Flo Puritscher interview

[home] [local heroes] [trip matrix] [trips] [films] [links]

datrip: howīs your back?

Flo: This is the question that I hear the most at the moment. Letīs say so so. Itīs just a long process to fix it without surgery. But the injury has ist positive aspects too, īcause once you can barely move, completely new things appear, things that one hasnīt paid attention to before or things that one has badly neglected....

datrip: bullshit, youīre just trying to make your current situation look better. If you can barely move, thatīs just sh&$% (dontīwant ot pull you down though). How did it happen? During snowboarding, surfing or in foreign beds?

Flo: You are right, in GENERAL itīs just shite. But believe me, there are things that I wouldnīt have realized without that thing and Iīm very thankfull for having discovered them. But who cares, this a very personal thing and I leave it up to everybody to believe it or not. There hasnīt been one singular cause for the injury, as it came slowly. It went really bad in Indo. So I could say that it was a combination of all three of the before mentioned potential....

datrip: o. k. sometimes lead the winding paths that one didnīt mention to go to the goal, or at least to a positve surprise. A propos winding paths: how comes that so many of you mountain men suddenly ride liquid mountains? Is this a locical step for a snowboarder (as it was a logical step for many windsurfers)?

Flo: In some ways itīs surely a consequent step. Surfing is the mother of all board sports and probably because ist pure form (short, board, wave and nothing else) sort of a base for the other sport. The thing that fascinates us snowboarders the most with surfing is definitely the phenomen wave. A constantly changing “ground” demands a permanent anticipation, a thing that you donīt have in snowboarding. There you have much more time to prepare your run and sign the hill according to your own imagination. Because of that surfing has strongly improved my snowboarding. I have learned to react quicker, I read the mountain better and it brought more style to my riding. But what definitely connects surfing and snowboarding besides the glide, is the beautifull moments in the nature and the play with the elements. Thatīs why these two sports complement one another.

datrip: would you agree when I say, that in comparison to the board sports on snow or concrete, in a wave there is an additional dimension, that is the constant chance of form and speed of the wave, that you described, that in addition gets influenced by factors like swell direction, tides, currents and wind?

Flo: Definitely, that exactly makes the difference and causes the fascination. No wave is the same!

datrip: Did your snowboard experience help you with surfing or can the motoric preeducation be neglected in comparison to the task learning to read the wave?

 

<<< previous page                                                                   next page >>>