Les hvordan Seth Morrison beskriver sin nåværende karriere, hvor mye skikjøringen betyr for ham, og hvordan ting har forandret seg de siste årene.
My current career is so much different than 2 years ago. I had been working with one film company for 11 years (MSP). The move away from MSP has given me more opportunity to do work with many other projects. This has ups and downs since you only get to spend so much time with these different crews. So you end up spreading around a bit of yourself rather than having all your eggs in one basket by focusing on one film. Basically if I took all the great moments from all these projects I would have a large solid film segment. This season I have worked with 5 different film companies. Some trips are as short as 6 days where others are as long as 21 days. These past 2 years have been such a change that mentally it has been good adjustment. Skiing more and having more fun than I ever have since I started this ski film business. Meeting new cool people and seeing great places with them has been the biggest difference. Most of these people have experience in the mountains, which is probably the most important part for having a fun smooth trip.
Skiing is my life even more so when I went to college. That’s when I really could focus on it more than ever, since I had no one t tell me when I could and couldn’t go during the winter. Powder days were no school days for sure, when it sucked I still would ski and go to school to cover the bases since you always have some sort of a boss, your family or sponsor people, or a real boss at work. I took a lot of risks to get to where I am today, with the skiing and with life, leaving behind what the norm would do and making my own rules in my world. There has been ups and downs with wanting to ski. Being injured really changes how you look at things. Mostly you want to ski so much more when you come back, but at the beginning of the come back you are still a bit tender, since you can’t wait any longer. It takes some time to regain your confidence, but that’s just part of it. Another area is the people that you are around. If you´re not into the people you are around or they aren’t helping with your comfort level out in the mountains, than I can’t be around that energy, I have noticed this in my performance. It is scary out there at times and you can’t focus on all of the negative parts of the day. All that matters is that moment of skiing. Being in that certain mental state is hard to get to when the people around you are pissing you off all the time.
This season has been very crucial for me, looking back at last year and all the different things I had to deal with (expensive trips with bad snow, new film crews, bad guides, bad pilots, bad weather, not killing it until the end of the season). Adding up last years ski days was around 145 or so, to me is not that much for a Pro skier. This year focusing on skiing as many days as possible was in order. Many trips don’t offer skiing every day due to travel and weather. Early season I was skiing everyday from open till close. That gave me a new drive and has made skiing more fun and purposeful. Pretty much at the beginning of the season it was sleep, eat, and ski. So skiing all day would leave most of the nights dealing with emails for the future plans of the winter, interview types of things, accounting, and misc other items. There is not much time left in the day for relaxing or going to the gym. Skiing as much powder as possible was the main objective and I had much of that so it made all the business end of things not that big a deal. Full days of skiing was the menu for 05/06 pre filming season. In the past there has been so much sitting around and people in the group bringing me down with their lack of patience. Waiting for the good days when on a 3 week heli trip can be hard, but if you look at why you are there and what your going to be able to do makes all the sitting around worth it. As more and more people pass through my life on trips I know who I don’t want to be around. Some athletes are way to competitive out there in the mountains and they should just be competing in the extreme comps if they are going to be like that, it just takes all the fun out of it for me. Its good to have people to help push you, but not like your in a contest. Or there are athletes with their own agenda out there as far as what they are trying to get done and the team effort is lost. It is all about group dynamics. If there are people not playing together, it just doesn’t work. One thing I find to be very funny is how there are people that go one these trips and are constantly talking about how much money its costing the whole time. If you’re there, that’s the last thing to worry about. Stay home next time, you’re there and that’s all that matters doing what you set out to do, have a fun trip. I remember one time there was a guy telling me how he didn’t have much money for the film trip we were on and needed to stay behind on the weather/snow checks with the heli. Later he was bragging about how he, his wife and kid were going to Hawaii for a month after this film trip we were on. Some people aren’t in it for the same reasons, they are doing it as a job. That’s to bad.
At the end of the day you have to be skiing for fun not as a job and sometimes its hard to separate the two. Especially when you have people filling your head with all sorts of BS that has nothing to do with what your doing. Skiing is all that I need to worry about, not how to load a film camera, or how much the trip is costing when your on it. If something sucks your try to fix it, or never do it again. Skiing is all I know after 27 years of doing it, some would say I’m obsessed or selfish, you have one life to live.
Ord: Seth Morrison
(fortsettes neste tirsdag)
