Sitting behind my desk at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍřĚýheadquarters in Santa Fe, there is a view of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains and our local resort, Ski Santa Fe. One morning last winter, while I was contemplating the year’s generous snowfall, a colleague walked in and handed me an article from Forbes.com: “”

I was intrigued. , I learned, has developed a unique teaching method to help students master deep snow, steep bumps, tight glades—all the challenging terrain, in other words, that skiers are confronted with outside of a resort’s tame groomers. A former freestyle world champion and the author of , the instructor, who is based in Aspen, Colorado,Ěýruns all over the world, hosting 15 to 20 skiers at a time. “You’re going to ski on a level you’ve never skied before,” Clendenin told his students in the Forbes story. “All conditions, all terrain, no problem.”

Now that sounded pretty good. As a lifelong skier—I’ve been at it for over 50 years—I’m comfortable in powder, bumps, and steeps, but I’m always looking for ways to get better. I immediately recruited two old friends and signed up for Clendenin’s next clinic in Park City, Utah.

For three days, I soaked up the Clendenin Method, learned his quirky mantras, and got reacquainted with my feet (they’re atĚýthe core of his teaching philosophy). By the end, I was officially a Clendenin convert. I’m still struggling with some of his concepts, but the veteran teacher is used to first-time students struggling to unlearn their standard approaches to tough terrain. “You have to let go of old habits to adopt new ones,” he tells me.

A few months later, I caught up with my new guru—J.C., as I’ve come to know him—about his skiing background, the pinnacle of freestyle skiing in the seventies, and the secrets behind his unusual methods.

Larry Burke: When and how did you decide skiing was going to be your profession?
John Clendenin: I joke when I get asked that question. I tell people that when I was 12, the only thing I wanted to do was ski and golf. Then I went through puberty and got waylaid for about 40 years, but now I’m back to just skiing and golf. Some may thinkĚýI’m living the dream, because this year I got my 40-year Professional Ski Instructor Association (PSIA) pin and my 25-year Professional Golf Association Class A card.

When did you first think of the Clendenin Method as a business?
When I got hired by the Aspen Ski Company with 1,500 other instructors, I knew I needed a niche. My experience as a golf pro actually helped, because in golf, there are lots of guys with their own methods, like Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter, and Hank Haney. In skiing there were virtually none. As a former world freestyle champion, [I thought], Why not Mogul Skiing for Adults? I started camps and brought in a couple former champions— and —and called it Camp with the Champs.ĚýAfter a few name changes and about 4,000 coaching experiences, the Clendenin Method evolved.

What isĚýtheĚýmost important differentiating factor between the Clendenin Method and the approach other coaches or instructors use with their clients?
We don’t teach clients—we teach feet! If you understand the kinetic chain in skiing, you realize that the body naturally aligns itself to the feet in order to maintain balance. Here is a simple test: sit, with your kneesĚýbent, so your thighs are parallel to theĚýground. Move your knees sideways back and forth, with your feet flat to the ground. Now, in the same position, try to tip your feet on edge without moving your knees. You can’t. Do the same drill standing up. You will fall over if you don’t let the body bend in response to the feet going on edge. That’s the kinetic chain.

It kills me when I hear ski instructors teach body positions, because this negates the kinetic chain. These instructions force the feet to find the body, not vice versa.

It seems like good technical skiing is an important part of your mission. How important is style in the finished product of a Clendenin client? You want your clients to look good, right?Ěý
Most ugly skiers have put style in front of technique. Great technique always produces a beautiful style. NowĚýwe have the all-important question: What is great technique? I love watching great skiers like Jean-Claude Killy and Ingemar Stenmark. They all have great,Ěýelegant technique, and that technique is what the Clendenin Method is all about. It really disappoints me to see so many instructors teaching people to ski with a wide stance and their bodies hunched over like Quasimodo.

Is there a conflict between the style you teachĚýand the style taught today by most PSIA instructors?
Ěýtraining tilts toward racing technique, highlighting high-speed carved turns and zipper-line bump skiing. Not that this approach is wrong or bad, it’s just that this emphasis doesn’t fit for CM clients. Our clients want to feel safe and look good skiing more of the mountain, off-piste and in the moguls. Racing techniques are not their focus. High-edgeĚýangles and accelerated turns do not work well in the moguls. You can see this emphasis in younger skiers who bash straight down, slamming and thumping between bumps. Eventually, these skiers grow up and have to quit because of sore knees and backs. I’ve used up all my thumps, so I coach a much softer method of bump skiing. With speed controlled and turn shape managed, you can dance with gravity.

You won two freestyle world championships. What do you feel gave you an edge?
None of my fellow competitors had my intense early technical training nor the experience of skiing on a simulator.ĚýMy Northwood prep school race ski team beat the St. Lawrence, Middlebury, and Dartmouth college ski teams. Several of my teammates made the U.S.ĚýOlympic Ski Team. While finishing college in L.A., I taught skiing on an indoor ski simulator. Together, my technical background from Northwood and the finite sense of my edges from the ski simulatorĚýgave me the skills to kick ass. I went on and won more cars [at competitions] than anyone.

What was the freestyle ski circuit like back in the seventies when you were champ?Ěý
[In 1971,]ĚýAspen staged the first freestyle mogul contest on the planet. The event brought 100 competitors and a couple thousand spectators. Four years later, freestyle had thousands of competitors, TV coverage on ABC, and thousands of dollars in prize money—not to mention tenĚýtimes more spectators than any event in U.S.Ěýskiing history.

So imagine this: over 5,000Ěýpeople on top of Park City, lining the famous Thaynes mogul run. Everyone in the crowd at that 1974 Beconta Cup world mogul championshipĚýhad to buy a lift ticket. Sun ValleyĚýwas our next event. Picture a steady stream of over a thousand vans and trucks full of contraband and wild women pouring into town. It was like a moving tailgate party! This was the beginning of a very interesting phenomenon. The free spirit of the seventiesĚýbegan to shake the conservative world of skiing. And I was in the middle of it! I was world champ, and luckily, I survived.

Was overcoming fear a factor in winning?
I overcame fear, but it had nothing to do with skiing. The year before freestyle took hold, I was a hang glider. I flew many ski mountains: Copper, Vail, Steamboat. My last flight was down Gunbarrel at . My outfit was a brightĚýred overall suit from the Barnum and Bailey Circus. I flew only on calm spring evenings, and hundreds would come to watch. I was told theĚýlast flight looked great from the ground:ĚýThe crowd saw me bomb down the moguls, holding my hang glider just off the snow, before shooting into the air,Ěýand then diving down andĚýalmost crashing into the ground, then shooting straight up again. Then I landed. It was a gentle landing, but everyone could see I was in shock.

What really happened was not good. First, a tailwind created a terrifying takeoff, causing me to carry the glider a hundred yards down waist-deepĚýmoguls before bursting into the air. Then, fromĚýover 500 feet off the ground, an air draftĚýdropped me out of the sky. I was crashing to my death when my kite suddenly caught fresh air and soared straight up again. I landed with what appeared to be a watermelon drooping in my pants. The crowd scattered as I ran to the bathroom. SoĚýmy point: not much has scared me after that. Freestyle was a piece of cake. When I share this story with clients, it usually helps with their fear issues.

What do your clients typically consider the most difficult part of learning the Clendenin Method?
Learning to trust their feet. We do hand-eye activities all the time. We wake up, go to the bathroom, brush our teeth, drink coffee—all require conscious hand-eye coordination. We rarely do anything conscious with our feet. So the challenge for our program is to establish foot-eye awareness. This is why we always start with our simple Keys to the Kingdom, designed to connect the mind with the feet. When people experience this foot-eye revelation, our program becomes a revelation, too.

You have a great way of describing getting rid of bad habits: “Old habits want to protect their turf from the new habits you want to acquire”—or something like that.
Most of my recent study has been on how people learn and how to deal with bad habits. I had a few bad teaching habits myself. When I started 20 years ago, I was screaming instructions, thinking no one was listening. Then I learned that habits are like little demons, and they have a life of their own. They tell their host, “Don’t listen to this creep and get confused—we already have a move that works.” So I screamed and yelled, thinking I had to kill theirĚýhabits. I was the high priest with the silver sword. Not many clients were happy with my teaching style.

Then I learned about the Alexander TechniqueĚý[developed by acting teacher Ěýin the 1800s]—a guy who specialized in curing habits. He taught coaches to simply take people out of the environment that created the habit and give them a step-by-step procedure to replace it. Rather than work backwardĚýto get rid of the old, move forward with the new! This revelation changed my approach, and now we have consistent results—and a mellower John. Now I’mĚýpositive, not negative, and the business has grown.

You also endorse the use of mantras throughout your teaching. If you had to leave your clients with just one, what would it be?
Mantras work wonders. Hearing clients ski down a run while repeating their mantra is music to my ears. The Clendenin MethodĚýis based on four words: “drift center,” then “touch tip.” As campers progress, each word takes on more meaning. Just learning the four words improves most campers. Together, they are all you need to know.

As skiers advance, we have more specific mantras for every phase of the Clendenin Method. The best mantra depends on the level of a client. For example, you, Lorenzo, are an advanced CM skier learning to embrace the Epiphany Pad—the little-toe edge of the foot—as a new functional habit for your bump skiing. So a simple but accurate mantra that works for you is: “Touch heel, touch heel.” We can only use this mantra if you are already doing a number of things correctly, like parallel turns with a tight unit. On your level in bumps, we don’t have time for a mantra with more words. This two-word mantra worked great for you.

Campers are not in our program long before they learn that the fastest way to great skiing is to ski slow on groomed terrain and practice the basic Keys to the Kingdom. We tell them, “If you can’t do it here, you’re sure as hell not going to do it up there.” With respect to gravity, our best skiers warm up slow with this mantra: “Touch to the love and squeeze.” You have to take a camp to know what that means.

How many camps do you envision establishing, and what would be your locations of choice?
Ski teaching is a billion-dollar business, and I only want one-tenth of it. In the U.S., the Clendenin Method is like a boutique shop in the big PSIA mall. We currently do camps in Aspen, Steamboat, Beaver Creek, and Park City. We are looking at other franchise possibilities. Europe allows multiple ski schools in all major resorts. We’ve already held camps in a couple famous resorts like Ěýand . The potential for CM is limitless—I only wish I had figured this out 20 years ago!

Lawrence J. Burke is the owner and founder of şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř. For more information on upcoming Clendenin Method clinics, visit .

Sick of feeling like a mediocre skier who struggles with bumps, steeps, and speed? Check out our Ěýonline course on , where şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř+ members get full access to our library of more than 50 courses on adventure, sports, health, and nutrition.

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I am in Nosara, a small, sleepy village on Costa Rica’s northwest coast, with my wife, Gabrielle, to try something I have only scant experience with and which she has none: surfing.

Which is why we areĚýat , a seven-day intensive surf camp. I found out about this place from a good college friend we call Digger, who had read a story about Surf SimplyĚýby Mary Turner, the deputy editor at şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř. Mary said it was the best surf instruction she’d ever gotten, and so did Digger. In an email to me, he wrote that it was the Otter Bar of surfing. That is high praise indeed. I went to the kayaking campĚýin northern California every summer for ten years to paddle with the company’s outstanding guides.

Surf Simply seemed like the perfect way for Gabrielle (who goes by Gabe) to get her feet wet and for me to reignite my anemic efforts at surfing over the years.Ěý

But I’m getting off to a rough start. After a few good waves during the afternoon session our first day, I somehow overlook a couple of kids playing with their mother in waist-deep water. When I hop off the board a little too close to them, the mother scowls at me, her eyes saying, “It’s a five-mile shoreline, you jerk, why are you ten feet from us!” Still focused on the tots, I reach down to grab my board when a wave suddenly flips it up into the onshore wind. The board’s rail slaps hard into my face, slicing my inside upper lip and knocking out my two front teeth. “What the fuck!” I yell. I had totally forgotten an important part of Surf Simply co-owner and instructor Harry Knight’s advice about not letting the board get between the wind, the water, and me.

Luckily, my two teeth are floating in my mouth, so I spit them into my hand before carefully placing them in the side pocket of my board shorts. I feel my lip swelling and the blood dripping down my chin as Gabe and some other Surf Simply guests gather around me.

It just so happens a local doctor is on the beach. He takes a look at my mouth and tells me he can stitch up my lip. Ěý“Uh, no thanks,” I say. Then Rick, a Surf Simply guest who is an endodontist chimes in. “You’ll probably need a root canal,” he says. I don’t want to do that, either. Finally, Davin, another Surf Simply guest and an ultra-positive guy, offers up something I can get behind: “You look badass, man.”

We all head back to the Surf Simply resort for après-surf beers, and I have a chance to check out the damage. I send a photo to my daughter, Frankie, who lives in Los Angeles. She replies, “OMG, is that for real?” She’s remembering kayaking at Otter Bar when we would goof around with fake bubba teeth.

My new look shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Gabe and I were both a little off balance after a rocky start to our trip, arriving in Nosara a day late and exhausted after a series of canceled flights in Denver on our way here. We missed the first day of surf instruction. I hate missing the first day. Day one always sets the tone and rhythm of a place. You meet the other surfers, instructors, and staff over drinks. Maybe you even get some swag. Best of all, you get introduced to the ocean and surf at the same time as everyone else. You’re not psychologically and in reality playing catch-up.

The temperature is 96 degrees when Gabe and I finally arrive at the white stucco archway entrance to Surf Simply. We are immediately greeted by Harry Knight, who has worked with Ru Hill, the inspirational founder and co-owner of Surf Simply, for 15 years, going back to their humble beginnings in Cornwall on the English coast. Harry is six-foot-one, with the tapered, sinewy-strong build typical of watermen. He will be our instructor for the week.

The other ten guests are arriving back at the resort from their first day surfing, pumped with stories of waves ridden, waves missed, attempted poaches, near collisions, and spectacular crashes. Everyone is busy putting their boards in the racks, showering off sand near the pool, grabbing beers from the fridge, and watching surf videos, which play close to 24 hours a day.

Other than John, a savvy car designer from Detroit, Gabe and I seem to be the only Surf Simply first-timers. Other guests include Mark, a ski instructor in Park City and Snowbird, Utah, who has been here seven weeks in the past 12 months. Mike, a private equity investment banker from Boston who grew up surfing on the East Coast and in Southern California, has also been here before. Most of the guests are men in their late twenties to mid-forties and definitely Type A’s. Hannah, who has a string of star tattoos running up her spine to her neck, is the only woman other than Gabe, and she is definitely Type A. She is here with her boyfriend, Rick, the endodontist.Ěý

The friendly bantering among the guests suggests everyone has already bonded in the space of 24 hours—which makes me even more aware of having missed the first day.

The Surf Simply team is as special as Digger had reported. They’re all genuinely thrilled about being where they are and doing what they do, and it is immediately infectious. The instructors—Jess, Prado, Derek, Asher, Ollie, and Harry, who will soon become “Sir Harry” to us—are big personalities and talented athletes who exude a reassuring confidence. Being in the publishing business I can’t help but think they are all magazine cover-worthy.

We settle into our two-bedroom villa with a deck surrounded by palms and tropical vegetation. It feels just right for a tight 12-person dance party while still intimate.

At 6 p.m., we go as a group to the La Luna restaurant on the beach for sunset margaritas, fish tacos, ceviche (caught five minutes earlier), and thin-crust pizzas. The sun is setting brilliantly red over the Pacific as the ocean puts her long day of perfect waves to sleep for the night. It’s almost too good to be true.

The next day, the first in the water for Gabe and me, we are up by 6 a.m. After a few shots of espresso, everyone is on the beach with their instructors by 6:30. Harry begins working with us on the beach. We are lying down next to our boards, placing our bellies on the horizontal line of a T we have drawn in the sand. We’re going over the stages of getting up and where to position ourselves on the board—not too far forward and not too far back—because inches can make a difference. We’re reviewing how to paddle with fingers spread wide for greater efficiency and how to put more energy into our stroke behind our hip. When we’re ready to practice popping up, Harry tells us to place our hands on the deck and slide the knee that will be forward between our arms and turn our front foot perpendicular to the board, which isn’t easy to do with my damaged knees from years of climbing, skiing, horseback riding, and other adventure sports. Then, with knees bent, we raise up with our arms relaxed and spread like the wings of a bird out over the rails or in an archer’s pose. “Look where you want to go,” Harry emphasizes, “not down at the board.”

Soon enough Gabe, Harry, and I are out in the water to ride the foamy whitewater of waves that have already broken. I’m relaxed and expecting to get up and ride in on my first attempt. Surprisingly, I do, though that will be the last time it feels so natural. It was a bit like winning the lottery the first time you buy a ticket. After that a hormonal cocktail of too much testosterone infused with an overdose of adrenaline would plague me for the next several days.

Meanwhile, Gabe is taking the instruction patiently, step-by-step. By the afternoon session, I’m struggling to implement what I know in my head but cannot seem to translate onto the water.

The third day, on Wednesday, Surf Simply guests have the option to do something other than surf if they’d like. But to catch up on our lost day, Gabe and I spend the morning in the whitewater reviewing technique with Harry, using slight adjustments with body weight in conjunction with the rails to turn, get up, slow down, speed up. I still can’t seem to get my mojo going; I need to be less tense in my feet, hands, and shoulders.

Much of surfing is counterintuitive, like most adventure sports. Because of the years I’ve spent sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, and skiing, I feel like surfing should come more easily, and so I become frustrated. I keep reminding myself to relax and slow things down, a concept my nature is not programmed for. That and being patient have always been a challenge for me. I need to be both today.

By noon on Wednesday, Gabe and I take a break. My knees and elbows have been rubbed raw from contact with the board and need relief. Daniela, one of Surf Simply’s owners and a mixed martial artist offers to drive me into Nosara to see a local dentist named Dr. Laura. After 90 minutes and $300, I walk out of her office with two perfect front teeth in place.Ěý

Later that afternoon I learn in one of the theory classes taught by Jess, the head instructor, that when we are held down by a wave it will seem longer than it actually is. A hold-down is usually not more than three to five seconds, even though it may feel like your lungs are exploding. We do breathing exercises and realize most of us can hold our breath for up to two minutes. It’s a much different mental experience when you’re getting trashed underwater and must teach yourself to stay calm, Jess emphasizes. She informs us that it is a scientific fact that if a person passes out underwater, our body’s survival mechanism closes our throats and won’t allow water into our lungs, and that a reserve of untapped oxygen will give us another eight minutes to be rescued. Comforting indeed.

By Thursday, my right shoulder starts to bother me. Luckily, one of the Surf Simply guests has a prescription drug for just this sort of thing. I’ve never heard of it, but I’ll try anything that will allow me to stay on the water with Harry and the rest of our small surfing family. I don’t want to miss a second of playing in the 82-degree waves.

I take the little white pill and go to my appointment with Crystal, the masseuse at the resort. The drug kicks in. I’m super relaxed and wrapped in a towel that I can barely hold up. My legs feel only limply connected to my glutes as I weave along a narrow stone path until I arrive at the massage studio. I need to lie down—immediately. How is it possible to get this beat up in the water, I wonder? I doze off within seconds of Crystal beginning her expert bodywork.

Later that day, Gabe questions whether I should go out for the afternoon surf session, but I grab my rash guard, neoprene two-millimeter vest, my one knee pad, and head toward the beach with the rest of the surfers and instructors. Once there, I start waxing my board. Sir Harry asks how my shoulder’s doing. “Iffy,” I reply. “Good, let’s have a go and see how it feels,” he says. I catch three or four little waves in a row and grab some water off the right rail and make a slight cut back to the left, a breakthrough for me. Then, while practicing guiding the board to a 30-degree angle, the rail digs into the wave and the board pops up out of the water. I instinctively try to hold onto it, which jerks my right shoulder outward and behind me. After that, I can’t reach forward to paddle or press my palms down to stand up. I’m temporarily beached, so Harry takes Gabe to the outside, beyond where the waves break, as I watch from shore.

Gabe is a natural, and I’m convinced that women have a kind of patience and natural ability for some things that men have to learn the hard way. On the waves, just like when we’re competing on quarter horses back home in Santa Fe, Gabe is balanced, poised, and patient. She’s loving it, and it thrills me to see her having so much fun with a new sport. She is handling the bigger surf very well, riding over the swells and turtle-rolling through breaking waves. She practices throwing the board away should all else not be an option. She is out there paddling around with the better surfers. She picks her wave and paddles to catch it. She does and goes straight down the face. Gabe gets to her knees, ready to pop up, but instead puts her hands on her hips, keeping her knees on the deck and enjoying the ride of her life just where she is. She is soaking up the rush, patient and poised, and then raises her arms like Rocky racing with the wave toward shore. I’m jumping up and down on the beach yelling, “Way to go, honey! AWESOME! OH YEAAAH!”

On Friday, I’m anxious to get out on the water early. We’ll all be on the outside today while the video crew records our performance. Ru is in deeper water with a large, glass-enclosed camera. The wave sets are delivering six-footers, maybe even a seven-footer here or there, with ten or twelve seconds between them. Nice. The tide is transitioning, and there is a sweet offshore breeze. It’s an exquisite day.

I’m catching my breath after the paddle out, sitting back on the board’s tail to spin around efficiently when it’s time to go. All of a sudden, Harry says, “Here it is. Let’s have a go.” I line up with the wave and start paddling, a few strokes to get positioned, then harder to catch it. I manage to catch the wave in the perfect spot, just over the breaking crest. I feel remarkably stable. I get to my knees, set to pop up at the top of the face. Miraculously, I get my front foot up on the board where it didn’t previously want to go. I stand up, keeping slightly bent at the knees and forward to maintain speed. I remember to look up and toward the shore mark I had set, not down at the board. Damn, I’m thinking, I love this. I ride the wave all the way into the whitewater, not wanting to let go of this feeling for anything. I know in that moment that this is just the beginning.

Gabe is now up on another wave, coming straight down the face as she gets her knee forward between her long arms and patiently stands up. Her forward arm is extended and her back arm is in an archer’s pose. She is bent at the knees, being aggressive and looking beautiful, like a real surfer girl having the time of her life.

On my paddle back out, the sun is low and the silvery crests of breaking waves are glimmering when I notice a surfer riding in, bouncing back and forth over the small curling crests. He’s on a board no longer than forty-eight inches and shaped like a blunt-nosed snowboard. It’s Ru.Ěý

He pops off the tiny board, and as we squint into the sun I tell Ru that Gabe and I will be signing up for another week before we leave in the morning. And we do.

; from $3,380 per week, all-inclusive

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