Episode 10: Paul Kimbrough, Big Mountain Telemark Skier

photo 1 (1)

A self proclaimed “Professional Ski Bum,” Paul has been skiing since he was two and freeheeling since 2005.

He has competed in big mountain telemark competitions from Crested Butte Colorado to Alyeska Alaska and won a couple of them.

A mainstay in Powderwhore films, Paul is feartured in “Flakes,” “Breaking Trail,” “Television”, “Elevation,” and their newest film, “Some Thing Else.”

He is excited about coaching and skiing with the youth of telemark as much as possible and fostering a future for the sport.

photo 2 (1)

Talked in this Episode:

Partnering with Jake Sakson, Paul started the Beartooth Basin Telemark Camp that offers two sessions of freeride telemark instruction in June.

Check out telemarkfreeridecamps.com

 for more info and register before January 15th for a $200 discount.

Paul’s Sponsors

Episode 009: Shaun Raskin, Big Mountain Telemark Skier

Shaun Raskin

Shaun Raksin is a rad telemark skier.

She is considered one of the best Big Mountain telemark skier on the planet. Let’s dive in her life as a pro telemark skier. Let’s see exactly how she became one of the top telemark female athlete on the planet. Listen up to the story of Shaun Raskin

8103_10150930144301652_1174870210_n

shaun link:

The life Unbound

http://thelifeunbound.com/

Shaun Raskin

http://shaunraskin.com/

Inspired Summit, Guiding with Shaun

http://www.inspiredsummit.com/

Megan Michelson

http://www.meganmichelson.com/

Crested butte

http://www.skicb.com/

Favorite skier:

Weston Deutschlander  >>see his website here<<

Shaun’s Sponsors

22logoonwhitejpeg

BCALogoBlue

I’m Pumped, Here’s Why

optin darkfooter

Hey Telemark Tribe

This is it.

The moment a lot of you have been waiting for.
I’m so so excited.
Here are a few example of people emailing me about it

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 9.07.16 PM

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 9.57.38 PM

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 10.01.35 PM

 

This years Telemark Foundation is going to be out of this league
I’ve been working  VERY HARD and I know you’ll LOVE IT.

But more on that in a little bit.

A little bit about me:

When I started telemark skiing, I got hook instantly.

But it took me a couple of years to become comfortable on my telemark. I was not instantly at the same level that I was alpine skiing but I was out there doing it full time. At that point I had left the ski instructor position and moved out west in the Canadian Rockies. That first year, I had a hard a time on my tele.

Yes I enjoyed every moment, but I also struggle to ski the things I wanted to ski.
I can’t count how many times I cart wheeled down the slope or how many times I fell head first for memorable face plants.

Looking back, this was the most dangerous time in my progression. 

I wanted to improve but I didn’t know how. 

And I now realize I could have seriously injured a knee, my back or a shoulder. 

I had  a few people around to show me but it was always the “just do like me” technique. 

Today people usually do not believe  that I have no real talent for telemark

But it’s true. If you look at my progression, I was not different than the average skier. 

But I skied a lot. That’s really all I did.
More than 100 days a year for 15 years. 

I’ve built a shack, camped, lived in trailers to work as little as possible and to ski as much as possible.

The best season was 1999-2000 in Whistler. I got a job at the ski school. In those days, if you told them you had a place to stay, they would hire you.
But on the first day when I told them I did not have a pair of alpine skis, they were dumb founded. They put me with the 3-4 years old and told me I could keep my winter boots. Perfect.

I worked 2 days a week, lived in a shack I built literally between two runs, and I skied every day I could. That year, I met a lot of really good telemark skiers, and skied with them. They showed me around but also, I got to watch them and try to execute. 

If I’m not the fastest learner, my real talent is to analyse others.

How they do it, what they do that’s different, and I started to analyse every part of their skiing.

I remember one guy name Simon, a local that could do anything from jumping of 90 foot cliff to ski 65 degree slope to carve on ice. He was and still is today, the best telemark skier I’ve meet. And he was dedicated to being out there, in the mountains, day in and day out. I immediately hit it off with Simon.

moi sur whistler

Me on Whistler Peak

me and simon

Fissile Me and Simon heading to the Fissile’s North face

Simon in north face of Fissile

Simon dropping in the North Face couloir

I also skied with a lot of other telemark skiers.

From looking at Simon and other great telemark skiers. I realize something.

That something became the basic element of how I teach telemark, how I analyse people’s main problem or flaw as I like to call it.

This is so powerful yet so simple.

Here’s why:

There’s only ONE THING that separates very good telemark skiers and the average telemark skier I was.
Only one thing.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s not talent

(When someone tells me they can’t progress it has nothing to do with pure talent. Even at high competitive levels, talent comes second).

It’s not equipment.

(The average telemark skier can spend 1000 to 3000$ a year on equipment, some way more. Good equipment is fun to have and it has improved greatly in the past decade but there were awesome telemark skiers before that).

It’s not where you ski or who you ski with

(Too many telemark skier focus on looking around to see who’s doing it and not)

So what is it?

It’s knowing what is killing your telemark right NOW

It’s having the ability to understand the steps to get where you want to be.

Not just being good,

Because, like Henry Ford said: Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re RIGHT

Here’s why:

Telemark is unique. The flow is unique.

Remember when you first got to link a few turns and just got that Haha moment.

And as you progress, it only gets better. The feeling of a great flowy powder run, or carving so much that your uphill leg touhs the snow is hard to beat. 

And that’s often leading to not knowing what to focus on, what to do next in order to get that feeling

And we all know the reward: the feeling of the FREE HEEL, the energy created from those turns…

The best part?

Imagine you could know for sure what is killing your telemark skiing. 

Know exactly the steps you need to do to improve like never before.

Once you start on this path, it become addictive.

But the truth is, the path to becoming a great telemark skier is not that complicated.

You only need to focus on the keys that will get you to the next step.

If you’ve have been telemark skiing for a couple of years, it becomes harder and harder to improve.

That’s a big problem.

Because when the good times comes, you want to enjoy every turn.

Whether is that trip that you have been planing or when the conditions are heaven like:

… I want to feel like I’m surfing down the hill.

… I want to carve that groomer,

… I want to float through powder and get those face shoots

… In the spring, I want to enjoy that perfect corn snow just soft enough that I can rail those turns, just hard enough that I can blast at high speed.

When the good times come (and there’s only a few a year) I certainly don’t want to feel insecure
(Am I going to break my leg and miss three weeks of work?)

I want to be on my A game and enjoy that flow so unique to the telemark turn.

The BIG question is:

How can you make this season the best in your life.

 … without loosing the fun of the free heel turn

… without waisting days being burnt by noon

… without being frustrated spending time on tips that won’t work for you. 

That’s where my project comes in.

I’m dubbing December “Biggest Change in your Telemark Month.”

And beginning on December 7th, I’ll share my recipe on how to create dedication, improve dramatically and find that light bulb moment you had that day. There will be HD videos, all-new webinars, and more.

More specifically, here’s what to expect:

This tutorials are based on the 7 flaws of telemark.

Through out my 17 years of teaching … I’ve discovered theses flaws kept coming back. 

The 7 flaws are so powerful because they focus on what is not working NOW

Telemark is a complexe synchronization of movement.

Your main flaw is looking you down, whatever you try to improve, it’s not going to be easy.

Sometimes, focusing on the wrong problem can even get you in the wrong direction and do even more arm than good.

I’ve developed this method to rapidly and efficiently solve people’s main flaw. 

Yeah that’s right. 

We all have a main flaw that is really killing our telemark technique, and by simply eliminating that flaw, you will improve dramatically. 

In this three video series, I will show you all the flaws.

I’ll also take you behind the scenes of two people that have followed this method.
Plus, you will get access to the exact sequence I use to improve year after year and how to effectively apply it to you.

This all means that I’m going to send you a lot of email over the next few weeks. And there will be work for you to do.

Right NOW?

You see, we’re starting the 2014-15 season, and if you’d like to CRUSH it on telemark from day 1, you’re going to LOVE the material I prepared for you.

But if you feel like you’re already skiing great, and you don’t need to know how really fast forward your path to improvement, feel free to click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email. No hard feelings.

Still here?

Great.

As I said, I will begin sending this material to you starting on December the 7th. In the mean time, I want you to do two things:

Thing #1

If you are not on my Newsletter, you need to subscribe to get all the content.

Here’s the link.

If you already receive my emails, great you’re all set

Thing #2

Are you going to join me (and the rest of the Telemark Tribe) on this journey towards passion and dedication  ?

Leave a comment BELOW

In that comment, I want you to do one simple thing: tell us what is your greatest challenge on telemark. That’s it!

I’m still putting the finishing touches on this material, and this will be your chance to get your question answered by me personally.

Go leave a comment now.

Talk soon,
Rene-Martin

P.S. Look, if you are interested in improving massively this winter, don’t miss this. Over the next few days, I’m going to send you a TON of FREE training on how to telemark

Episode 008: Josh Madsen Telemark Skier Magasine

Knockles

TELEMARK TUTORIALS

VIDEO LESSONS that will change your skiing

Today we meet with Josh Madsen.

He’s been exclusively a telemark skier since 1992. Loving it. He’s been a sponsored athlete since 2002. In 2004, he started a webzine called FreeheelLife.com that ran until 2008. He’s appeared in several movie productions including Warren Miller’s Higher Ground (2005) as well as many independent telemark movies. He’s produced, filmed, edited and toured internationally 5 of my own telemark movies. He was the Editor of Telemark Skier Magazine 2009-12. He then purchased Telemark Skier Magazine in 2012. He’s just opened Freeheel Life Telemark Ski Shop in 2014.

faceshoot

Quote:

Nobody is really doing this, we can really make it OUR OWN

Link to this episode

The inspiration

Max Mancini

Pete Gallup

Bones Murphy

Unparalleled II  (Links to amazon to buy the movie, I have not found a youtube preview. One left for sale!

Sondre Norheim and Morgedal

 

Around home

Little Cottonwood

and Big Cottonwood

Alta

JT Robinson and his project Vertical Integration

 

Josh on the web

Telemark Skier.com

The FreeHeel Life.com

Instagram (with the girl tatoo)

Twitter

Facebook and he’s personal account

youtube

 

A few of Josh edits that we talked in the  interview.

You can find a lot of these for sale on TelemarkSkier.com  The freeheellife.com and look for more great stuff on youtube

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbPwubpnYg