- What got you in to snow sports? - I was quite lucky, because I grew up in the Alps. When I was 3 years old my father and my grandfather started teaching me in front of our house. Just some days later my parents put me in a course of a ski school and there it began. I loved skiing since the beginning. With 8 years my father started to take me off piste skiing, I couldn’t get enough of the feeling skiing powder snow. But I really liked racing too, so when I turned 10 years I started to train in a ski racing club. Getting up super early for trainings and sitting on the lifts with -20 degrees kinda took away fun for me after 3 years. With 13 years old I got a brand new race ski and I wanted to try it. Unfortunately I needed to make way for a ski school group and the only way out was a bump line on the side of the piste. I got in there with way too much speed and the first bump sent me to moon. When I stood up again I saw that I broke the brand new ski underneath the binding and I was really depressed. I went to the shop with my dad to get a new one and suddenly I felt like „no, I don’t want this anymore“. So I asked my dad if I could get a freeride ski instead and told him I wanna quit racing. Sometimes spontaneous decisions are the right ones - I fell so much in love with freeriding, that I never used a race ski again except on my ski instructor courses. So then let’s get to monoskiing. I was talking for three years with a friend who had two monoskis that someday I want him to show it to me. Finally we found a day and it was soooo much fun. On that evening I was hanging out with a friend who is photographer and he said: „whoaaa Konrad look, Faction Skis is giving away a monoski and you get plus points for monoskiing, backflips and retro outfits.“ So on the next day I borrowed the mono, a retro outfit and Stefan took a picture of me doing a backflip. After some weeks Faction posted that I‘m the winner. They sent me an email and asked where I want the sunglasses shipped to. And I was like ahhhh what sunglasses?“ I found out that Stefan didn’t read it correctly and they gave away a Pit Viper shade, not a monoski. Super frustrated I said fuck it I‘ll get it on my own and bought the monoski. So here we are now. Things came together and so Pit Viper and Faction Skis sponsor me now, because they really like what I do on the monoski. Everything is happening, nothing is planned and it just feels like I‘m on the right way.
- How does (monoskiing) make you feel when riding? / why do you do it? - Monoskiing is just different. It makes me feel so much fun. One big reason is for sure, that monoskiing is a complete different challenge for me now. On two skis you can set two edges into the snow. If you’re not centered you can put more weight on one ski and it makes you centered again. In the air you can put your feet apart on two skis to get back in axis. And there are a lot more things like that. On the mono it’s different. If you’re not centered you will just fall on the side like a fish. Same in the air - if axis are not perfect in the moment when you pop off a jump you will just fall in one direction, no chance for correcting. This all makes it a really interesting competition for me against my own skills. And I wanna push it. I wanna push it really far. I wanna be able to ski the monoski as the normal skis. It’s probably not possible, because you have less control on the mono, but I wanna see how far I can push the level to.
- What advice would you give to younger people or learners looking to get into the sport? - So first of all, if you’re not a really good skier on two skis, don’t start monoskiing. An almost perfect technique on two skis is the requirement for monoskiing. At all it doesn’t matter if skiing or monoskiing - what I really wanna tell you is one thing: TAKE YOUR TIME! Always learn everything step by step. For example if you wanna learn a flip or a roatation, but you never jumped big jumps before, don’t do it. Get on the big jumps with straight airs. Jumps in general always train on the trampoline, on an airbag or into water before you try it on snow. It’s the same on the piste: don’t go faster than you feel safe. It will make you crash for sure. I was injured 14 winter seasons in my life, because I didn’t listen to these words my father was always telling me. And one thing is for sure: mostly the little crashes, the situations where you say to yourself „well that’s easy“, those are the situations where you can get hurt most. And this is because you’re not aware of it, since it’s nothing really new to you. Trust me, you don’t want to be taken out of your active life for weeks or even months or years, just because you did a stupid little mistake. The most important thing I wanna tell you is this: people see videos of others skiing sick freeride lines in powder. These days it’s super easy to make you think you’re ready - you just buy all the avalanche equipment plus an airbag backpack and go for it. Exactly this way of doing this sport costs so many lifes every year. Let me tell you one thing: the mountains are pure power and unpredictable in the beginning. Well okay, the mountains are always pure power and sometimes unpredictable, doesn’t matter how much experience you have. But still, freeriding is different. You need so many skills to make it „safe“. Years of years of experience is the most important. Only if you ski everyday the same mountains you will realize, how much changes within days, hours or minutes. And this nobody tells you in the dreamyish videos of freeriding. I got once into an avalanche that took me under the snow. I was really lucky because my face was still above the surface, but I had now chance to get out there on my own. I couldn’t move, nothing, not even a finger for a millimeter. A friend I was skiing with saw everything and immediately came and digged me out. I have one question here for you freeriders: how often did you turn around when you reached the start of your descend or did you even? My father showed and taught me a lot - we turned back so often and when I was young I kinda understood it but also not. I just saw the free and untracked powderfield, but not the danger in the beginning. So guys, before you get out there make sure you do a lot of courses, get experience step by step, see the signs that the snow shows you and don’t let the stoke kill you. Sometimes it’s better to kill the stoke. I personally trust my guts, sometimes everything looks perfect, but something inside me says no, not today. Then I go back the way I came, another day I go there again and then, if everything feels right, I ski it. Don’t do the same mistakes that others do, always stay aware of what you’re doing! Ski smart and I trust you it will be the most fun and joy. Skiing is just awesome!
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