The Ski Journal - Volume 15, Issue 3
ZAHAN BILLIMORIA'S CONNECTIVE TISSUE
Words and Photos: Matthew Tufts 2021-12-01 06:41:22
Few skiers are as enthusiastic about their craft as IFMGA guide Zahan Billimoria, and even fewer have as much passion for the science of movement in the mountains.
“Down for a little walk-mode rally?”
I nervously watched as Zahan “Z” Billimoria clicked his heels into pin bindings and flashed a thumbs-up. My boots were too soft and light, virtually buckle-free, reliant on Velcro—but Z was wearing the same ones. I took a breath and dropped into walk mode. Z dove into steep Snow King moguls as the first rays of sun crept across Jackson, WY below. I made two turns, got chucked into the back seat and promptly tomahawked. Z was already far below, carving GS turns on the groomer, walk mode and all.
The Jackson-based IFMGA ski guide, former United States Ski Mountaineering Team athlete, and founder of Samsara Experience, a full-spectrum athletic training program, is an erudite scholar of human performance. The first two credentials were obvious during the humbling morning bootpack. But the latter reveals an ethos that informs his whole approach to athleticism.
“My idea is to create the right movement environment for you so that your brain learns how to move,” Z says a few hours later in the Dojo, his affectionately named garage training space. “Your brain is better prepared to learn, pattern and teach your body than me.”
A climbing wall is mounted in one corner. A well-worn punching bag hangs by the door. Six or seven pairs of skis are racked above a tuning bench. This morning’s boots sit on a dryer in front of shelves of old boots. He only skis the lightweight pair now. “That’s part of the walk mode rally idea,” he continues. He credits Jacksonite and pro skier Max Hammer with the idea. “I’m removing this thing getting in the way of you being able to learn how to ski out of your feet.”
Z contends that the more constraints we place on our feet—padding, stiffness—the more we remove their natural ability to interpret terrain and react accordingly.
“We’re taught to ski in stiff, hard boots, so we quickly get to thinking that the only way to drive the ski is out of the boot cuff,” Z says, snapping up from a flat-footed stance to the balls of his feet, toes curled in and downward. The position directs force through the arch and Achilles, up the posterior chain and through the glutes, rather than over the ligaments of the knee. “But most of the drive and details of the movement come out of the bottom of the foot. When you release the cuff, you remove that crutch and it forces you to ski out of your feet.”
Z emphasizes the body’s fascial system in his training. For the past few years, he’s studied how fascia—the connective tissue wrapped around every bone, nerve, muscle and ligament—stores elastic energy and acts as a “neurological junction between the brain’s commands and the body’s performance.”
Though we don’t always view it as such (besides, perhaps, in moguls and high-speed tree weaving) skiing is an agility sport—it’s rooted in our ability to transfer power from the ground into lateral direction changes. Agility is a fascial quality, reliant on rapid response to terrain changes and the body’s natural elasticity.
Rather than instruct his athletes how to perform a task specifically, he directs their focus toward a particular feeling—stiffness in the Achilles, tension through the core—that will guide them toward a more efficient natural movement based on their unique physiology. While touring, Z frequently takes his first downhill lap in walk mode. The process helps him find balance and informs him how to buckle his boots for subsequent lines in a way that complements his natural style, rather than changing it.
The current ski market reflects the rigidity of the skis and boots they’ve popularized. Z suggests something more malleable: equipment mirroring the diversity of human bodies.
“It comes back to this idea that we should create the right environment for the brain to pattern the movement,” he says. “With that type of thinking in mind, we’d have way more flexibility around how we ski the equipment.”
He found his athletic stance—mounting his ski five centimeters forward of recommendations—after years of trial and error. Plenty of folks think it’s crazy. For Z, it’s all about clicking in and finding his way.
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