Tyler Chorlton is a 34 year old snowboarder, originally born in UK, grew up in France and ended up in a small country called Andorra. It allows him to travel the world from there, profesionally snowboard and do his thing. Few years ago he started playing around with this elbow carve move and it kinda become a bit of a trend. What's this elbow carve move about, how does Tyler keep himself fit and how does the special antioxidants-rich water help him? You'll find out in the following interview!
Firsty 10 quick questions:
1. Years of snowboarding? 21 years now.
2. Years of snowboarding profesionally? I've been paid for snowboarding for 18 years.
3. How long have you been riding for Horsefeathers? I've been riding for Horsefeathers since early 2015.
4. How many boards do you have? 5 or 6
5. Your favourite model of snowboard? Bataleon Party wave for elbow carves and Bataleon Magic carpet for playin' around.
6. The best park you ever road? Tough one. The most impressive one was a park in Marmot. And then Whistler, LAAX, Hintertux, Mayerhofen, Absolut park. Can't pick one.
7. Your favourite freeride spot? The biggest and scariest freeride spot was in Alaska. And overall I would say the Whistler's backcountry. And in Europe the Arlberg area in Austria.
8. Most epic trick you ever landed? The elbow carve trick haha. Probably the reverse elbow carve flip around 540 and land back in the elbow carve. That was the craziest elbow carve trick so far.
9. Dream place where you'd love to snowboard again? New Zealand was sick. Alaska and Whistler aswell. And in Europe - Northern French Alps.
10. What’s your favourite HF product ever? Of course I’m gonna say my signature Ymir jacket because I helped design a lot of it, but I also must mention an item I use all the time which is the Walsh puffy mid layer which has now become the Asher (and for women’s the Ester), essential!!
Let's come to your signature move called the Elbow carve. Can you shortly describe what is it about?
The elbow carve is basically doing a long turn without your board sliding, so you are right on the edge and in a plank position with your elbow sliding on the snow aswell. So you're almost but not quite going in the straight line. From there aswell you can build on some freestyle, tricks and stuff like that.
How did you develop this?
Haha, it first started more than 15 years ago with bunch of friends. We would be just doing normal elbow carves. We were like: Oh that's cool haha. But didn't think anything of it. And probably around 2015 or 2016 Jake Simpson came over to Andorra while he was doing a junior contest in the other resort. He came over to ride at my place for a day and we were doing just some laps, filming with the Whitelines guys from the UK and he told me that he was with the guys and they were doing some elbow carves and I was like: Ah I rememer those! So we started doing some and then when I did one of them I just pop a backside 360 out and I was like : Huh! This is maybe some stuff to do! So I kinda just started there. And from then I just went with it and try to see what was possible.
I noticed that you've been really creative with it. Are you still developing it or this is the final stage?
The development of this thing is pretty much inffinite. Everytime I learn something new, I think about how am I gonna top that? And then few months later I am like: Wow I can just do that and combo that with this and I'm totally enjoying it. It's an interesting little discovery journey.
Were your friends hyped about it, or they thought that you were crazy, haha?
Everyone was trying it. It's pretty fun. It's really good to see.
I've been trying that too, I have to say that it looks amazing but it's quite hard though.
It's all about getting the right body position.
So it's not about the shape of board. I cannot blame it on the board haha.
No, no.
Can you do it on any type of board?
Yeah, pretty much.
Elbow carve is a move where you put most of your weight on your elbows and shoulders. Aren't they suffering from that a lot? Don't you feel a lot of pain due to this movement?
The first 2 or 3 years that I was doing elbow carves I used to feel a lot of pain. And then I started climbing - bouldering an that really fix them up. It not only fix them up, but it gave them a very strong foundation to built on. So now I'm at the gym and I'm pushing weights, sort of building up more mass so I can actually land on my elbow. If I can pick one thing that really helps, it's the climbing. Climbing is the golden one. And also pilates for the core.
How do you keep yourself in a good condition overally? Physically but also mentally.
Physically I had a lot of pain from my years of snowboarding. The worst was lower back and my hips. When I was 25 everything was really bad so at that point I had to make a big change in my life. I went really healthy, vegetarian, stopped eating processed food, went all organic and started doing yoga everyday, stretched musles, rebalanced everything. And that helped a lot. And then I got to pilates as well, which helped me in force and strenght. And all of that pretty much helped me to fix my back. For my shoulders I do every now and then bouldering, that keeps my shoulders and everything really strong.
Alright, and how do you keep yourself fresh mentally? Must be hard as well to stay focused and determined. Do you have some tips for that?
I guess experience is quite a good one. Obviously when you are young and starting out you're really eager and you want to do everything and you wanna suceed and make it. I think once you get a little bit older and you kinda already have made it or you made enough to keep yourself satisfied, everything becomes pretty chill and laid back and you can enjoy. You don't have to have the mental battle of the ego, I guess. It's always about the ego battle.
Nicely said.
And regarding health, I have my special water which I drink all the time.
What's that?
It's called Kangen water and it's electrolytically-reduced, antioxidants and hydrogen rich water that works to restore your body to a more alkaline state, which is optimal for good health.
How long have you been drinking this specific kind of water? Can you feel some differences since you drink it?
For two years now. The biggest difference was a reduction of aches and pains that came from snowboarding. For around 18 years I lived in a constant pain somewhere in my body, that's why I got into yoga, pilates and I started looking after myself because I was tired of living in pain and discomfort all the time. So doing years of yoga and everything helped for sure, but it wasn't until I started drinking this water that I was like: "Wow the pain is actually gone".
Did you notice the difference straight away?
No, it took about 2 - 4 weeks roughly. But over time I definitely noticed the difference. And I had to go to America last winter for a three weeks and I wasn't able to take my machine with me so I didn't have the water and already after one week I noticed that the pains are coming back. They were creeping back in, so I had to stretch everyday to keep the pain under control. And for example now, when I'm at home, back on the water, I haven't done a yoga for a three weeks maybe, because I don't need to, I'm not in pain.
Why is this water so vital?
It's really high in antioxidants. Oxidation couses inflamation in body and inflamation couses pain in the joints. So if you are drinking water that it's really high in antioxidants you have been reducing the inflamation in the body. It's a bit more complex than that, but this is the simple way how to explain it.
Do you have any people around you that have the same positive experiences with this water?
Well, it helped my girlfriend a lot in her recovery after the surgery.
Do you take the machine with you on your snowboard trips? Is it capable for travelling?
You can't take it everywhere. I don't take it if I fly to US but if I travel around the Europe I take it with me. You can't take it in the hand luggage when you are flying, you have to check it in.
How big is it?
It's a box around 30x30x15 cm.
How are you spending corona times? Does it affected your snowboarding a lot?
It didn't really affect me too much. The last season ended a month earlier and I had a couple trips planned that didn't happen, but that was quite it. I live in a small village in the middle of nowhere and as soon as the season is over there's no one, it becomes a ghost town, haha. So we got the place for ourselves, we got the mountains literally on the side of our building, I can walk up there with the dog everyday, hiking everyday, not too bad.
What are you up to when the snowboard season is off?
Pretty much just hiking with the dog, gym and I like to go mushroom picking.
I noticed that you were doing an elbow carve camps and sessions. How did the snowboard community react to that? Were people straight away hyped about it?
Yeah, it's been pretty good. We had a bunch of camps, all of them went pretty well and everyone was hyped. At one camp I had in a group together a 56 year old guy and 11 year old boy. They both land the elbow carve, it was pretty cool.
Awesome! Thank you, Tyler and I wish you all the best.
Tyler's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerchorlton/
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