Sweetgrass - "Signatures"

The latest press release that I have received from the boys of Sweetgrass.  It appears to be another busy tour season for the crew.  I am excited to see the final release.  The buzz around these guys is absolutely electric and I am personally fired up.  The Sweetgrass vibes are the most organic thing in snow films today.  They bring the art of the film/riding/natural worlds into rythym in a way that to see it is more an inside experience then just a movie from the Red Box.

For Immediate Release

SWEETGRASS PRODUCTION’S SIGNATURES

Every Turn Has it's Own Personality

Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan – June 11th, 2009

After an entire winter of filming deep in the hardwoods of Hokkaido, Japan, the Sweetgrass family brings you Signatures, a story of expression, and the art of riding on snow. Every turn has a personality, and every personality 

has it's own unique style: the air, the turn, the spin, the grab, the laid-out cutback carve. 

At the heart of this lovely tale of deep powder mystery: the seasons. In Japan there is a cultural connection to the different Signatures of our terrestrial home- a sense that the rhythm of fall, winter, spring, summer, influences the rhythm of the person, their energy, their style, and the lines they choose. Niseko local photographer Yoichi Watanabe explains, “As a photographer, the change in season brings a change of subject. I have to be ahead of this change in nature, like I have to be thinking about flowers before they actually bloom in order to capture what really goes on. I can say the same about the snow as well.” 

Powder riding is only part of it. In spring we fire up the barbeque and laugh about the deliciously deep turns in January, about Matt Philippi spinning into the setting Japanese sun. We talk about Nick Devore and Will Cardamone

cowboying 50 degree spines that only the local locals know about, about the the slough, the sounds, the snow, the tomahawk. We hike up in our t-shirts and breath deep, riding corn snow down to the waves of the Japan Sea. The trees bloom, and our bodies sink deep into lawn chairs under the heat of the spring sun. Between slurps of cheap beer, we mutter about the fly rod, about the 29er, about rivers, the cold water. We look up at lines that used to be buried under 20 feet of snow, now covered in bamboo and lush green. Every season has it's Signature, it's emotion, it's rhythm, and it's influence on the skiers, the riders, the surfers, the bikers, the boaters, and the fat tire crowd that call the mountain and sea home. 

Signatures premiering Sept. 18th, 2009 in Montreal at IF3 Festival, on tour in the US, Canada, and Japan, and available on DVD this fall. www.sweetgrassproductions.wordpress.com and www.Sweetgrass-Productions.com for updates and the latest beat from the Sweetgrass family. 

Brought to you by PATAGONIA, DYNAFIT, BLACK DIAMOND, FLYLOW. 

This here is a little flashback to the January teaser they made of the time that I was in Hokkaido last winter.  When was the last time you saw a ski movie teaser quite like this, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.  

      

It's the turn... maybe you can't understand.

Recently, I have been reading some different writings about telemark skiing that delve deep into what is to become, and what will happen, and what about this, and that, and a whole bunch of bullshit that is all about the demise of telemark and what to do and on and on.  I want to take my chance to weigh in and say that the answer is, and has been, right here all along.  It is the turn.  That is it.  That is all there ever has been, and that is all there ever will be, and that is all there ever should be.  I recently read an article on Telemarktips.com in which Mitch Weber the editor of the site goes on a rant about the gear and how we have been about gear and all that and the dynamics of Josh Murphy and movement to make it less about gear and all kinds of other mumbo jumbo that makes little sense to me. 

(http://www.telemarktips.com/FS_WhyGearMatters.html)  

Mitch makes a lot of good points that I agree with, like when he talks about being apart of a revolution and making the breakthroughs as we go.  The gear was and still is a huge factor in what is happening in telemark and I myself would not switch until the boots went plastic and the bindings got burlier because it was then that I was able to make the turn the way I wanted.  Not because the gear was really slick, but because of the turning styles that I could get into.   I watched the park movement of the past try to bring telemark to the youth and all of those things he wrote about.  But,  the truth and future to me lies in the turn.  Mitch goes on and on about gear because that is the niche of this niche industry in which he fits.  His site is almost all gear, and gear talk.  He criticizes Josh Madsen for trying to make a celebrity class and so on, but the truth is we all must realize that it is not just the gear, or just the celebrities, but the turn.  The turn is the celebrity, it is the coolest kid in town.  People have told me that they want to try it because I make it look fun.  The keyword being, "it", the turn, the reason.  It is what brought me to telemark.  It is what brought everyone I know to telemark.  All the people I know who love telemark do it not for the celebrity status or the intricacies of the engineering of the latest binding idea, but the turn.  IT IS THE TURN.  THE TURN. THE TURN. THE TURN.  We are not in competition with AT, we are not in competition with Alpine or snowboarding for that matter because they don't have this turn, we focus on the turn and they can't argue with that.

First of all,  the stigma that divides telemark from alpine and snowboarding is gone.  DEAL WITH THAT.  These days the kids are all riding together on all kinds of boards.  Some are boarders, skiers, and telers.  The reality is that there is little distinction as to how you choose to ride because now we are all riding the same terrain, snowboarders have split their boards, alpiners have released their heels to ascend, and tele skiers are trying to have releaseable and step in bindings.  It appears to me that all the disciplines are combining with the exception of how one chooses to turn.  If there could be a better example it would be the boys of Sweetgrass who are realizing that all of the disciplines are connected by something bigger and that is the mountains that we all answer too.  How you choose to ride is up to you, we all can get caught in avalanches.  A very good friend of mine once said to me that, "it is all about turnism... everything."  He was not only talking about how we ride down the mountain, but how the world works and everything we know to be true revolves around a cyclical type of schedule.  Everything turns.  Everything.  Not just snowboards and skis.  So the new K2 line of skis that draws no distinction between telemark and AT is not something I view as alarming or a sign of the death of telemark.  It is actually a sign of the reality that I have known along with the rest of the new generation of telemark skiers that Mitch Weber seems to forget about.  There are no distinctions, just riders.  Todays crew of youngsters are a very diverse group that includes alpiners, snowboarders, and teleskiers all riding together.  Imagine that.  

I love the telemark turn,  and I have experienced the transcendent powers that it holds, much like my friends who have chosen the transcendent powers of snowboarding or alpine skiing.  I can try to explain the telemark turn to them, but they just know that it must be something similar to the way they feel when they make their turns.  It may or may not be the same feeling, but it is the turnism that rings most true to me and they have a deep respect for that.  Because it is not about how you choose to turn, but that you turn.  So when I look to the kids, I am seeing crews that rip and makes no distinction between whether that one magic turn was a laid back hand down tele turn or a back foot pressed down cutback turn, but that the turn was magic none-the-less.  And that crew of kids have snowboards, alpine skis, and telemark bindings all turning together.  Just like me, and my friends.

ONE LOVE.     

Feasting on pow in Niseko, Japan with my Sweetgrass friends who ride all kinds of different boards connected to their feet in many ways.  Photo: Mike Brown (Alpine skier)

End of another crazy pro season...

The last day of the ski season was a very good ending to a roller coaster season, as usual. The video is from that morning up on Lightning Ridge @ Pow Mow. Sunrise sessions have a certain mystic about them to begin with and this bluebird one was a real epic. Jon and I had low expectations that were blown out of the water with smooth creamy lines all day until the sun heat it up and we were out of there by 10:30 Obviously my little pup Murphy stole the show. She has been skiing low angle backcountry with me this whole season, but she was going to sit this one out cause I did not think she was ready for the longer steeper lines on the ridge we were going to be shooting. However, as I tried to get her in the car so I could start my ascent, she sat down about twenty feet behind my car and looked at me like, "You are kidding right, I am going on this tour!" She knew she was ready and she was not about to be left behind. So I caved cause I really wanted her to come, but I was worried she'd get munched. As you can see, she knew better then me.

Murphy's morning... from J.T. Robinson on Vimeo.

Flow...

This entry is titled "Flow" as that word has become the mantra of my season.  I have come to the conclusion that the work of one who is solely dependent on the gifts of mother nature must adhere to the flow of any situation.  I have found in my adventures in pro skiing this winter that the flow dictates everything, and to fight it in order to force the work is a mistake.  

To give some examples let's go back to Japan where I really started thinking about "Flow" and how the work is directly connected to it.  Japan really was an eye opener for me and the people there are very much in tune with the natural setting that they inhabit.  One night the Sweetgrass crew and I where hunting down a night shooting zone and where beginning to strike out.  I proclaimed that the flow was not there and that we should just call it.  So we started heading back to the homestead and to our amazement we stumbled across a sick little zone that ended up paying off dividends with some great shots.  The same trip many of the athletes I was skiing with were trying to force airs into their lines and it just ended up chopping out their lines.  On the other hand I was just asking myself every time what the terrain below me was asking for and then I simply skied the line as it seemed most natural and the shot seemed to work best.  It may not have been "sick" in the bro bra sense of the word, but the shots always turned out smooth and really asthetic, which as it turns out is really what the boys where looking for.  

Now let's go to San Pelligrino, Italy after a huge wind storm ripped through the terrain and our hearts as we watched all the new snow get blown away to the sea.  Still we tried to find big lines to ski and rolled onto a slope that appeared to be perfect only to end up with me post holeing across an overhanging ridge atop an 800 foot cliff that nearly could have ended me.  After some survival mode moves got me the hell out there we decided that we should find more low elevation wind sheltered terrain for our shooting.  Again, we tried to fight the flow and it almost meant my life.  

Not soon after I got home from Italy I was set to go to Japan again with the Sweetgrass guys and by this time "Flow" had become a mainstay in my vocabulary and once again it struck me, but this time it was in my pocket book as I waited for an incentive check from DNA to come through to make the trip even possible.  As flow would have it the check would not come in time and I would have to bail out of the trip, which as it turns out was a blessing as it turned very wet in Japan and I was able to stay home in Utah and really enjoy some time with my dad's cousin Tom and his boys, Alex and Jake.  If I would have forced the trip I would have been overdrafting all over Asia and returned home to ridiculous bank fees.  Instead I went with the flow and spent all week hanging out with family, which as it turns out was exactly what I needed at that time.  I had been on the road for too long and family is what I was really missing.

And lastly I was slated to migrate north to Anchorage, Alaska for the world championships with a good chance of making a run for the title.  However, mother nature and the "Flow" knew otherwise as the belly of Mt. Redoubt volcano decided it was time to purge herself and began puffing ash and debris all across the landscape.  Planes couldn't fly and therefore stranded me and my family of spectators here in Utah.  We tried for three straight days to fight the flow to get there and just when it looked like I might have a chance to get a flight a weight restriction on the plane crushed my last hope.  Again, we all concluded that the flow had a reason for not allowing me to be there and as it turns out we had a great time right here in Utah skiing pow in my own backyard with my father and Christine and really getting some real quality time with my parents.  

Of course I am disappointed when the flow leads me down a path that I was not planning, but ever since the day that the flow told me to make a third ski cut in a chute and saved my life from a hard slab avalanche, the same conditions of which killed a dear friend of Ogden just one ridge over from my location just ten minutes before my third ski cut, I listen, loud and clear.

 

I am feeling the good flow here in Japan......photo: Mike Brown