2008 Inner slide in Japan

The three last weeks of the month of February are devoted to shooting our film in Japan. It is the "Team Wolfpack" Association that I chair, that will carry this out.. The team is composed of a pro cameraman of Happy Ride : Dino Raffault. Yann Picot will be the other cameraman.. There is also a professional skiing photographer : Dominique Daher. Olivier Bourdet freeride skier and Adrien Coirier, pro skier, fill out the membership of the association. A Japanese Lie Ishihara, is our interpreter in charge of "communications in Japan" along with myself. The film subject is to relate the history of an exchange between a professional skier and his mental assistant, between a freerideur that classifies himself among the top ten in the world and a skier with deficiencies for whom skiing is a means of neurological rehabilitation. This film will also show the return to the sources of traditional and ancestral Japan which perpetuate techniques of meditation particular to the 21st century. I have been a guide to Adrien in this, while he will be my guide for breaking new trails in the Japanese powder. It was necessary for me to practice for four entire seasons in the valleys of Courchevel, Killy and Argentière, to be at an acceptable level of skill. For two seasons, I took regular courses to improve skiing : A big one thank you to all my instructors, especially those of Courchevel 1650, that already skied Japan, on shiga-kogen with the hearing-impaired. It is thanks to the generosity of our patrons that Wolfpack was able carry out this project which cost several thousands of Euros. Thank you to the corporation BOUCHERON of Paris, to the pharmaceutical laboratory LMBD/ Algues mer, the house building entreprise EMBA and Montmorency and Air France who supported us well. Each member took care of their own plane ticket.

We quickly arrived at the international airport of Kansai near Osaka, where we rent a car and a small van for our 500 kilograms of equipment and trip to Kyoto. We arrived in the morning at Osaka and 15 hours later, we check into the Hotel "Hiean no Mori" in the Sakkyo-ku neighborhood, close to the Shogoin temple in Kyoto. Not the time to rest! Our business takes us to Fushimi, in the south of Kyoto, in order to shoot our first scene of the waterfall Kyotaki. With the light of the end of day, the red gates are luminous! The next day, we film in the morning at the temple Kinkakuji with its famous gold pavillion.

The afternoon we have an appointment with the buddhist monks of the Shogoin temple for the fire ceremony regarding the "blessing" of our skiings in order to be able to ski on the sacred mountains of Japan. The central point of the film being the mountains in Japan, I wanted to show Adrien this form of mountain Buddhism that is Shugendo and I therefore request that the monks of the Shogoin temple (of which I am one) to execute the more secret ceremony of Shugendô, the one of the fire! Fire & Water will also be another theme of the film, with the waterfalls of Fushimi and the one at the volcano Asama next. Once the ceremony is finished, we have a discussion with the Gomonshu Miyagé Tainen, the temple superior of the imperial Shogoin temple and the one of the grand masters of Shugendô, who will be very important at the time of the film editing. Then I carry out in the temple, a demonstration of Japanese sword.

The next day during the night, we leave Kyoto to go to Manza, the highest town in Japan, in the Japanese Alps of the prefecture of Gunma, in area of Nagano. This is a trip that takes us all day by car. It begins snowing strongly at the start near Kyoto. If Japan is tropical in summer, the winter there are Siberian and the snow acumulations are astronomical! In Manza, with its nationally reknowned hot springs, we present ourselves to Tatsuyuki Kuroiwa, director of the school of skiing in Manza. Thanks to his assistance, and to his assitant Mr. Ogata, of hotel MANZA ONSEN, we have all the authorizations to ski out of bounds, on the condition that we are not seen doing so, as it is forbidden in Japan. It is an extremely unfortunate thing because if the small stations, for example Manza, Kusatsu and Shiga-Kogen were connected by only one track and if out of bounds skiing was allowed, with the powder there, it would become a Mecca to the world of Freeskiers. Kuroiwa, formerly from the Austrian school of skiing, is the pioneer of “free skiing” in Japan. He lends us a vhs copy of the film which he made in 1976 wherein one sees him with his instructors skiing, out of bounds, so that we can put clips from it in our film. Thanks to his councilss, we go directly to the areas to ski. Not need to lose hours in poor locations. This is a most noticeable time saver. I knew that the snow in Japan was special and I wanted to share it with Adrien as well as Olivier; a person whose first name defines very well, as he is pure & hard! Five days of snow, with 50 cm of fresh snow everyday. Everyday one can "scratch up" the surface totally, for the next day, the tracks are covered and you start all over again ! "It is magic!", as described by Adri. An afternoon where it snows strongly in Manza, we take advantage of it and return to the foot of the Asama volcano where I spotted an important waterfall for practicing the TAKIGYO, ritual ablution under the waterfall! Adrien thinks that she will be completely and promises to shave his nuts if the water is flowing. It is located an hour by car from Manza, on the other mountain. Unfortunately for Adri, the water at 2° degrees flows, wrapped in ice… it IS magnificent. After the waterfall I carry out in Manza a talk about calligraphy to make a point of showing the parallel between skis, a sword, a brush which, when they become the extension of the body, allows a better rehabilitation of the brain. I make a point of showing the similarity between: to trace in fresh powder with skis and to trace ideograms on a clean paper sheet. A vast project is this film… because it must also be a message of hope for others with cerebral injuries whose path to rehabilitation is difficult! It can be more difficult than mine, and mine has lasted for seven years already. It will not be that a film on just skiing, but it will also fully show aspects of traditional Japan which I know from having lived there for twelve years; as the exchange between a capable high level skier and one with cranial trauma for whom skiing is one of the means of rehabilitation. It is a poetic and sporting voyage about the surpassing of oneself!