't believe in this stuff. [laughs] Um, so p- and this woman was persistent, and she was brilliant. And she said, um... 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 through a process. And she was writing these notes, and she said, and she asked me to, "Pick your happy place," right? And at the time I was breaking up in a relationship with someone. That was quite stressful, and it, it had other factors of, like, my son being involved. And all solutions were made, and it was all ended up well and good. But in her process, um, 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, it's my balcony of my house where I live in Switzerland." And actually, over the... I bought 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, um, and, and feel-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm-hmm
- WSWarren Smith
... not that I'm protected, but just feel like I've got a moment of peace, you know, a moment to-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm-hmm
- WSWarren Smith
... let the body, let the mind, whew, sort of reset, recover. And weirdly enough, um, the, there was almost like a delayed effect of this EMDR therapy working. And, and to this day, um, whether it was how she used my happy place being ele- elevated, my balcony and my view, I, I've got... I'm lucky that I've got, like, a 180-degree view. I could see over to the, uh, the face we were talking about there from a chalet. There's lots of memories-
- 1:03:31 – 1:12:37
Avalanche wake-up call: risk, ego, climate shifts, and ‘knowing enough’
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Talking about perspective-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... I think about the fact that you were caught in an avalanche early on in your career.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And I'm really interested to know, Warren, well, if you could tell us a little bit about that experience-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and what you learnt, or what changed in you from going through it.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, so the avalanche I was caught in, I was quite lucky actually. I, um... You can be in an avalanche where you're caught in it, and you're, you're sort of bit like being in a washing machine effect. Um, you can end up, when everything stops, head down, feet up. Um, I was the other way around. My head was right next to the surface. Anyway, I got caught in it and, um, I was lucky, I got out. Um, but, but to me, it really, uh... it made me reflect a lot on, on life. I remember getting in the car that afternoon and driving to a trade show to go and see one of my ski sponsors, like you mentioned, Volkl. And, and going through your mind, all that drive is like, "God, what, what if? You 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. Um, I, I dealt with scenarios in skiing in my early days where I did silly things, took high risk. My first child came along, and I definitely lowered the tone of the risk taking, but I still took the risk. After that avalanche, um, in 2008, the... I, I, I definitely changed a lot about it. You know, sometimes we are just caught in the, the... with the blinkers on and we're just going full speed ahead with m- not much time to think sort of laterally 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?
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. It's kind of... We're, we're talking about avalanches, and when you come close to death-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... how it changes the way that you value life and appreciate life.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? You have an increased sense of gratitude usually.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But of course skiing these days, not, certainly not when you guys teach or at academy, which is very, very safe, but a lot of people out with those things, a lot of people by themselves often will go into some quite gnarly-
- WSWarren Smith
Mm
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... ski terrain.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Um, I've done a couple of ski seasons in Chamonix with my-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... band earlier on, you know, maybe 20 years ago or so, and, you know, every year people die.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, 100%.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Right? Usually not when they're being coached and doing... So it's, it's off doing crazy stuff usually, right?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You've had friends, I believe, who have died when out in the mountains. What has that done to how you view life?
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah. I think knowing a- and h- seeing, uh, the repercussions, it's made us try and raise awareness for sure. The... One of the first things that when you see the damage it does, when someone's taken before they should be and, and leave, it's, it's something that affects such a big wealth of people that you, you want to do something about it, and you want to raise, raise awareness. And in our game, um, we often see scenarios nowadays where someone didn't expect it. Someone did all the preparation work, but because of the environmental element of the way the planet's warming up and the way that things are changing in the winter, preparation, preparation, preparation didn't always get the outcome-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... because there was some chance involved.But it still remains the fact that if you can educate someone a little bit. I mean-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... our, our bigger issue at the moment is temperature shifts. So we are getting now in a winter season, unless, like you said, more and more people have, have, um, uh, have been caught in avalanches in recent years especially. But in January last year, you've got a temperature shift of -10 to +10 in the space of 24 hours. That- 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, the temperature shift that's making the snowpack weak, which wasn't there 20, 30 years ago. Now it is. We've gotta be more aware of it, and if there's one thing that someone's life being taken in the mountains in an avalanche has done for me, it's waking up the idea that let as many people know about it as we possibly can. Educate people. Help them prepare. You know, help them realize that there's a, a set bunch of pointers you've gotta check before you go there. And it comes back also to greed a- and want and desire for, you know, you now look at a traverse line to traverse into a beautiful off-piste. Imagine that lovely open powder field, and there's tracks in the powder field, but do you traverse the extra 10 or 20 meters to get something that visually had a perfect flat surface, but above you took a huge amount more risk and risk to life because you were just a bit too far out in that risky zone? Or do you sort of back away from it a little bit and say, "I'm gonna ski this line"? It's still awesome. It's 90% of the awesome that the one that took high risk was-
- 1:12:37 – 1:19:41
What makes a great coach, where to learn more, and the final universal takeaway
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
As someone who's been a coach for several decades, what would you say is the number one skill that you need?
- WSWarren Smith
The number one skill to ski?
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
No, the number one skill you need to be a good coach.
- WSWarren Smith
Oh, wow. [sighs] Listen. I mean, for me, it's listening and understanding the person because my job is to give that person a great experience, and it's very easy to get carried away 'cause we've got the knowledge to give them all the right ingredients. But you've really gotta know who the person is you're going to coach and what their expectation is. You've gotta listen to, not just verbally listen to them-But listen to the, the way that they portray themselves, their expectations, what they wanna get, gain from it, what their history and their profile is. Listen to what they've done. L- listen to the fact, have they, have they done a lot of sport in the past? Are they fragile? Are they a- a- agile? Are they, you know, are they confident?
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- WSWarren Smith
Are they under- underselling themselves? What type of a, a person is it, you know? So the, the listening game-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... covers w- way more than audio. Way, way more than audio.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
I, I think that's the same thing I would say as a doctor. I think the number one skill is your ability to listen.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Listen without preconceived ideas.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Warren, I could talk to you for hours. Um, I, I, I love what you have given to me over the years.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
I love what you brought to the ski industry, and I love the fact that you are keen to get these principles, particularly around our body-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and our biomechanics out to everyone, skiers and non-skiers alike.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
If people wanna find out more about you and sort of ski with your academy or get hold of this gorgeous Ski Technique Lab sort of program now, um, where should they go?
- WSWarren Smith
So, so to, to, I mean, that's a big question there. Um, 95% of people don't take ski lessons, 5% of people do. So, so in terms of the millions of people that ski, if you're a skier, uh, that doesn't take ski lessons, the Ski Technique Lab that sits within our academy, and, and, you know, it's called the Warren Smith Ski Academy, you can Google that, but the Ski Technique Lab is the content, um, that will help someone that doesn't take a ski lesson improve their skiing technique just because of being better at functional movement patterns, and 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, um, the chances are, globally, you probably might not be skiing with us. You'd be skiing with a ski school in a resort. Wherever you go, if you're gonna invest money in a ski lesson, we'd urge you, like beg you, to go and work on the functional movement patterns of Ski Technique Lab. Because if you do so, the value for money at your ski lesson will be at least doubled because the one side of the body's gonna absorb it which it might not have done. And it goes the same for someone buying ski gear as well, you know. One side usually works better than the other. Um, if you are skiing with us, fantastic. You know, c- come and say hi. We're based in Verbier. But also, we're quite often accessible in the UK, um, at the Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead and the Snow Centre in Manchester. Now, these are brilliant indoor ski venues-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- WSWarren Smith
... um, that, that give someone the chance to ski on real snow, uh, which is, which is unusual.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And this sort of new magazine, well, it's not a magazine, it's your, uh, Ski Technique Lab expert program, which I love. I'm looking through it, and although it's, you know, revolves around skiing, you think, "Well, [laughs] actually anyone's gonna benefit from trying to do these simple exercises." If they go to your academy website, can they find the Ski Technique Lab stuff-
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah, if, if they go-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
... and this, this little program on there?
- WSWarren Smith
If they go to our academy website, along the top bar there's an option that says Technique Lab, and if you go into Technique Lab, you'll find the content in there. Um, one of the things we'll evolve and, and people can do is, if they don't get a chance to ski with us, is run an online coaching session with somebody, and that's a way that, "Okay, I'm not going to Verbier, I'm not gonna 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. Um, and quite often, that might be all you need.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah. 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.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
But they wanna stay active, and there are sports that they want to do but feel that they can't do because they're scared or the state of their body or whatever it might be.
- WSWarren Smith
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:19:42
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