 There is. Hello, hello. Everyone good? Everyone good? Mike checks, Mike checks. Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. Yes. Okay, so let's get things started then. First of all, thank you to everybody out there who has tuned in to listen to us talk about basically the growth of UK free skin. And we're calling it grassroots to green shoots and it's a bit about kind of the development of the free ski scene in the UK, UK, particularly freestyle and kind of where it was and how it's got to where it is now. And I'm joining me this evening. We've got three guests. We've got Katie summer Hayes, we've got Tyler Harding and we've got Pat Sharples, all big figures within the UK freestyle skis ski scene and I let them introduce themselves and talk a bit about their skiing and what they've done. But kind of the biggest link between us all I think is possibly Salomon and we've got to say thanks to Salomon for bringing us all together and having this this conversation. But first off, let me introduce who I am. I'm Mark Watson I work for Ellis Brigham. I used to be on the Salomon free ski team a long time ago as well as the Ellis Brigham one. And finally I work on the ski hardware side of things now with Brigham's. So let's get everyone introduced then Katie let's start with you tell a bit about kind of who you are, you know any, any, anything that you want to tell us about your skiing history as well. So I'm Katie 25 from Sheffield. Yeah, started skiing when I was six years old at the Sheffield ski village, and obviously just loved it right away and not just freestyle just just skiing in general. And then I joined the local ski club up there and pretty much as I've been hooked ever since I did racing moguls, half packed slope style, everything you could think of, but just took to freestyle. Not sure why I think it's just more free and do what you want and no rules as such but yeah just loved it since then and met Pat and Tyler probably about the same time I was 11 years old or maybe a bit younger. And on the Salomon grom camps. And that just really brought us together. And we just went from there. And I was just always, always dreamt to be on the Salomon team. And all my heroes in the like, we ski scene we're all on Salomon. So that's what I wanted. And yeah, I think I've been riding for Salomon since pretty much I was 11 years old. Yeah. Excellent. All right. I'm from, I'm Tyler Harding. I'm 24 years old. I'm from Halifax in West Yorkshire. I was skiing ever since I was about four or five years old. I was supposed to, well I started out snowboarding, but around that age I was too small. So my dad got me in ski school because basically had to like shove me into ski school so my mum could actually have a snowboard holiday. And that got me going with that. And then I don't know, I skied a lot of Halifax and obviously there's people come from there like Jamie Nichols and Katie Omerod who are big figures in the snowboard scene. And I just kind of watched what they did and wanted to kind of replicate what they did on skis. And my dad kind of noticed it. And that's when he found out about Patchchapel's Grum Camps. And when I went there I was like, oh my God, this is actually like, you know, this is a bigger thing than I thought it was. I thought I was just, you know, going off a little jump and having fun at Halifax. And I went to Rosendale and did some Grum Camps at Pat when I was like eight years old and just kind of took off from there. I loved it. So here I am. Excellent. Excellent. And Pat, you've been around for a while now. So we'll have the slim down version, please. We haven't got all evening. Yeah, you're right, Mark. I won't say my age, but I am very old. But very much like TJ and Kate, I came from the dry slopes as well. My local dry ski slope was Rosendale ski centre. There used to be a small little Ellis Brigham shop there as well actually. I used to pop in there. My dad used to take me in every time after I finished skiing so I could look around at all the new equipment. But just like, you know, those guys, you know, I got involved in just in all different aspects of skiing. It wasn't freestyle from the start. To be honest, it was more outpouring or just playing around with my skis and just having fun. And I then sort of played around with lots of different disciplines. But one of my major ones was mogul skiing. And I moved out to the mountains when I was 16 to try and find the job and support my sort of skiing, my ski career over there. And got more involved in the big mountain freeriding as well as the mogul side of it. And I think I was incredibly lucky because I was right at the start of the whole free ski movement. The industry was changing and the equipment was changing and it was in 1996 that Solomon brought out the first twin tip ski, the Solomon 1080. The Ellen 1080 ski still makes me smile even when I see a picture of that now. And backcountry as well, the skis were getting wider. The technology was just, you know, improving massively and it to me opened up like a whole new world for me within skiing again. So like by the time I was in my mid 20s, it felt like I'd just stumbled on a whole new spot and it just got more exciting from there. Brilliant. Excellent. Okay, I'm just a quick one before we move on just to let you know that we are on Facebook live and we're also on zoom. So get your questions coming in. I'm going to start off with a few, but feel free to, you know, post your comments, questions in the comments section on Facebook and on zoom as well. We've got someone manning it. So I will get your questions and we're trying to get into the guys. Okay, so Katie and Tyler, you probably did touch on this a little bit, but UK is not an obvious place to to kind of start freestyle skiing. So what, what was it that that kind of really inspired you to pick up a pair of skis and actually have a go at, you know, doing some jumps and doing some rails. Katie, we got you first. So I, yeah, I joined the local ski club pretty much I think the only rule was that you had to get up the lift and get down pretty much. Yeah, as soon as I was six years old, yeah, we joined that in Sheffield Sharks ski club. And yeah, as part of Saturday morning sessions, you did one hour on the main slope. So we're kind of drills the racing technique and then one hour in the fun park. And so I was just in like, I was aware of it from an early age just going off the jump doing touch jumps, star jumps and all that. And then when you got a bit better and a bit older, you could go on Thursday nights, where you even did two hours freestyle or two hours racing. And so I did a bit of both. I loved, I honestly loved racing. And I think if I would have done freestyle, I'd have still skied in some way. And so yeah, I just got involved with freestyle. But then as I got all my parents made me go to the race training, which I, yeah, all my friends will be in the fun park and I'd be like doing my I'd go through the gates, which I love, but I know your friends are doing the cool tricks. I was a bit like, I mean, I loved it. And I would still compete in all the, all the, all the racing. But yeah, and then I don't know, it just kind of, and that's when I joined the Grand Camps. But while I was at the Grand Camps, I was still doing my race training. So it was only really when I was 13, 14, I think I went to world championship to something for freestyle. Yeah, so, but, but up until then I was doing kind of everything, vocals training as well. Brilliant, brilliant. And yourself, Tyler, how about you? See, Holly Fax, we didn't have anywhere to do any racing. So over there was literally just like one little, you know, a couple little droppings and then a jump or two jumps. And there wasn't really a ski scene around there either. So I was growing up with a bunch of snowboarders, obviously Nichols and Katie Omrod to be two of them. And I just kind of watched what they did. And I just thought it was really fun to do that because, you know, it was quite unique. It's still unique now is freestyle skiing, but back then I thought it was very unique as well. So it's different to go out, you know, and express myself and, and learn and do and I found that really fun. Yeah. And then when my dad found out about patch apples, grumb camps, like, I just saw that there was 30, 40 other people on the same slope all doing the same thing. Yeah. And you know, and everybody was just loving it like back in the day when we did that it was it was the best part of the week. Yeah, that's what I got myself into every week or every fortnight and I just never really looked back at that point. Yeah, brilliant. Okay, so here's one for you Pat. So looking at the scene now and kind of when you started, what are kind of the differences that you see between the two? It is so different now. Like, it's hard to even compare. Like, when I got involved in free skiing or when free skiing started, should I say, you know, we were just experimenting, you know, this was even before your time, Mark, you know, there was, there was myself, there was Dave Young, the godfather we call him of a GB free skiing, Jim Adlington, there was a few of us. And it was almost like we'd have ideas in our head, you know, and think things through about tricks that might work and it was almost like rocks is a paper, you know, to see who was going to go and try it. And normally, you know, once a week somebody had ended up in hospital, pretty much. Normally Dave was like, yeah, he sort of sent it a little bit more than the rest of us. But that's just what it was, you know, there was, there wasn't really about events, it wasn't about anything else apart from it was more just try, try and fail for fun. And that was it. And it was exciting times because you could be so creative, you know, the feeling you've got when you learn a new trick. And this was the time that the, you know, filmmaking everybody could like, you know, the digital cameras and everyone could make their own ski movies as well. So we were looking at all our heroes within free skiing and you know, we were almost like, well, we can try and make our own little ski movies. We did a lot of that ourselves and, you know, that was that really pushed us on that helped us really progress. It was just incredible times. I would feel so lucky that I was a part of that first movement. Brilliant. Excellent. So, you know, I think, I think for you what you're saying there about, you know, freedom of expression and things like that that was a real driver back then. And I think it is now, but I think the level of tricks is, is crazy. I remember getting ski movie one for a Christmas present. I've just got into freestyle skiing, got ski movie one. And I remember, who was it? I can't remember the part who it was, but they did a 900 and I was like mind blown. You know, that was a massive trick back then you're like, oh my God, it's like two and a half rotations. But now the jumps are, they're huge. You know, I don't think I could go off one of those jumps now. And the tricks, you know, you're talking double triple inverts left and right and it, you know, that's almost standard really. But that's, that's scary and the risk for injuries is pretty big. Tyler, this one, I put this one out to you and to you afterwards, you know, talk us through the process about thinking about a new trick, going for a new trick. How do you approach that? What's going through your head and how do you, how do you minimize risks? Well, one thing that you got to understand that when it comes to learning new tricks and such, everything's a process. You don't just learn something out of the blue without, you know, doing the setups to it or taking, you know, knowing what you're going to do. So the biggest thing about learning a new trick is knowing exactly what you're going to do in the air. How are you going to take off the feeling of it, like start to finish and how are you going to land, how are you going to come out of the trick. And a lot of that comes down to a lot of different things like obviously in the UK now we have a lot of facilities like we have trampoline places we can learn stuff on. We have Greystone in Manchester where we have trampolines, we have trampolines into a foam pit, we have, you know, the ski ramp into the airbag and all that's all the sorts. So you can like learn the kind of stuff leading up to a trick. And then when you take it to snow you're like as ready as you could be to try it like obviously there's still like the little bits and bobs that you know you kind of scared in the back of your mind that things can go wrong like even now like tricks that I've done for years. I still sometimes have that kind of inkling in the back of my head that oh you know this could go wrong this could happen. But as long as you've done everything up to that. And you feel confident enough in yourself to be able to do it then you know you're you're good enough to go. And I feel like that's the biggest part of it like a lot of a biggest part of free skiing is confidence in yourself. Yeah. Okay, cool. I mean it's probably it's different being a rider and doing those tricks but as a coach part you know you're responsible for these guys and you know it's their their career ahead of them. So kind of what's your your thought process to someone say to you, I want to try this, or do you have kind of like a list of things that you know tricks that you're looking for that you know we're going to get good points and be able to put good runs together. I think Tyler really explained all of that incredibly well and rightly so because you know he lives this from day to day. We've like we've all our team you know they've all got their own sort of personal goals like trick goals that they want to do. We build performance plans and again like Tyler said you know there's a process to doing that to building up until you're ready to do it and for us as coaches we just need to make sure that you know everything's in place to be as safe as it possibly can because the risks are so high anyway that you just don't want to take any more chances or put them in any more danger than that you already is going to be. And, you know, again, like now what we do with with a bit different to when we did the rocks is a paper where I said with me and my friends to the hospital outside. You know, we try to minimize the risk all the time so again, strength and conditioning is huge you know we make sure that the guys are you know they're in the best shape possible that they can take the hits. The power to actually perform these tricks but also you know being able to take the crashes as well because it's going to happen. We make sure that we get the right facilities the right jumps the right spec. The, you know for some of our athletes use the airbags we've got our airbag out in La Vigna which speeds up that progression for some of the bigger tricks. Not everybody likes those you know that's another thing, like, you know that they can be dangerous as well, like Katie, you know she injured herself just before the Olympics, you know and really badly on the airbag, and you know we'd have probably been better on the airbag for when she was working on some tricks, but we do we just try and minimize it as much as possible. And again creating the right environment that they feel comfortable to try these new tricks. You know we talk it through make sure that they can visualize it you know they feel confident about it that we know their sets are correct, and then we give them the encouragement when we feel that they're ready to go with them. Brilliant, brilliant. So, we've got a question in from Trish in Basin Stoke who asks, when do you start preparing for the Olympics, do you change your routines and do you change the way you kind of set up for training? Katie, you want to take that one? Yes and no like obviously like we've just started Olympic season now, and so our first event which was last month was the first Olympic qualifier, so of course you go into that a bit differently because you've got a lot more on the line like you need to get those results to qualify and get those points to qualify. But for me like competitions, competition, I want to do as well as I can do in everyone I enter or come away with the best one and I know I could have done at the time because obviously it's so weather dependent and all these things. But yeah I don't know it's just obviously you do have that in the back of your mind like oh I need to get the points I need to get a certain result to help my qualification for the Olympics. So yeah we're all currently going through that right now. So I think it's one thing that I noticed when you guys are talking is you're using the term athlete, it was never an athlete back in the day when I was skiing you weren't kind of talking about being an athlete, you know you were a skier, a rider, that kind of thing but it's kind of almost symbolizes like the pinnacle of like sporting performance almost and we used to have the X games back in the day and that was always like the pinnacle. Now you've got the Olympics, Pat how much of an influence do you think having freestyle skiing as an Olympic sport has actually helped progress everything and kind of bring things up. Really good question Mark and my honest answer I'm not quite sure, like I think if you ask many of the top athletes still now, free skiers, yeah we do use the term athlete more because they've sort of got to be an athlete for what they're actually doing and what they're performing now. You can't be as free and laid back and have that cruisey lifestyle where you can be partying all night and not taking care of yourself and you know perform at the level that you need to and so they do need to have to be more active. But yeah with the X games side of it I think if you asked a lot of them they would still sort of say it's the pinnacle of our sport you know that's the one if you say which one would you prefer to win I think some of them would you know they'd struggle to decide. You know if you ask you know James Woods he would I still don't know which his answer would be I think maybe X Games slope style you know like he's won X Games big ever did be like. And so it's just a bit different because X Games is every year, and it's in by only where the Olympics is only every four years and it's such a big event and you're there you're competing for your country. You know the whole qualification process it's really stressful. It's it's not easy to actually make it into the Olympics, especially from the UK. It is really tough like, you know, Katie's made the last two Olympics and done incredibly well at them you know and, like Tyler's Olympic journey, you know tell you himself up to Pian Chang like they the challenge on that it was tough to be in the top 30 in the world to actually get in there is not easy you know you would need to be at every event you need to be performing at high level be consistent. You know it's pretty challenging and where X Games, you get a shot once every year but again, if you get invited and then that's it's a little bit different it's a bit of a popularity competition sometimes with the X Games so yeah just the very very different. Okay, brilliant and then in terms of funding you know being in an Olympic process event do you do you see more kind of from government help and things like that do you get more kind of cash injection. We, we get backed by UK sport, which is the part of the National Lottery as well a lot of the National Lottery funds that go into that, and they look after us incredibly well, but you know we had to earn that or should I say you know the team had to earn that. When we going back before Sochi and it was this was going back in 2012 and we found that free skiing slope style and half pipe we're going to be included in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. We didn't have any funding like you know I this is when I was working as the Solomon team manager. We were still doing a lot of stuff on the dry slopes, we got included in the first world championships and I think me and my wife Vanessa we took it was actually Katie and Woodsey and there was, I think Murray Bucken, James Machin, Emma Longsdale we all went out to the world championships and we used that me and Vanessa used our holiday from the head out there and take the guys out. And that's when we sort of opened our minds we're like you know we could do actually really well at this. And we asked to see if we could get any funding and they were like well no you need to show that you're going to be you've got to be podium competitive before we could ever give you any funding. So we had to go and show and prove that we were podium competitive, get any funding. And that's exactly what we did. And then at the X Games is first X Games, Katie was getting podiums at World Cups and then same snowboarders were doing very well Jenny Jones at the time was doing incredibly well Jamie Nichols Billy Morgan. So then we sort of came together and we put in a proposal to UK sports and then they they gave his government funding through through the National Lottery and that sort of got a foot in the door, and we gradually progressed on and the more successful you are. And the more podium competitive you are with more athletes the more funding you're entitled to. Brilliant. Thanks. Thanks. So we've got a couple of questions in from some of the guys out there watching we've got Tom, maybe Tyler put this one to you. Tom said Tom asked do you ever use the indoor snow domes, or deep for plastic to train on. And if so, why? It depends because the indoor domes are very rail kind of. If you want to go and do rails, the indoor domes are very good for that. They have, you know, little jumps there but the rail setups that they'll set up are really good. And me and Katie, literally when we get home the first thing that will text each of them when we get home is do you want to go cast for, you know, after lockdown we were straight there. Yeah. So, like, that's what we went and straight did because you know, it's really it's really good even for it, but you know, at any level, because rails, you know a rails a rail you can learn stuff on it you can have fun with it. You can have fun for a laugh, but then when it comes to plastic and outdoor stuff. Obviously there's places around the UK that have really good jumps so there's Halifax which has a decent jump. There's Bezden. And there's Rossendale as well. So it's like different, you know, you can use it for different things basically. But in any case, we'll just go wherever. If there's going to be, you know, well me and Katie will show up no matter what but hopefully we can get like a crew together and just have a good time, because the thing is we enjoy the spot like we're not it's not obviously it's not a job for us. It's what we you know what we do to have fun. It was a hobby that turned into like, you know, a career. So we're still going to go out there and have fun and have a laugh and work on stuff and yeah that's that's what we like to do so both basically. Okay. Okay, so here's one for you. Scott asks, he says you're all sponsored by Salomon. Do you ever get involved in any product creation or design or and you know will we ever see a Katie or a Tyler limited edition ski. I don't know that would be the dream wouldn't it. I don't even know what I do. Salomon right now. But no yeah we always feedback what we think of the skis and yeah I mean we've both been on them for 10 plus years so I think that speaks speaks for itself. Sorry, a couple years ago would see well Salomon went to would see and asked like how we how we could improve the salmon ski. Like, you know, as the technical eyes of it. So would see actually gave he skied them as well but he also gave me a pair of skis that they like a prototype that they made basically to like test it out and see how it is. And I had the most fun on them Paris keys ever, and they actually changed them the next year to this kind of better design it was a. And yeah so we've had a little bit of input here and there but that's really cool, like I'm really stoked to be a part of Salomon and the fact that they care that much that they're able to come and talk to us about stuff like that. Yeah, brilliant. Excellent. So we mentioned the Olympics a couple of times. I think what I'd really like to know from your both of your point of view is like what, what goes on in your head on an Olympic run day what what are you thinking about what you focusing on, you know, where's your head space. Your body everywhere. It's just crazy because you work so much for that moment, and then it just appears and you've got two runs in qualification that you've literally worked four years for, and it's just over like that like my brain just switches off when I'm going down the slope. Obviously, in a good way but I just get to the bottom and I'm like, did I do that like, like obviously I know if it's good or bad but I'm like I just going to also pilot but I don't know like me and Pat just found. I remember the last couple of last two Olympics we just stand and we just stand at the top because obviously there's a bit of a delay before you drop in. I just like say, like, I'm just from Sheffield like how crazy is this that we're just looking at over the mountains and yeah just mind blowing just how far we've all come. Yeah, that was that was the craziest bit when I was at the Olympics and I was in the start gate with Pat. And I kind of looked up and it was like, you know, a drone or a helicopter singing the sky that was filming. Oh my gosh, like that like I've seen shots of the Olympics and stuff like that from that exact spot and I've been at my TV at home, watching through that camera or a camera like that. And I was like, actually, it's me now I'm the one at the top of the slope. I like the Olympics is different I would say then when it comes like World Cups and stuff when I was at the Olympics it was just pure excitement. Like there was there was obviously like nerves because like he said, it's only two runs. You could practice the same run 100 times but if you don't do it inside two runs when it counts, then you know you're going to, you're going to go home feeling upset about it. But the Olympics was just different it had that feel to it everybody was super happy to be there like the nerves were way down. And it was just such a fulfilling experience like that whole year and a half just paid off for sure. Not even that sorry the last however long that we've been training for it, like it's just paid off. Excellent. Can you imagine what that's like. So obviously it's been a tricky year. It's probably one that a lot of people would like to put behind them. But what what's been like the major challenges for you this year dealing with everything that's going on. Sorry I'm getting all emotional just hearing my guys. It has it's just been the most insane journey like you know I'm just sort of reliving it through so thanks so much for doing this because I'm just like wow like it has it's just been. I'm not, you know give up this for anything it's just been the most magical journey. Anyway sorry no this year. Every day is a challenge Mac so we've got an incredible team at GB snow spot who work behind the scenes we've got our program managers. We've got our Olympic team manager and everybody who sort of you know is involved in the planning the logistics of everything. So we've constantly looking about little loopholes of where we can go for training you know obviously the top priorities keeping all our athletes and our coaches support staff safe. Things are getting closed down weekly competitions are getting cancelled weekly. But I feel in the last sort of six months we've sort of navigated through all of this a bit like ninjas you know we've done a pretty good job. But when we first went into lockdown and you know we were back in the UK. And we're like a lot of fellow competitors that you know lockdown but they're locked down in the mountains somewhere and snow. So we said right okay well what are we going to do that's going to be different that can have a positive impact so the basically the plan was we'll make sure that all our athletes have got a clear strength conditioning program that's designed for them individually. Make sure that they've got all the equipment that they need. They can take this time to rest mentally as well as physically where normally they'd be at training camps throwing themselves around. So we've sort of said right let's use that time wisely to sort of relax properly really refresh. But let's come out of the lockdown better fitter and stronger and faster than we were when we went into it. And that's what everybody did. It really did and soon as we've seen everybody back on snow they have been better than where they were when they left off like that plan worked really well. Again even an organization now we're very lucky we've got world class strength conditioning coaches world class physios. You know we've got nutritionists access to access to get information on from there. So again because of UK sport we're lucky that we can put all the support around the guys to give them everything that they need. So even that time where we didn't get on snow where a lot of our fellow competitors did I felt like we still add you know we made some real good progression by just good planning right through all of this. Excellent brilliant sounds like they've got it sorted then. So obviously you've got the skin you've got the training that goes with it you know mental physical. Also you've got to think about what you're on as well what's strapped to your feet and what your feet are actually in and it's probably one for all of you really how important is his kit you know having the right kit. Make sure you've got the right kit is there like a piece of kit that you just you couldn't live without and do you have like a lucky a lucky charm as it were. Let's start with Katie. I know so much lucky charm I don't think. But yeah no I just, obviously I use a Salomon and effects. And yeah, I mean I've been on them as long as they've been a model and before that it was a suspect and before that it was girls my tie. And so yeah I don't know I've just used Salomon since I was 11 and obviously I've got confidence in them and I know that they're going to get me down safely. On the icy days, we are so good to charge through slushy days yeah brilliant as well so let's have a lot of trust trust in them. And also just to I mean Salomon was my dream sponsor growing up and so to still be writing for them now is like putting mind blowing. Cool. Excellent Tyler like what is it maybe that you that you're looking for in your kit that you absolutely you know the characteristics that you can't live without. Like I feel like when it comes to skiing, you ski your best when you're comfortable, you're not just in like, you know, in terms of Kate but also well yeah in terms of Kate but as in comfort but also like feeling good as a whole, like, I remember like just two days ago, I felt like something wasn't up with my skis. And I was like thinking to myself like, I don't you know, I don't feel comfortable enough to do certain things. And then I had to like, you know, go and have a look at them see if they were all right, you know, change the forward pressure assigned on them. And after that I just felt really good again. Yeah, it's just about being comfortable in the kit that you have and just like Katie said I've been on Salomon since I was nine years old. And I love Salomon so much that when I was too big for the kids version but too small for the male version. I had to use the women's my ties, which is like, obviously like a step in between. Yeah. I used to take the mic out of me all the time so I was wearing girl's skis. But again it's all about comfort like I was stoked because they didn't break on me they were the right size and it's just the same again now like I'm skinny and effects and I see a lot of different people being like I could never write something skis but I love it. I love where I'm at and now, don't have any lucky charms though. Maybe I should look into that. Yeah. I'll show you a couple mate we've got loads of Brigham's. Oh, you could actually send an order up to me right now. How about yourself. How important with you know is kit to you and you know making sure your guys are on the right kit. Like it obviously hugely important you know like for those guys it's like you know making sure a racing driver has got the right you know how to use to perform at its highest level. And you know Salomon have always provided us like the incredible kit you know for our team they really have but you know even for myself like I remember back in the day. I've been buying Salomon ski soon as Salomon study making skis I started buying Salomon skis. And when I was getting into moguls and big mountain skiing and I used to be at by the old false nines probably nobody will even remember those very narrow long one nine five skis and. I bought my own. That was back in 1931. Yeah. Just just a couple years off then. Again, it's been so exciting to be a part of you know that whole revolution of that big change and just how the equipment's changed and it's kept me excited and being it kept me involved in the sport. Where the sports felt like it's changed massively into a totally different spot and it was when I first got into it. And like I said with it with the twin tips when they came out in 1996 and the big mountain skis with the rock rocker technology that's all come through. And for me is like as an aging skier I still scheme still my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world. I don't necessarily jump on my nfx is and go and sort of hit the jumps and stuff much anymore unless Tyler and Katie make me do it. You know you know the coaches rule. You know the coaches rule. What's the coaches rule. One flip per year. Some years Pat tries to leave it until the end so you'll think that we'll forget about it. Brilliant. I'm glad I'm not the coach. Like I love that what Solomon have done like it has been a big change recently I think you know everybody knows that you know like the free skiing the freestyle aspect of it as definitely quiet and down to the general market. Where the back country you know touring equipment is really sort of shut up in popularity. And I think a big part of that is because you know people can relate to that more you know it's more accessible I think free skiing has got so it's progressed so fast and the tricks that everybody is doing now. You know people can't get their heads around. No, it's not just too much I'm like, I'm never going to better do that but you know what, I can ski the back country there and get some nice powder turns and I can get this kit. So I totally get it and it's the same for me really I can't do what those guys are doing and you know it appeals to me more and help to sort of put my QSTs on you know and go and ski some nice power. Thank you. Brilliant. So we're going back to some questions from some of the viewers we've got Olivia. She says thanks so much for this guys really enjoying this chat. You're all really inspirational. And I'll make sure my six year old watches this I love. I'd love to be her ripping up the slopes in years. I'd love to see her ripping up the slopes in years to come says my question is, what's a typical training day look like. So let's go Katie because you're at the top of my screen. Well, tomorrow is going to be a typical training day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I'll probably wake up at seven o'clock and then we usually leave eight to eight ish obviously head straight up the mountain and go have a good breakfast obviously before. It's body freezing up there so it's make sure we're well fueled. Yeah. Do a good warm up at the top of the hill and then yeah ski. I think we ski here till one o'clock so from nine to one. Pretty much ski through and then yeah come back down and pretty much go straight away and then have a chill out for a bit and then usually we've got physio and essence see it's obviously looking a bit different at the minute because of COVID so where we can't go to the gym like we would do and we can't go to the trampoline park so obviously we want to minimise the risk of coming into contact with those different people. But yeah usually we would ski morning into the afternoon come down have something to eat and then physio gym trampoline and then do it all again the next day. Brilliant. Excellent. Anything to add to that Tyler or is it all pretty much like similar things for all the different riders or have you all got your own routines. It's pretty much what Katie said but like it kind of differs between where we are like currently similar it's the sun like sets behind the mountains at like half 12. It actually leaves like the jumps in the landing so you can't really see much. That's really that's why we end around 1231 o'clock, but we just spent three weeks in Austria at Prime Park sessions, and that would go all the way until like two or three, you know we will be going down the mountain about 3pm, and it'd be a longer session. So that day you know you'd take you take a longer break and have a good lunch up there, and you know you work on certain stuff in the morning and then work on stuff in the afternoon or you chill in the morning, do all your hardest stuff in the afternoon. Yeah, you know, it kind of differs from where you are but while we're here we're kind of getting up there, trying to get stuff done as quick as possible then come down and, you know, as Katie said get physio do a bit of gym work in the bedroom. We're doing like there are bands with us and foam rollers and other stuff so that we can actually do a bit of, you know, keep ourselves ticking over, but it's, you know, it's a daily thing. Excellent. Okay, so we've probably got time for three more questions we've got two from some of the viewers. I'd like to talk this out to all of you. So, Sophie, she's asking where's your favourite place to ski in the world and why brackets is it Castleford. I mean, I don't think much of it. Great place in the UK, quick lapse. I think my favourite place to ski is Cadrona in New Zealand and that was one thing I was good to miss out on this summer. I think it would have been my sixth year in a row or something. I just love the place, love New Zealand, the skiing's great, the people are really nice. We always go for like two months or something so we get a good training block and there's loads to do. I think the last time I went, I went skydiving one day after skiing so yeah. Casual come down from skiing. Yeah, adrenaline, John Key. I mean, you definitely got red bull in your veins. Cool. So when you asked that question, I immediately thought of Cardi's, which is where Katie said, I think mostly just because of the views, like we stay in Wanaka over there and Wanaka is some of the best views that you know, that I've ever seen and that part of the world is amazing, but if I was going to stay somewhere for a whole season, it would be Lax. Because Lax is somewhere we've all grew up, you know, kind of skiing, like the British championships have been there since Pat probably knows, but a long time. Since I can remember, the first ever Brits that I went to was in Lax when I was quite young and we'll still go there every single year just because the skiing is great, not just the jumps but also the rails. And it's also just really good vibes out there, like there's a good set of people always out there. Everybody's always in a good mood. It's sunny, it's slushy in the end of the season so you can just have fun and throw your carcass about, you know, it's really good for training but it's also really good just to, you know, cut about with the boys and have a good time. Brilliant. So Pat, you've been about a bit. What about you? Well, 100% Korscheval in France in the Free Valleys, you know, like it just is such a special place for me, it's like my second home. I turned up there when I was 16 years of age with no money, nowhere to live, nothing, didn't really know what I was doing and I ended up living there for 14, 15 years. It's like, I class it as like my university, you know, I sort of got there and I sort of learned all about life, I learned about skiing, I learned about the mountains. I met, you know, Vanessa who's now my wife, you know, and again, I had lots of ups and lows, I, you know, really pushed hard to try and make it with a mogul skiing down the whole Olympic group. I had a lot of serious injuries with knee injuries, moved into the free ski movement as that all came along and then developed when I got bit past my cell by day as a professional skier, moved into the coaching and all happened within Korscheval and the memories I've got there is just second to none. And it's probably one of the greatest ski areas that I have still ever skied and I feel like I've skied pretty much most places in the world right now. Korscheval for sure. Fantastic. You don't look a day over 30. I'll give you that later on. So there's going to be a lot of people out there looking at these pictures that are popping up thinking those jumps, they're monstrous, like that seems like a mile away, like some people might not even try to jump yet. So, if I want all of you just to give one piece of advice to any kind of budding freestylers out there, what would be kind of the key piece of advice that you'd give to Katie? Have fun, 100% like that's the main thing and that's still what we'll, what we do. I mean, we'll go up tomorrow and have a laugh and phone when we're training. But yeah, get a good crew and have fun. Yeah. I was going to say the exact same thing. Like, everything is kind of a process, you know what I mean? Like you can't, you know, every day you're kind of working on something new and building up, you know, to get to that next step. But as long as you're having fun along the way, you're going to progress. You know what I mean? You're going to progress faster because it's, you know, you're never going to progress doing something that you just don't enjoy. And again, we turned our hobby into our career now and we did that just by having fun the whole time and working hard. But again, going up the next day and just knowing that you're going to be skiing most of the day with a smile on your face. Unless you screw up a trick and throw your poles like I do. But that only happens. That means out of the pram. That only happens on a 10 to 15% basis. But, you know, the rest of the time we're having a good time, boys. Excellent. Pat, from a coach's point of view. You know what? They've just said it all perfectly. That's it. It's about having fun, you know, obviously be committed, work hard, you know, just enjoy it. That's when the magic happens when you're having fun and you're enjoying it, you know, when you're not, it just doesn't. So yeah, come out and have fun. Brilliant. Excellent. So up on the screen now is everybody's Instagram handles and Facebook addresses. So if you want to check out these guys progress throughout throughout the seasons, see how they're getting on, then just follow the addresses on the screen. There's a little typo on Katie's one. She's not gone at at the end of her Instagram handle. Thanks for joining us this evening guys and it's been it's been really great chatting to you and learning a bit about what goes on and where you started from and where you are now. And I just guess it remains for me to say good luck with the rest of your season. Thanks to Salomon as well for for bringing us all together. And if it's not too early, maybe happy Christmas. Thank you so much. This has been incredible by the way really appreciate it and it's just brought back so many amazing memories and and again big up to Salomon you know like I sort of said this that they helped us create or let me sort of set up this new free ski team within Salomon back in the day. And that's been a natural progression of what's happened now with the GB free ski team. Everybody has progressed on that journey you know and without them backing us and supporting those back in the days I'm not sure if it would be where it is today. So again, big props to Salomon and Alice Brigham. Thank you so much guys. No worries at all. Big up Salomon the boys big up Alice Brigham the boys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if you want to kind of have a look at kind of more freestyle orientated stuff with its products riders stuff or a bit of kind of lifestyle stuff. Check out Alice Brigham free ski. But I'll leave you guys to enjoy the rest of your evening and do what dads have to do and do what athletes have to do. Right. Cheers guys. Thanks Matt. Thanks everybody. Thanks boys. Thank you.