Meet Shannon Griffin, a woman who's truly built her life out of snow.
As a kid, Shannon didn’t like skiing. Fast forward a few years and she’s teaching it; fast forward a few more, and she’s President of the Northern Rocky Mountain Division of PSIA.
Now, she spends half her year instructing at Chile’s prestigious Portillo, and the other half as the Snow Sports Director for Montana’s Bridger Bowl. Just last summer, she got to hang out with Warren Miller at his house after her four second close up in his latest film.
I met her a few years ago at Winter Park, where she was our Training Coordinator, and was immediately impressed by how much she knew and by how little she let it get to her head. Completely at ease with herself and well-respected, Shannon immediately (without knowing it) became a role model for me. This interview was a joy to do.
Here we have a wild Shannon in her natural habitat ;)
CA: What’s your history with skiing? Did you plan for it to become your
life, or did it kind of just happen?
SG: I grew up in Bozeman, skiing at Bridger. I really didn’t like skiing growing up; in fact, I hated it. Pretty much any sport at that time wasn’t me—my depression was so bad at that time, and I was so afraid of failure. Everyone else was so excited for powder days, and I was like, “Can I just stay home?” I didn’t like skiing until I was going for my level 2 when I was 25.
But my mom was hired as a ski instructor when I was 14, and I started tagging along on clinics with her, watching her take everything she was learning and doing Movement Analysis on people underneath the lifts. Clinics were what made me interested in ski instructing; when I started teaching, I thought that if I just made enough money for gas it’d be worth it to go to the clinics.
So I ended up teaching at Bridger for ten years, I was full time there at the age of 25, and I’d watched one of my friends of six years, who was already an amazing skier, become an examiner. Watching his skiing just absolutely transform and knowing that was from his examiner training and from trying out for the national team, I thought, wow, maybe if I set a goal I could actually do the same kind of thing.
Shannon and three of her students (she got over her fear of kids!)
CA: So how did you begin to like skiing?
SG: I wanted to hang out with my mom, and I was accepted by all of the other instructors, so they didn’t mind having me along on the clinics. I don’t actually remember the clinics, but I started instructing just because of that aspect.
I remember practicing the tasks for Level 2 and starting to get better. I was like, “Oh my gosh, maybe I can get good at this.” And when I started experiencing how I could improve and how that could make skiing become fun, it just kept becoming more and more fun as I just kept getting better and better.
CA: What have been some of the defining moments of your career?
SG: There was this new girl at Bridger, Kate, and on her first day, we became instant best friends. She had trained for the Olympics in figure skating, but she’d done maybe 30 days of skiing in her life. We were riding the chairlift one day, and I was like, “I have this crazy idea,” and she did too, and we were like, “Ok, let’s share,” and it was the same dream: we both wanted to try out for the national ski team. She tried out 5 years and I tried out 9 years later, and although I wasn’t picked, that was ok, my work was to make it to the team.
Then the second time I failed my Level 3 exam was also a big moment. The exam was in April, and in March, I realized I still had so far to go. The number 300 popped into my head for some reason, probably because the children’s manual says it takes 300 repetitions of a movement to make muscle memory. I knew I could control 300, so I would do 70 wedge turns per run at Bridger, and then however many runs it took to get to 300. Going into the exam, I knew I was really close, and depending on the days that I had I would either pass or fail, but during that exam I was so proud of myself because I didn’t allow myself to get down on myself. When the second day came around and I didn’t pass, my three primary coaches cried. Just to realize how much support and belief they had in me, to look back on that season and realize I had no regrets ever, because of my training that year, was such a cool experience, and I’m so proud of it.
Then when I came back to Montana to try and become an examiner, at the end of the two-day tryout, I had the second highest score and they wanted me to be a level 3 examiner when I only wanted to be a level 1. That hadn’t happened in our division in like 10 years, so I was humbled and floored and so thankful for all the coaching. That was a huge moment, it was so reaffirming.
CA: How did you get into international ski instructing? Was Portillo your first international resort?
SG: Yes, I was at a point of change in my life; I realized I needed to leave my husband seven years ago. I happened to run into a friend in Bozeman, and he was like, “I got a job at Portillo, you should totally apply,” so I got the director’s email from him and sent in a resume. At first they told me they didn’t have a spot for me, but a few weeks later, she emailed me that a spot had opened up, and asked if I could be there in three weeks.
CA: How is the ski culture different in Chile versus the states?
SG: Portillo’s been owned by Americans since early 1960s, but it’s a culture unto itself, it’s the only place like it in the world. It really feels kinda like a cruise ship because the whole crowd is very international and changes every week. The same families come back year after year on the same week to meet their same friends from the last year, Saturday to Saturday, because that used to be the train schedule to and from Santiago. The train stopped running in 80's, but they’ve continued that tradition, and that’s what makes it unique.
Bridger is a very family-oriented mountain, so the last call at the bars is at 5pm (weekends they’ll maybe push it to 6) because everybody has to drive back down to town.
CA: How scared were you thinking about trying to teach in a different language?
SG: I was definitely nervous going down the first time, but my ex-husband was like, “No, people want to communicate,” and he was right—so little communication is actually verbal, most of it happens through body language and tone. So even though I only had about 250 words of Spanish that first year, it was amazing to watch how communication still happened.
It’s been a very slow learning curve, though. It’s hard because there’re so many people in Portillo who speak English that you could get away with never having to speak Spanish. But the last three years I made it a point to speak Spanish as much as I could.
It wasn’t really until last year that I had my first encounter that was a stumbling block for me. One of the guys running the gym in Portillo randomly walked up to me in the hall said,
Shannon throwing around some snow down south.
“Whenever you speak Spanish, I can’t understand you,” and just turned and walked away. That hurt so much, because one of my fears of speaking was from the dyslexia of words I used to have as a kid—I’d see this strange look in peoples’ eyes and realize I said something wrong, but not know what I said wrong. So when that guy said that, it put fear back into me, that was really hard to overcome. So it’s definitely a work in progress, but I try to keep in mind that all learning involves failure.
CA: Everything you’ve talked about has an element of fear to it—what’s been your relationship with fear?
I know what it’s like to be a scaredy-cat. I used to have a fear of moving, and a lot of people, if they’ve never experienced that, don’t understand how paralyzing it can be. You can know all these things, but your body won’t physically do it. I overcame the fear of moving by practicing simple tasks—for me it’s always happened “body first, mind later.” When I have a situation with fear, I look at whatever skills I’d need to overcome it, then I practice those skills, taking it back to super easy terrain so the body can do it in other situations, and then come back and attempt the whole thing.
I also worked to overcome performance anxiety every single time I go free skiing—I’m always either waiting for people I know to be on the chairlift, or, if I don’t see anybody I know, I imagine there are people I know on the chairlift above me. I try to always put myself in that position so when I really do have to perform, it feels normal. I started doing this a long time ago, because it’s so hard in exams to be put under that critical eye.
I actually used to also be a little bit scared of kids, they’re little alien creatures and I did not understand them or know how to relate to them; I was much more of a Socratic method, logical, type person. But the challenge of coming up with a billion different ways to explain the exact same thing to kids and adults was actually really invigorating, especially because it was me overcoming my fears that made helping other people overcome theirs so powerful.
CA: How do you stay so fun loving and still respected?
SG: Sometimes I worry because I feel like I’m being too much of my dorky self, but at the same time I have to be me. I learned through my depression that I have to honor who I am—if I try to hide myself, it’s too much work—I don’t have enough capability to hold up this mask.
I am a fairly serious person as well, so I’m able to switch, going into deep conversations and bringing humor with me but also really caring about the situation and understanding the root of it. Especially if you have that dorky, silly side you can be a little embarrassed to show that until you realize that people love to see that, they love to see you, as long as that’s balanced with the fact that there’s also a serious part.
CA: What’s it like being a woman leader in the ski industry? Have you ever felt imposter syndrome?
In uniform. No sign of performance anxiety here!
SG: I did struggle with imposter syndrome when I was the NRM President. I remember when I first walked into my first President’s council meeting—I had just turned 30 and had only been on the phone with the other presidents. They obviously knew I was a woman, but they didn’t realize how young I was. I had my Level 3, but I didn’t have as much of a voice there because I wasn’t an examiner—I didn’t have the background with that group of people. I always tried to listen and learn from them, but that was part of what made me afraid that my voice wouldn’t be heard as much. But I think it was just more in my head that they didn’t listen or respect what I was saying.
Coming back to Bridger, I’ve known these people 20 years, from when I was a teenager and even longer, so I was afraid of not being taken seriously because maybe they thought I was young or inadequate. That’s definitely been overcome by the fact that they were all excited to have me back, because I have gone out and grown and gotten more experiences. It’s been a great experience now that I am in charge; the respect I’m getting from staff and supervisors has been really great, I just hope to be able to maintain that respect.
CA: What’s your life advice for young women trying to do what you did?
SG: I never let being a woman stop me. I don’t ski like a girl or a woman or a man, I just go ski. I see the Q angle excuse a lot, but I’ve never found a reason why it should affect the way we ski.
I’ve also learned to always ask for help, and that I don’t need to know all the answers. Ski school is part of the entire mountain business,and just knowing that you can always go to somebody to talk through problems is really important. Besides all the personal stress that happens when you don’t ask for help, the opportunity to be mentored in those situations usually goes beyond the one problem you’ve got.
CA: What’s next for you?
SG: I love Bridger, it’s an incredible family and community, and I’m really lucky to be here. I’ll definitely stay for the next couple of years—like any new position, it takes a while to really understand it, so I wanna be here for at least five years. But after that, I don’t know. The only real thing that would take me away would be injury or a knight in shining armor. My biggest dream in life is really to be a wife and a mother—my qualification is they must love a snow sport, and they have to love winter.
Sliding to a stop in style, as Shannon says ;)
Here are my 3 key takeaways from the interview:
1. Be yourself. People want to see the real you.
2. You may be scared, but do things anyway. Overcoming the fear could define who you are.
3. "Don't ski like a girl or a woman or a man--just go ski."