Welcome the new skiing Lifestyle

Skiers take a look around you!  The new face of skiing has arrived.  Freeskiing!  Born of the same revolution that started freestyle skiing but developed into a new school of skiing that has no bounds.  From big mountain to the half pipe, Freeskiers are the future of skiing today.

Freeskiing appeals to a broad base of people who are passionate about skiing and the freedom it brings.  Bound by no gates and restricted by no trails, Freeskiers are taking over the mountains and half pipes by storm.  With their stylish ticks and grabs they are slowly taking back the slopes and terrain parks from the snowboarders.  Freeskiing is more than just tricks, it is about the passion one has for the sport of skiing and the freedom it allows all of us to express.

Mainstream companies where slow to get with the program but now the likes of Solomon, Dynastar, and Head have stepped up big time with a wide range of incredibly versatile all- mountain/park and pipe free skis.  More and more ski shops are starting to carry those crazy twin tip skis. 

Outdoor and extreme sports have held such a visible place in the public consciousness over the last few years, and today's Freeskiers have catapulted skiing to the top of the winter sports world!  Welcome the new skiing Lifestyle…….

For more information on Freeskiing, go to www.freeskier.com

Written by: Rich Cholewinski

President & Founding Member – The Goodmen Club

A Skier's Food for Thought

Welcome to the realm of Freeskiing, the newest skiing phenomenon and a variation that is pushing skiing forward like there is no tomorrow. It is a ‘spin- off’ (obvious pun intended) to mogul skiing and just like conventional skiing it’s something that appears (and is!) larger than life. Freeskiing is for real, although its new twists and spins may defy your perception of what reality is or should be. It’s hip and extreme and it’s taking skiing to new heights, literally speaking. You’ll often hear the buzz words of ‘hucking’, grabbing, slopestyle, skier-cross, flipping out, tweaking, bumping, twisting, more grabbing the skis, deep pow, riding the pipe, awesome sharply-slanted carving and serious hang-time. Freeskiing has granted new meaning to ‘airtime’ and best of all it spells ‘free’-dom, the essence of skiing. This is only a sampling of words that can be used to put Freeskiing into text.

There is some debate about the origins of this kick-butt phenomenon. Without a doubt the best freeskiers are proven mogul skiers. The pioneers of the sport involve members of the new Canadian Air Force, like Mike Douglas the visionary who created the first twin-tip ski, J.P Auclair and J.F. Cusson.  Johnny Mosely’s 360-degree mute grab at Nagano ’98 gave worldwide exposure and Freeskiing has never looked back since. Their ‘No Boundaries’ attitude has brought into existence twin-tip ski innovation like the Solomon Ten eighty ski.

Some conventional skiers aren’t quite sure what to make of the newest addition to the sport we call skiing and that’s where the excitement begins. Any of us who have thumbed through a ski magazine in the past year share this jaw dropping feeling; often doing double takes left and right wondering if we’re indeed seeing correctly. Furthermore, it sends one of those priceless tingling feelings up our spine. This is the magic of the Freedom-Skiing combination. The images in ski mags and film clips in Warren Miller movies have earned my appreciation for what these athletes can and do. It makes me want to go out and experience it myself, a definite motivation to push myself to new limits in trying new things. Furthermore, these pictures cannot depict enough just how over-the-edge this sport really is. See for them for yourself and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Freeskiing has been embedded in skiing all along but only lately has freedom been an underscored element of it, founding the new skiing culture (a.k.a. New School). All (well, the ski-able portion anyway) of the mountain is a playground to be shared with snowboarders who’s presence has helped shape Freeskiing in more ways than one, pushing our sport to new extremes. Its essence is continually being explored and refined as freeskiers re-invent our sport and experiment in their quest to find their epic moments that await them. Freeskiing appears so exhilarating that images and words cannot describe alone. It's something where 'you had to be there', and in that moment, to fully appreciate it.

Written by:  Unknown Author