4 Powerful Ways to Improve Your Skiing Without Going to the Gym

October 25, 2012

1) Train Your Brain - Not Just Your Brawn

So...what's as important as pumping, jumping, riding, and running? How about training your brain! Start now. Get a goal. It's easy and it will improve your skiing when you train with the 'Right Stuff'.

Our friend Tim Kremer says it best in his ‘Thought of The Day’. Tim publishes these little pearls on his website: http://myspiritofgolf.com/. I’m both a golf pro and a golf nut and I find his daily pearls of wisdom invaluable for both golf and skiing. Here’s an example:

The point is to feel the success without the evidence of it. In other words, to make great golf (skiing) an imaginary journey until we feel so successful on the inside that the success has no choice but to manifest and unfold. This is what the latest research and the emotional practices and techniques we teach are all about: Learning to feel the future as if it has already arrived, and then sitting back and enjoying the dream as we watch it unfold before our very eyes.

St. Augustine, FL - October, 2009

Again, find your inspiration--make a goal, think it, see it, dream it and great skiing can’t help but arrive. If you train your brawn and not your brain, and expect different results, you're a nut. You'll only ski bad... longer.

John’s Goal

My goal is to be a better coach. I have the eyes, the desire and the knowledge to help skiers improve. I want to articulate and demonstrate the CSM with more precision and clarity. This challenges me to continue learning about learning, developing more exciting imagery and more precise syntax.

I’ll always remember what my friend and mentor Cal Cantrell told me; “At the store it’s harder for me to walk to get milk than to ski non-stop down Aspen Mountain.” Like Cal, if I can walk, I can coach.

Happy campers make the walking part easy!

John walking with the Women's Camp

2) Watch This Video...Killy's Got the 'Right Stuff'

I dream about his effortless skiing. I pretend I own his smooth turns when skiing on the simulator. I re-read his books from the 70’s. I gobble up new insights from his videos. I put my picture next to his on Hotel Portillo’s Wall of Fame and I enjoy being called a Killy nut.

Killy’s skiing is my goal, my visualization, and my inspiration. He’s the model for the Clendenin Ski Method.


Skiing Portillo 2011	Killy from Situation Skiing, 1977
I just saw this picture of Killy... ...damn, he found the 'Right Stuff' first!

3) Easy Ways to Find the 'Right Stuff'

Re-read Four Words for Great Skiing; watch Finding the Love Spot: check blogs like: 7 Reasons Why CSM is Easy. Hint: there are layers in these onions. For example: As my team has learned all too well – the 'Keys to the Kingdom' are the path to great skiing. When clients begin to master the ‘keys’ they realize that each one, like an onion, has the potential to reveal layers of awareness. Take the 'Balance Migration Key' . This ‘key’ is primarily focused on teaching us to recognize the pressure sensations migrating across our feet during each turn. The next layer of awareness is what the core and hands do during balance migration. As Mastery of this ‘Key’ develops we become aware of timing our pole flick and directing our attention down slope to our next turn. Like the layers in an onion, each 'key' has the potential for teaching many basic skills for great skiing.

4) Get in a Camp Now for the 'Right Stuff'

You can relax on your butt and be way ahead with 1), 2), and 3) above, when you sign up for your next CSM Camp.