The Ski Instructor Podcast

Welcome to episode 60 of The Ski Instructor Podcast, this week featuring an avalanche awareness special with Julian Griffiths of European Snowsports. Julian's ski school has lost two instructors free skiing in the last three years to avalanches and this episode is a summary of the police investigation report in to the most recent one, in which Joel and his friend Joel, were taken. Julian is going...

Hey everyone, welcome to episode 59 of The Ski Instructor Podcast. For this episode, I had long and interesting conversation with John Eames, Director of The Off Piste and Telemark Ski Company and former telemark director for BASI. This conversation is quite telemark centric and covers John's skiing background, the rise and fall of telemark skiing, evolution of equipment and technique versus alpin...

Welcome to episode 58 of the podcast and an interview I did with Perry and Jeff from the new Canadian ski instructor association, The Professional Ski Instructors of Canada, PSIC. We had a great wide ranging chat, talking mostly about the new organisation and their objectives but also chatting other things like Interski, attracting new people into snowsports and Perry and Jeff themselves. You can...

Welcome to episode 57 of The Ski Instructor Podcast, this week featuring a return to the pod for Jon and Tom. Jon and Tom have gone in a new direction with their own ski instructor training company, Level Up Ski Coaching.  You can find them here: www.levelupskicoaching.com Insta and FB @levelupskicoaching In this episode we chat all things to do with their new venture, ski instructor cars and acco...

Welcome to episode 56 of The Ski Instructor Podcast and finally, I get round to doing the Q+A episode that I promised you all so long ago. I was on a week long motorbike tour with Phil Brown of Impulse Racing and we had a chance to sit down one evening overlooking Lake Como and go through the questions that you all sent in. I want to thank you for taking the time to send them in. Happy listening D...

Welcome to episode 55 of The Ski Instructor Podcast and part 2 of my chat with Darren Turner.   I travelled to Aosta in the autumn to chat with Darren about his life in skiing, his career as an instructor and his subsequent changes of direction after skiing. Darren grew up skiing in the UK and Europe, eventually becoming an independent instructor in Serre Chevalier in France. In this episode we ch...

Welcome to episode 54 of The Ski Instructor Podcast.     I travelled to Aosta in the autumn to chat with Darren Turner about his life in skiing, his career as an instructor and his subsequent changes of direction after skiing. Darren grew up skiing in the UK and Europe, eventually becoming an independent instructor in Serre Chevalier in France. As well as this, he created the wildly successful Ski...

Welcome to episode 53 of The Ski Instructor Podcast. This week I have an Interski Review Podcast for you with Derek Tate.  Derek went to Interski 2023 in Levi in Finalnd and reports back on some of the seminars and on snow practical sessions that he attended.   The theme at this years' Interski was the 'Guest Experience' which as many of you know by now, is a topic close to my heart. In the episod...

Welcome to episode 52 of the podcast.   This week I have the second part of a 2 part interview I did in the autumn with Stuart Bernard of Ski Focus. Stuart splits his time between working in the snow domes in the UK and skiing with clients in Tignes. We chatted about the value of indoor practice, bumps, marketing and more on bad backs and mental approaches to skiing. You can find Stuart at www.ski...

Welcome to episode 51 of the podcast.   This episode I have the first part of a 2 part interview I did in the autumn with Stuart Bernard of Ski Focus. Stuart splits his time between working in the snow domes in the UK and skiing with clients in Tignes. We had a wide reaching chat talking about Stuart's journey to becoming an instructor, ski philosophy, mindset and technique.  I found Stuart to be...

Hello and happy new year to you all.  I hope that Santa brought you all new skis and lots of snow. So here we are at episode 50 of The Ski Instructor Podcast.  I'm personally amazed that I have managed to find enough content to keep this interesting for 50 episodes and 80,000 downloads. For the 50th episode, which also doubles as the late Christmas special, I bring you a great interview with Katie...

Welcome to episode 49 of The Ski Instructor Podcast and part 2 of my interview with Simon Jones, who is the head freestyle coach at Kimberley in Canada.  Simon is originally British but now lives full time in Canada, coaching skiing in the winter and golf in the summer. In this episode we discuss the CSIA structure, client service, teaching of both skiing and golf. You can find Simon on instagram...

Welcome to episode 48 of The Ski Instructor Podcast.  It's been a while since the last podcast, the autumn is a super busy time for me given my role at  www.snow-pros.ski This week, I present to you part 1 of a great interview with Simon Jones, who is the head freestyle coach at Kimberley in Canada.  Simon is originally British but now lives full time in Canada, coaching skiing in the winter and g...

Welcome to episode 47 of The Ski Instructor Podcast, this week featuring Federico Wenzel from Argentina.   The summer heat here is finally fading and there is an autumnal feeling in the air at higher altitudes. I had a great chat with Federico who is working his way through the Argentine ski instructor qualifications.  We touched on many topics, including the Argentine system itself, early experie...

Welcome to episode 46 of The Ski Instructor Podcast, this week featuring Harry McFadden part 2. Our conversation carries on and in part 2 I finally put to bed my questions about the Japanese technical champs.  We also talk about China, Italy and this summer's NZ season. Finally we talk tech on where the turn comes from. I hope you are all well and enjoying this hot summer or southern hemisphere wi...

Welcome to episode 45 of The Ski Instructor Podcast, this week featuring Harry McFadden part 1. Hopefully this episode will be just in time for the start of the New Zealand winter and will provide some inspiration for all those heading to NZ to ski. We chat on a wide range of topics including getting your new season going, fatigue between seasons, his journey to full cert and differences in system...

Welcome to part 2 of The Ski Instructor Podcast's episode with Helen Trayfoot who is an independent instructor based in Chatel, France. This week we chat more about teaching children to ski, female representation in snowsports, teaching in a french ski school and some general technique chat, including pole swing weight.  I really enjoyed chatting with Helen and I think that comes across in this po...

Welcome to part 1 of episode 43 of The Ski Instructor Podcast.  This episode is with Helen Trayfoot who is an independent instructor based in Chatel, France. We chat about her twin journeys towards French nationality and full certification.  We then go on to discussing teaching children to ski, which is the main focus of these episodes. New York City cabbie does French numbers: https://www.youtube...

Welcome to episode 42 of the podcast and to one that I have been a long time getting round to recording.   Colin Martin is a boot fitting specialist who looks after my own boots.  He is based in Bicester in the UK and is always on my list of places to visit when I go back to Blighty.   In this episode we chat all things feet and boots, as well as some random chat about boats. You can find Colin at...

Welcome to episode 41 and this year's Christmas special roundtable chat. Joining me were Phil Brown of Impulse Racing, Julian Griffiths of European Snowsports and Steve Hindman from the US Nordic Demo Team.   We chatted on a wide range of topics from topics as diverse as mince pies to the last two years running a ski business during covid.  We talk also about digital tech and it's place in skiing...

Welcome to episode 40, the second part of my interview with Jon Ahlsen. In this one, we go a lot more in depth about skiing and we get into detail about different national ski systems, lots (more)chat about the Japanese technical champs, an insight into the mind of a national team race coach, in depth technical discussion and a review of last winter. You can find out more about Jon and his work he...

In episode 39 and 40 of the podcast, I chat to Jon Ahlsen.  I went to his place in Verbier and spent a wonderful 2.5 hours chatting all things skiing and life in general.  Jon is a deep thinker on most subjects and I very much enjoyed getting to know him more that I already did. We chat in part 1 about summer skiing on the glacier, corparate life vs skiing life, fashion, his journey in skiing and...

This week I have a great interview that I did with Dan Egan, US ski hall of famer and author of a new skiing book '30 years in a white haze' which you can find here https://www.white-haze.com Dan has featured in numerous Warren Miller ski movies and runs his own ski camps in the US and Europe www.skiclinics.com We chat about all things skiing, growing up in Boston, skiing as a kid and then growing...

Welcome to episode 37 of The Ski Instructor Podcast and part 2 of this interview with Peter Kuwall.  I had so much to talk to PK about that I had to extend this interview across two episodes. We carry on our interview and talk about the effects of Brexit, transcendent performance, his time on the BASI board and the long awaited living in a barn story.  If you want to get in touch with PK, you can...

Welcome to episode 36 of The Ski Instructor Podcast and one that I have been looking forward to since I first began drawing up my list of people I wanted to speak to. Peter Kuwall is my guru, a guy who has probably forgotten more about skiing than I will ever know. We talk about how he came up in the industry, the boom years of Scottish skiing, how teaching and mechanical engineering relate and th...