Coming into Alignment - Tatum Monod

I recently sat down with Big Mountain, Freeskier and filmer, Tatum Monod. We talked about nerves, fears, what drives her at this point in her career and the connection she cultivates within herself and the sport. Enjoy!
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“If I’m standing on top of a line and thinking ‘oh I gotta ski this because I need to get the shot or the sponsors need this or that everyone’s here and we all worked so hard, so I gotta drop…. That’s when accidents happen and that’s not being fully aligned.”

Tatum Monod has built a ski career and life in the mountains, out of answering the call of her passions and listening to intuition. Raised in Banff, Alberta into a family of mountain guides and skiers, she came to skis later than most, at 12 years old! First with ski racing, making it to the Alberta Ski Team as one of Canada’s rising star athletes. Though she found herself more into doing backflips in the terrain park, she then moved onto the Freeride World Tour, and finally to the world of Freeskiing, Big Mountain and filming. Through it all, Monod has proven herself to be one of Free-ride and Big Mountain skiing’s leading and influential skiers. 

Tatum, among many other things in her ski career, has skied some of the biggest lines around the globe, been on magazine covers, named skier of the year two times by Freeskier Magazine, is the first woman to do a double backflip on skis, and producing her own film content. But this success and deep connection with what she does, has come through hard lessons learned in the mountains. 

“There are things that can’t be taught to you in school, you have to live through them and the fact that skiing is the catalyst that teaches us these things is such an ultimate blessing. It’s the school of the mountains.”

Tatum comes to this conclusion honestly, as a major mountain teacher came in the form of a devastating crash in 2017 while skiing a big line, filming in Alaska. The external pressures of wanting to get the shot and satisfy expectations, led to dropping in on a line that didn’t feel right. When looking back on this day, she can see where it all went wrong.

“I was not fully aligned, not in my flow state. The gut was a red light and I went anyway… and it fucked my world up. I did everything in my knee and still face the consequences to this day.” 
When Monod talks about alignment, she literally checks in on three centers of knowing in her body and looks to see if they are red, yellow or green.

“On top of the mountain, I’m not thinking in my head, but feeling into my gut and it’s an intuition, a feeling. As soon as you tap into that, you know. If you were to check in with your brain, your heart and your gut, and if all those are flowing, if they’re all green, that’s alignment for me.” 
“It's lessons like this [Alaska] that have kept me alive because I was on a trajectory of ‘I’m invincible’ and I was skiing at a level that I couldn't have dreamt of. I was pushing, pushing, pushing. 

Her crash in Alaska and the realities for the sport  has guided her to develop this alignment practice with a commitment and conviction that shows the level of awareness she now has for living a life in the mountains. 

“I've had at least one friend die in the mountains every year for the last ten years. It becomes exhausting and a real internal conflict, if this is worth it. But I always bring it back to my self-alignment and when I’m skiing in the mountains, it has to be for the right reasons.”

Monod doesn’t just say this, she actively puts it into practice.

“It doesn't matter if there’s a helicopter with three cameramen above waiting for me to drop, I won’t go. If there’s one micro part of me that’s not feeling it, if any of those three [centers] are yellow or red, I can listen to this now.”

Given the intensity that these external pressures must put on a skier, it took a long time for Tatum to reach this level of conviction, but to her, now, there’s no other way.”

“I’ve boot packed down the other side of the mountain because it isn’t the day more times than I haven’t at this point in my career. When you’re pushing for the wrong reasons, and I was that day in Alaska, it ends bad. Ultimately, that crash kept me alive.”

Though the hard lessons are learned through big moments like a crash, Tatum also cultivates this way of being aligned and connected to intuition through her other passions in life. 

“Finding an activity that you’re fully immersed in helps. For me this is Hunt. In the act of hunting, the objective is to get an animal to fill your freezer and to feed and nourish yourself for the year to come, but if you’re focused only on that goal of making the shot, you’re thinking about the finish line and not actually enjoying the experience. And in this game, 99.9% of the time, there’s no success.”

Monod highlights the difference between Hunt and skiing where there’s instant gratification from skiing a line, and hunting has the opposite. “It’s a grind.”

“With hunting, you gotta sink into your surroundings, make observations and live in the moment. It’s physical, challenging and you’re working hard but once you find that flow state, success seems to happen and the buck walks in front of you.” 

This ability to be present is not only needed to be in connection with her surroundings, but in tune with her own emotions and fears when standing, clicked into her skis on top of a feature, objective or line.

“I’m always navigating this [the fears]. My younger self would have thought this would have gotten easier but it actually only got harder. I can be standing on top of a line that I want to ski and feel the nerves and nervous energy. It’s important to know what’s going to happen if this slides and the worst case scenario. I like to know these things and address them.” 

“It’s a matter of balancing these things and being able to distinguish if this is just a normal fear thing or if this is your body’s way of telling you don’t do this.
 
Rather than pushing this nervous energy away though, Tatum listens and works with it to know if she is in alignment. 

“Your nerves are what keep you alive. If I’m not nervous, that’s a weird thing. When you have a bit of nervous energy, that’s where the magic is. That’s when your senses and your abilities will actually peak and you’ll be operating at a higher frequency. It’s a really hard thing to decipher but it comes with wisdom, to learn and let live. It’s a very nuanced thing.”

As finicky as this nuanced ability seems to be, Tatum also incorporates some tangible practices like visualizations, “baby steps” to increase difficulty when working up to a big line and journaling to sort through the regular noise and chatter in her mind.

“I don’t know about you, but I got like a million thoughts every minute. I have an A.D.D. head like that and so when I write things down, then it becomes more clear. 

“Also, I visualize myself skiing something many times before doing it. What the wind feels like at the top, how sunny it is, what the shadows will look like or what the snow will feel like under my right foot while making a left hand turn. It helps me feel like I’ve done it already. It helps me bring more confidence into it.”

Given all the internal work she does, in high pressure situations, Tatum also recognizes the power of the team of people around her. 

“It’s called the human factor. It’s a term used in avalanche awareness where a lot of incidents happen due to the human factor when someone may be frothing too hard or too excited and they’re the problem. So right off the bat, I like to surround myself with the right people so that I have that experience of alignment and are skiing the mountains for the right reasons.”

Monod goes on to explain how this supports her confidence and trust in her intuition.

“Then once I’m on top of the actual line or objective and it’s just me and no external noise. I check in with myself. And as soon as I tap into it, I know if I’m a red or green light.”

Given all that she’s accomplished on skis and over a decade of being in the spotlight of the sport, Tatum continues to seek what’s fun, challenging and exciting for her.

“To get to a stage in my career where I’m not only able to ski the mountains that I want to, in a way I want to, but also tell a story, it’s incredible to have this creative freedom. These short films are my trademark, my stamp, my blood, sweat and tears, quite literally.”

As for what the story is that Tatum wants to tell… 
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“It’s something that’s ever evolving and something that I’ll never quite have fully figured out. There seems to be themes though. It’s about connecting to something bigger than ourselves and in this way, I get to find more of myself within the sport.”

To keep up with Tatum, follow her @tatummonod on Instagram. 
Photo credit to Redbull website and Tatum's Instagram.