If you’ve wondered how Skicology – the mental side of skiing – works, then this interview of me by fellow Skicologist, Sandie Martel, explains it in the first 10 minutes. And I explain how the tiniest shift in perspective in Mind (cause) makes a huge difference when it arrives at behaviour Read more…
There’s a huge misunderstanding of where feelings come from that gets people in to all sorts of trouble or leaves them troubled. It’s commonly misunderstood that feelings come from other things: people, circumstances, spiders, and in skiing the likes of snow and ice, the weather, injury, family responsibilities, the colour Read more…
[here’s an article I’ve just written for Skicology’s sister business Headstuff. I thought I’d reproduce it here as it’s so relevant to skiing] Yesterday, I was listening to local band The Buskers playing a gig in Les Gets. They were sounding really great. And pretty much everyone would assume Read more…
Some people consider skiing to be a dangerous sport, which leads to accidents. But what’s the true cause of these accidents? A recent survey by law firm Irwin Mitchell of 1200 British skiers put their accidents down to a range of factors. The top 5 causes given by people surveyed were: Read more…
It’s very natural for our moods to go up and down. Recognising them and when and how to act is the important thing. Take last week. Monday I went skiing with friends. I was feeling great and my skiing was great and I had enormous fun. My mood was high. Read more…
There’s a lot of misunderstanding as to what ‘listening’ to someone is. For example when listening to a ski instructor who’s trying to teach you something new. As children, we’re told to pay attention, but have you noticed the more you try to pay attention you experience the opposite effect? Read more…
When your mind is open and trusting the unknown you’ll start to see new things around you. You point yourself in the direction you want to be going and you discover. If you’re getting bogged down being analytical and trying to work out the ‘how to’ that’s just playing around Read more…
Most people are used to having to work at: Building confidence, or Finding confidence As if it’s a mythical object or quality we somehow mislaid. Oddly, those people who have it don’t talk about it, and those that think they’ve lost it and it’s the holy grail to skiing keep Read more…
I notice on many ski forums the relevance of thinking in skiing is often talked about, as in I know it’s my thinking, but that doesn’t help. Well, that’s an understanding of thought at an intellectual level. As if it’s a concept. Like in the Alan Coren joke: Question: What’s the Read more…
I’ve been researching what’s available for nervous or fearful skiers and they all have a fundamental flaw: They try and change behaviour, by changing behaviour which is like trying to scratch glass with glass. For example: Practice on gentler slopes Visualisation Thinking positively, trying to replacing negative thoughts Making a Read more…