J.T. Holmes: experiencing flow

J.T. Holmes is a professional skier and extreme adventure sportsman. He has years of professional skiing experience competing world wide. This year J.T. combined three of his favorite sports, speed riding, skiing and base jumping to descend the Eiger Mountain in the Bernese Alps. His journey took about three minutes and 60 Minutes was on hand to document his epic adventure. A few of his previous extreme athlete jobs have included participating in action adventure films for Warren Miller Entertainment, filming footage for extreme sports videos, wingsuit flying in movies such as, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, helping stunt teams coordinate speed flying scenes for movies including, Fast & Furious and Godzilla. Back on the ground, J.T. is the Director of B.A.S.I.C.S., Being, Aware, Safe, In, Critical, Situations, a program service through the High Fives Foundation. The B.A.S.I.C.S. program promotes safety and awareness through world class coaching of action sport athletes and create videos that promote critical thinking to winter sport enthusiasts of all ages.

SZ: What’s the process for you that goes into preparing to descend the Eiger and some of your other big projects?

J.T. Holmes: The Eiger is a great example because the check list was incredibly long and thorough. Even the safety checks on the top of the mountain were critical and extensive. In regards to physical preparation, my sports are gravity sports and they don’t require a lot of physical fitness-strength. It’s not like I am powering the mountain. I do yoga and a lot of hiking, cycling and swimming. I swim in Lake Tahoe in the summer. I will wake up and swim about 1.7 miles, a pier to pier training. I prefer exercising outside so what I choose is specific to the season. I’m the guy that needs to be in nature and when you’re dealing with nature you take the offerings that exist for any given day. Some days that might be a perfect single track trail for mountain biking, or perhaps it’s a group of friends that are going road cycling. I recently got a brand new Santa Cruz Bronson mountain bike which is just awesome. It’s amazing how balanced it is and the traction I get. It’s really rejuvenated my stoke for mountain biking.

SZ: I’ve been in that bike shop those bikes are beautiful. Do you go to the gym at all?

J.T.: Typically in the Fall I will do a bit of plyometric stuff but in general it’s more about working on my flexibility which is something I struggle with. I’ve had some injuries over the years. I also grew quite quickly so I’m naturally quite stiff. I combat that with stretching,  and yoga. Typically the first thing I do after waking up in the morning are hamstring stretches. I lie down with my feet up against the wall and my gluts up against the wall and stretch my hamstrings. Everything works a lot better once I’ve got loose hamstrings.

SZ Do you work with a physical trainer?

J.T.: I do not work with a physical trainer although I should and I may do that going forward. But at the moment I don’t.

SZ: Do you incorporate and meditation, visualization or other mental focusing skills into your preparation?

J.T.: I don’t mediate but yes I visualize. I practice route sighting a lot with skiing and ski-gliding. What this involves is I take a photo of a mountain and I memorize it like it’s a trail map. When I get to the top of the mountain suddenly it’s inverted. All the landmarks are now opposite than how they are in the photo. For example, a landmark that was on the left side of the photo is going to be on my right as I look down the mountain. That’s a technique I’ve been using for years. As a professional skier for ski films like Warner Miller Entertainment when I go to Alaska or Squaw Valley and I am at the top of a mountain often I can’t see the whole thing. So I memorize it from the photo that I took. I also use really good binoculars with an image stabilizer. I survey the mountains I descend from all different angles available to me. I spent years looking at the Eiger through my binoculars. Sometimes I would just ski around and get different vantage points or ride different chair lifts. I took the Jungfrau railway to help me survey the landmarks on the Eiger from a different vantage point. When I do this I am not just surveying landmarks but I’m observing how the snow is sticking to the mountain. Prior to my Eiger run there was a storm that came from the southwest that worked well it was positive snow. I had a perfect understanding of what kind of storm cycle that I would need and then I was able to call in the production team to complete the Eiger objective.

I use a lot of visualization and use of landmarks. Then a lot of training is gear intensive. My gear needs to be like a second skin, a comfortable old glove. I need to be at one with my gear, not compromising comfort in order to gain performance. I prefer to use the same parachute that I’ve been using for twelve years rather than the new fancy one that has a little more performance. My logic is to decrease the amount of variables. There are certain variables I can’t control, but the one’s I can control are the one’s that I need to be as comfortable with as possible. That’s why I use tried and true equipment. I choose a piece of gear and stick with it. When I get a piece of gear and I don’t like it I get rid of it. Usually with a parachute, a speed wing or a pair of skis first impression is everything. I either bond with it or not.

SZ: When you near a big project date how do you keep your mind calm enough to sleep well in the days and nights before leading up to the event?

J.T.: That’s a very good question. I have a hard time with that and I can have a hard time with sleeping before a big event like the Eiger. What I make myself do is completely disconnect after dinner. I scratch looking at e-mails, phone and whatever. I disconnect. A good book helps me. If that’s not working sometimes I will use an over the counter drug like Ambien, or more frequently when performance is near I will take an Advil PM just as a sleep aid. I find that over the counter aids are a good choice nearer to when I will be doing technical performances because the over the counter aids are a little more mild. I will not plan any kind of high risk physical performance for days when I am going to be jet lagged. When I arrive in Europe and there’s a nine hour difference I have a hard time falling asleep and then have a hard time waking up in the morning. I arrived in Switzerland a month prior to the Eiger event.

SZ: You don’t utilize any natural skills to quiet down your nervous system such as rhythmic heart breathing?

J.T.: That’s something that I’m going to be doing more of. I was invited to the Red Bull High Performance Camp where they teach those skills. The athletes that attend are taught through effortless breathing they can slow their heart rate and it helps them fall asleep very effectively. I’m extremely curious about it. At the time of the Red Bull invitation the week prior to it Erik Roner had a fatal accident and my head wasn’t in the right space to go. I had witnessed Erik’s accident so I skipped camp. But I’ve picked up some ideas from other athletes who have attended. I have found them to be effective. Do I use them regularly? No, because I haven’t been properly trained in them. But I do experiment with them. I absolutely do believe that there’s a lot to be gained there to help my sleep.

SZ: Who are the folks that make up your team of experts that you consult with regarding weather conditions, terrain conditions, etc?

J.T.: Mountain guides, locals, helicopter pilots, skiers those are all the people that I source for information, even border line pester for information. After I finally completed the Eiger stunt I think that there were a certain few people who had been receiving my very regular phone calls that are probably pleased to not see my number on their caller i.d. anymore. (Laughing).

SZ: What have you done or currently study to understand weather conditions, types of snow and topography to formally empower your knowledge and increase safety awareness?

J.T.: It’s experience. As a skier I learned quite a bit about what the snow’s going to do, and layers of snow. When I become an airborne sportsman I’m very much in tune with the wind and altitude. Through paragliding and other paragliders’ I’ve learned a lot about weather, wind and how temperature affects the air and when turbulence occurs. I started paragliding a few months ago and since I’ve started that sport I’m blown away by how much I don’t know about weather and weather patterns. It’s a fascinating field that I’m enjoying learning more about.

"Fun is the goal and the redefining what's possible is the goal." J.T. Holmes

SZ: When you jump the rush of adrenaline that produces extreme clarity is frequently described as being in a flow state. Before taking off on the run or jumping from a platform do you feel a place of centeredness? Or is it after you take off the experience demands your full attention and brings your mind to this place of heightened awareness?

J.T.: Certainly I feel a heightened awareness before going because one thing I really notice is how observant I am. I pick up pieces of knowledge, or rather pieces of information about what conditions are that I might not other wise have noticed. Whether it’s a pattern of the way a bird is flying around, I am aware of what’s happening with the bird. If the bird is flapping it’s wings it means that its working to fly. If the bird is soaring or coasting that means that the wind is coming up the mountain and it’s helping the bird achieve with ease. I notice are the birds playing? There are certain birds particularly in the alps that recreate. They will be doing barrel rolls, flying in formation or flying interesting little lines. If it’s a good time for them to be playing it may or may not be a good time for me to be playing. But there is information there to be had. I notice every little thing whether it’s the texture of the snow beneath my feet or noise.

The mountain guide on the Eiger project made a comment after we completed the project that I hadn’t really even noticed at the time but, when he was helping me put on my ski’s I clicked my ski in but didn’t like the sound that the binding made. So I took it off and cleaned my boots more and just clicked in again until I heard a very familiar sound that I am completely familiar with. Little things like that, noticing visual cues of the shimmer of the snow gives me information as to what the sun is doing to the snow.  There is a heightened awareness there, flow state absolutely. Before I drop in on a ski run or a wingsuit flight or anything that’s high speed and high risk I use my cognitive brain. I use everything that I have learned in all my best logic. I’m thinking about do I have the right equipment for the job? Do I have the ability to jump from point A to point B? Do I have the right amount of speed so I land the landing and clear the rocks but not land too far? I am thinking about all these things. Do I make two turns to check my skis or one? Or do I just go straight and tuck to get as much speed as possible? There are all these things I contemplate. It’s all this logical thinking and then 3-2-1-Go.

Once I take off I’m just doing it, yet I have a plan and I stick with that plan. I look for my landmarks and carry out the route as much as possible. I try to live the visualization that I have of the whole thing coming together beautifully. But what typically happens is my cognitive brain kind of gets pushed a little bit to the side and I just go with it. I stop thinking so much and I react to the situation. Some of the most beautiful skiing I’ve seen is when people are just slightly out of control. I love watching skiing that is slightly out of control. That doesn’t mean that I am watching a skier like Bode Miller although Bode is an amazing skier who skies on the edge of control that’s why his name comes to mind.

But you can see a child who’s going too fast and is just reacting. The child keeps finding ways to slow down and his jacket is flapping in the wind and his eyes are probably watering through his goggles. That’s beautiful skiing because the skier is kind of relaxing and pulling things off to stay balanced. I’ve been doing this now for twenty years and the best skiing I see out of myself is when things kind of went a little different than planned and I’m reacting.

SZ: It’s sensory spontaneity.

J.T.: It’s cool and I kind of have that moment of “holy smokes,” that gives me that kick in of adrenaline as I’m trying to pull things off. I am in a sensory spontaneous mode. But I look back and realize how capable I was in that mode. I’m able to perform better than I could have imagined. Certainly better than I could have planned for. But that’s fun stuff and that’s what I think Steven Kotler in his book, “The Rise of Superman” was writing about.

SZ When you prepare to zip down a mountain skiing or flying you spot previously determined alternate routes?

J.T.: That’s correct. Anytime I’m in the mountains I identify safe zones. If you look at my Eiger descent it looks totally radical but I incorporated three sports during those runs. I could have stopped at phase one or phase two, although not at phase three. Once I launched my glider off the top if I had missed my mark and hadn’t landed on the right landing site on the Eiger to cut away the speed wing and start skiing I could have just flown on down and gotten back in the helicopter and gone back to the top. If I had missed my landing I would of at least flown down and landed safely. In phase two, okay I’ve landed and cut away the glider, now I’m on my ski’s and I’m cruising along towards the edge of that cliff. There was enough time to stop. I could have slowed down and just stopped at phase two. If though I had reached the last 100 ft. because I was going so fast I would not have been able to stop before reaching the edge, at that point I am 100% committed, and I’m cognizant of passing that point.

SZ: What is the history of the wingsuit? Who thought it up and how was it tested?

J.T.: In general the pioneers of wingsuit flying were French. There was a guy named, Patrick de Gayardon that designed early day wingsuits. Then there were also friends of his who were all wizards and incredible sportsmen and pioneers.

SZ: Were they doing the same type of combined stunts that you do shifting from skiing to flying?

J.T.: No they were just skydivers, sky surfers and base jumpers. Several of the guys had a pretty decent knowledge of several airborne sports including paragliding, skydiving or base jumping. It can be argued who was the inventor of the wingsuit but in all those conversations Patrick de Gayardon is going to come up.

SZ: I’m assuming there were some failures in this process?

J.T.: Patrick de Gayardon died but it didn’t have anything to do with the wingsuit. He made a rigging error and his parachute was unable to open. de Gayardon made one of the first wingsuits that was really easy to fly and was great for consumers. Before him there were two guys, Robert Pecnik of Croatia and his business partner, Jarl Kuosma of Finland who formed a company called Birdman, Inc. They developed a suit called the Birdman Classic that was the first wingsuit offered to the general public. There were failures along the way. There was an Austrian guy named Franz Reichelt who jumped off the Eiffel Tower in 1912 in something he thought was a wingsuit, he died. Humans trying to fly is nothing new. The design and materials have evolved a lot and wingsuits have become extremely easy to fly and get incredible performance out of. I first began flying wingsuits around 2002. When I started flying the wing suits weren’t that good. You had to be really skilled to get a lot of performance out of them. Now it’s different. It’s kind of like a sixteen year old being able to buy a Ferrari and that’s not always a good plan.

SZ: Is it a problem people buying the suits and not being experienced enough to fly them?

J.T.: I think so because people get into these wingsuits and they feel a great deal of confidence quite soon. It doesn’t take much and you’re ripping. There’s so much visibility now with wingsuit flying because people have Go Pro cameras and are able to share through YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and all these platforms. There is all this information out there and the ability to see all these different wingsuit pilots whether it’s at the local parachute center or the local base jumping destination. The norm has become rather high and it didn’t used to be that way. You get a lot of people feeling a lot of confidence without a lot of experience and they can get themselves into trouble.

SZ: Which is interesting in that extreme sports are built around a sense of free form and “Watch me, can you do this?” Yet it can be quite dangerous.

J.T.: That’s just it I’m not into regulating bodies. I’m not into limiting progression and having some kind of body establishing guide-lines and saying, “You can’t do this until you’ve completed a per-requisite skill evaluation.” That’s why I started my program with the High Fives Foundation. The B.A.S.I.C.S. program acronym stands for, Being, Aware, Safe, In, Critical, Situations. Frankly we just want to get people to use their heads at least just a little bit. To understand how much training happens behind the scenes. You can go on the news feeds on the internet and see amazing footage of a quadruple corked flip on ski’s now. Or people flying their wingsuits really low to the ground. In every single sport the bar is rising higher and higher and our mission at B.A.S.I.C.S. is to show people what the pre-requisite skills are. We show an Olympic gold medal freestyle skier doing simple flips into a swimming pool. Or a snowboarder talking about avalanches and helmets. We then go out to schools coast to coast and show the videos. We made one called, “Helmets Are Cool.” The latest video is called, “Choices.” It’s all about making smart decisions. We all unfortunately know it’s very important.

SZ: It’s great role modeling on your part. Some people in your position may have an attitude of each person needs to look out for themselves. You’ve taken the position of  making yourself available to engage with the next generation of extreme athletes and attempt to reach them with educational information that could save them from serious injury.

J.T.: It is my way of giving back and it’s in a way that’s not saying, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” Because when you’ve got that adventure gene you’re going to do it anyways. We use our visibility to share a good message. “Please think of things in a step by step way. Please wear your helmet. Please take note of all this information that’s around you when you are out in the back country skiing.” It’s been fun and it’s been hard work but rewarding.

SZ: In the book, “The Rise of Superman,”  professional outdoors-man Jimmy Chin is quoted, “The greatest athletes aren’t interested in the greatest risks. I mean sometimes they’re taken, sometimes not, but those physical risks are a by-product of a much deeper desire to take creative risks.” Do you agree with him?

J.T.: I agree that the risk isn’t the goal. The fun is the goal and the redefining what’s possible is the goal. I love combing sports. Have you ever gone rock climbing with a base rig?

SZ: (Laughing) No.

J.T.: Have you ever gone skiing? That’s fun, but have you gone skiing with a base rig?
SZ: (Laughing) No.

J.T.: That’s really fun. Maybe it’s not a base rig but a parachute, the speed riding wing now that’s a hoot. Actually that makes things safer because if there is an avalanche and I have that parachute I can most likely just hold on with my two hands and lift up and fly away and avoid it. Just in a sense of mountain transportation I can ski powder on the North face of the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix and I’m only exposed to the dangerous zones for a minute or two. Whereas if I were to ski the same place without a parachute I would have to get out the rope and set an anchor and repel. During the whole process of rigging or repelling I would be prone to avalanche, rock fall, all these things. Sometimes the creative process of pioneering something new can work out a way for things to be safer. So it’s very true we’re not there seeking risk.

SZ: Is there a new generation of base jumpers coming up?

J.T.: There is a new generation of base jumpers coming up. Base jumpers come from all walks of life. I see base jumpers that are new and doing everything right. They are taking a considered approach. They are thinking about each step of the process. They are developing their skills, jumping out of airplanes, learning the parachute landing techniques. And I see the other kind that are just flying by the seat of their pants.

SZ: The lower percentage, wing and a prayer group?

J.T.: I think in general most base jumpers coming up are good smart kids, young adults or even older adults. It’s not necessarily a young athletes sport. That’s the other thing about my High Fives Foundation program, I’m out-lining by example. I’m showing what learning curves can look like and these things can transfer to any sport. When I was learning to base jump people pointed their finger at me like I was kind of some absolute nut that was doing things way too fast. But I had a risk evaluation process and criteria developed through fourteen years of professional skiing. I was able to learn fast. So when I see people getting into the sport doing very advanced flights very quickly at an extremely accelerated learning curve I’m the guy that says, “Hey take a look at this and let me help you with that. This is my e-mail address if you have questions.”

SZ: J.T. thank you for taking the time for this interview. It’s been fun and informative.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
*This article can be read @ Examiner

Mitchell Hall, Trident Focus Consulting

Mitchell Hall was born and raised outside Chicago, and joined the Navy in 1990. At eighteen years old he succeeded in training to become an elite US Navy SEAL. Over the span of twenty-one years, his career included nine deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other locations. He is the veteran of four national campaigns, was a Navy Special Warfare SEAL instructor, a Platoon Chief and was the research and development/acquisitions department head for the west coast SEAL teams. Hall is a highly decorated SEAL and Silver Star recipient. Through-out his time serving in the Navy Hall pursued his passion for triathlon and competitive cycling. After twenty-one years of service and retired from the Navy he quickly transferred his enjoyment of competing in endurance sports into the longstanding, yet fledgling Superfrog Triathlon. He has competed several times in the Hawaii Ironman World Championships and is a nationally ranked triathlete and top masters cyclist. Currently Hall resides in San Diego and concentrates on consulting in the entertainment industry. He has worked on three major films. A personal story was used in the 2012 film, Act of Valor. He was the technical advisor for the film, Zero Dark Thirty and worked with the director to help with set design and story/script concept. Hall was a technical and stunt advisor on the set of Lone Survivor where he collaborated with the director to authenticate everything from using the correct gear to using the correct military language. Hall is a member of SAG and the recipient of the Best Stunt Ensemble SAG Award in 2012.

Hall served for 21 years as a Navy Seal, and is a nationally ranked triathlete and top master's cyclist

SZ: How old were you when you realized your destiny was to become a Navy SEAL? What events inspired you to take your life in this direction?

Mitchell Hall: I was sixteen and wanted to be a fighter pilot. But due to some family circumstances and my grades weren’t great, college was not on my radar screen. My cousin mentioned the Navy SEAL’s to me. If you could rewind the tape, now everyone knows about the SEAL’s but at the time it was in it’s infancy and not well known. More well known were the Green Berets and Delta Force. The Navy SEAL’s were more of a mystery because the internet wasn’t around to look up what they did. It tested my imagination. They were supposed to be the best and at sixteen I decided that’s what I wanted to be. My entire goal in joining the Navy was to become a SEAL.Today it’s quite different in that there is more of a pipeline for guys that want to become SEAL’s. When I joined the Navy I had to raise my hand and try out for it. I had to go through a physical fitness test to get entered into that pipeline. If at any point I were to fail or be spun out of it I would still have had a four year contract in the Navy and would have become a sailor. Quite honestly that was a horrible thought for me. Not to take anything away from sailors but it wasn’t my goal. I only wanted to be a SEAL.

SZ: How many guys went through the training with you?

MH: We started out with just over one hundred guys and finished with thirty something. Historically there’s a seventy-five percent attrition rate. I was a fairly conservative kid from the midwest and from day one was a deer in the headlights. I knew I would have to swim because the Navy SEAL’s operate in the maritime environment. But no-one ever told me I would need to swim with fins. The first morning I was trying to impress all the instructors and my potential classmates and after an hour of swimming hard with fins on every tendon in my foot was sore and achey. That afternoon we did a run that was in soft sand. I was a pretty good runner but no-one told me that we would be running in soft sand. At the end of my first day I remember thinking “What have I got myself into?” But like a lot of teenagers I was resilient. I adopted quickly and was not sore after a couple of days.

SZ: I assume other guys were in the same situation as you. Did the guys talk amongst themselves about their experience?

MH: Yeah, there is a constant stream of dialogue between classmates but at the same time you’re trying not to show a kind of weakness. That mentality is forwarded into the actual SEAL teams where occasionally you confide in people but you never want to show too much weakness because it reveals a crack.

SZ: If someone shows weakness it makes an impression on the rest of the group like there is a weak link on our team?

MH: You hear all this talk about the brotherhood and willingness to fight next to each other and all that is true. But at the same time we are very hard on each other. It is part of the culture and that’s part of what makes us good. If you feel a bit of weakness guys are going to prod and get in there and see if they can bother you just because it’s the nature of who we are. It’s a bunch of alpha males.

SZ: You were a Navy SEAL for twenty-one years. What are some of the biggest shifts in training that you experienced during those years?

MH: The training cycle is endless. It’s built into the calendar year. Training rotates around deployments and then you return from the mission and rest. Then you gear up for the next one which involves a lot of training and pushing the envelope, trying new things, new tactics that you learned from the battle field during the previous experience.

SZ: So regardless of whether you have an opportunity to put your training into action there’s still another training cycle.

MH: Yes, but we were fortunate over the last fifteen years to actually put our training into action. The ten years prior to that there wasn’t much going on. While we had all these ideas, concepts and tactics, not all of them were proven. Some of them we learned early on weren’t working and we needed to adapt and evolve them. Some of them were already written in blood and they are the fundamentals of what we base our tactics and existence on. There is a funny cartoon floating around that is a comparison of a SEAL from Vietnam and a SEAL of the mid 90’s. The Vietnam SEAL had the bare minimum, a gun, some ammunition, a canteen, a camouflage uniform and that was about it. Next to him was the SEAL of the mid 90’s. He had the gigantic backpack on, radios everywhere, guns, sunglasses, all sorts of stuff. It was pretty funny and true. The technology in the mid to late 90’s was good but it hadn’t evolved. An i-phone does as much or more than any radio we had before then. It’s a tenth of the size of the radio’s of the 90’s. The GPS’s equipment was gigantic but we had to carry it all because it became somewhat mission critical. In 2001 we carried ten or eleven magazines of ammunition. But what we realized when we were in Afghanistan especially in the mountainous terrain, with all that weight we weren’t able to be very catlike. You can barely get out of your own way carrying all that equipment. So we had to really take a hard look at what we were carrying. We paired that 100 lbs. of equipment down to forty or sixty depending on the mission. Some of our equipment evolved because the companies or manufacturers made it smaller and lighter but other times we just decided we didn’t need certain things any more.

SZ: The standards of excellence, preparation and efficiency are high for Navy SEAL’s. What was it like to retire? Was it a difficult adjustment after that many years of service to leave?

MH: When I retired I was very fortunate. I have some very interesting projects that I am involved with and because of that I think I turned the page rather gracefully. I made a decision at the twenty-one year mark when I acknowledged the fact that I’ll never be satisfied. I’ll always want to do another mission. That realization helped me say, “You know what it’s time.” Because if I’m waiting for that one mission that’s going to seem like, “This is it that was awesome.” It’s just never going to happen, because I’ll always want more.

SZ: Is it the adrenaline rush of preparation then the actual….

MH: It’s everything. It’s the process, it’s hanging out with the guys, it’s doing the actual mission. I was smart enough to realize that there wasn’t going to be that one mission to satiate me. I said, “This is it. I am alive.” I’d just received a very prestigious award and it just seemed like the right time to leave. I also had other ambitions. I was never truly, totally, completely defined by being a Navy SEAL. Although most people around me view me as that. My self perspective is not that. So at thirty-eight years old I said it’s better to start this new chapter in my life in my late thirty’s as opposed to just continuing on, chasing something that will never be caught.

SZ: Did you have opportunities prior to leaving the Navy or did you just know there were opportunities that would be available to you after leaving?

MH: Because I am an endurance athlete my goal at the time was to go into event production which I did. My new motto is that I will always have a conversation even if I don’t initially see where it goes unless it’s obvious that’s it’s not something that aligns with my code. But I’ll usually have a conversation with just about anyone and that was the case of the first movie I did. My initial thoughts were I had absolutely zero interest in working in entertainment. Now it’s kind of funny because they are my friends. Working on the first film was an incredible experience. The people were amazing and they are the best in that business. I can appreciate the best in any line of work. It takes that extra dedication, extra motivation, extra passion to be the best at what you do regardless of the field you are in.

SZ: You are a nationally ranked triathlete and top masters cyclist. Fear of failure is not uncommon in sports, what mental skills do you use if any from your Navy SEAL’s days to help you focus on what you want to accomplish in training and races?

MH: I think it’s a question of nature vs. nurture. I think that some people just have something naturally. It can be rather undefined at the beginning but I think I just had this drive. Trust me no-one from my high school class would have thought that I had this inner drive but it was down there deep. I think my friends were rather shocked when they found out what I ended up doing.

SZ: Did joining the SEAL’s give you the discipline to discover that inner drive in a way the structure of school couldn’t do?

MH: The opportunity to take a swing at becoming a SEAL made me flip a switch. I wasn’t super disciplined but I was a hard worker. I’ve had four jobs in my life and early on one of them was moving furniture. Even though I was smaller than some of the guys on the job I worked circles around them. The triathlon or endurance side of me feeds off of the SEAL side of me and the two activities help each other. When I am running a marathon and at mile sixteen everything is falling apart I can stay in there because of my SEAL training. There is a quote, something to the effect that, “Not failing out weighs the joy of winning.” That totally resonates with me. When I did well at a triathlon or on a SEAL mission I wouldn’t take a lot of satisfaction from the success. It’s more like that was cool, but I don’t revel in the satisfaction that all the work came together. It’s more like I wonder if I could have gone even faster if I had just done this, this or this a bit differently. If I fail at something I can still remember all those failure points.

SZ: When you win a race your preparation and process during the race met the needs of that situation. You were able to accomplish what you needed better than everyone else you were competing against that day. If you finish a race third and still accomplished your pre-race goals does coming in third still feel like failing?

MH: As I’ve matured I’ve been able to be more comfortable with this. But before if I’d come in fourth or fifth, I would beat myself up a bit. I’d say to myself, “Dude if you’d just done this or this differently during the event it could have put you up a couple of places.” As I look back on this now with more clarity it seems like fear of failure is a bit of fuel for victory.

SZ: I read a segment of “8 Secrets to Grit and Resilience, Courtesy of the Navy SEAL’s” by Eric Barker.

Time management is a balancing act.

1. Make it a game. It’s the best way to stay in a competitive mindset without stressing yourself out.
2. Be confident – but realistic. See the challenges honestly but believe in your own ability to take them on.
3. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Grit comes a lot easier when you’ve done the work to make sure you are ready.
4. Focus on improvement. Every SEAL mission ends with a debrief focusing on what went wrong so they can improve.
5. Give help and get help. Support from others helps keep you going, and giving others support does the same.
6. Celebrate the small wins. You can’t wait to catch the big fish. Take joy where you can find it when good times are scarce.
7. Find a way to laugh. Rangers, SEAL’s and scientists agree: a chuckle a day can help you cope with stress and keep you going.
8. Purpose and meaning. It’s easier to be persistent when what you’ve doing is tied to something personally meaningful.

This is a useful formula for any sports training. Is this an actual rating scale used in the military?

MH: No, there is no system in place in our process, but I’ve heard of these things. There is something I will say going back a bit. It took me fifteen years, three-fourths of the way through my military career to actually realize why I wanted to become a SEAL. Most of the guys will answer by saying, “I love my country.” Or, “I needed a challenge.” You will hear all the answers you would expect but the truth of it for me was that joining was all about me. This was a lot more of a selfish move than most people realize. I needed this to satisfy myself and prove to myself and the people who doubted me that I could do this. I love my country and I doesn’t mean I wouldn’t die for this country. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t die for a team-mate but it just means that this decision was more mainly about me.

SZ: Mental/physical recovery from trainings and competitive events is a very important topic to avoid burn-out. What have you learned and find useful for mental/physical recovery? Does the military actively teach recovery skills?

MH: In my experience the person in the breach or the eye of the storm is the last to know that they are burnt out. Everyone around them, their spouse, teammates, people that work with them probably start to see it first. People that are good at what they do and take pride in what they do just don’t want to believe that they are slipping a little bit and they need a little rest. That rest can be a week, a month or a year. What we call, “Op temp” or operational temp is something that needs to be closely managed. In fifteen years of war there were times that guys were just maxed out and fatigued. In the SEAL’s line of work that is very risky. In football there is an off season. But in war it’s not a sixteen game season. There is no off season it just keeps going. There’s no trophy at stake, there are lives at stake, so in that sense it needs to be managed even more closely. Everyone needs a break, an off season, even if they are forced to take it. Even if they are told, “Hey dude I am benching you for a bit I’m putting you in the training department. I’m going to put you in as a SEAL instructor and off of the battle field, because whether you believe it or not it’s the best thing for you.” That’s what a good leader will do even if the soldier or athlete is kicking and screaming all the way.

SZ: There are many mental training devices, biofeedback/neurofeedback on the market to add athletes in relaxation, focusing, stress reduction what’s your thought on these? When a person has been identified as not quite ready to be put back into action because of mental or physical fatigue is there a specific protocol for recovery? Or is it just take time out, change the environment and do things that are less stressful?

MH: I think everyone is trying to figure that out. As far as the wearables the reality is that they are in their infancy. I simply don’t think that we have all the answers right now and we are a ways away from it. I mean of course we need to rest, we know that six hours of sleep is better than four, and eight is better than six. But in the SEAL teams we don’t have this formula that measures whether a guy is ready or not. I have a feeling if there was a magical device there would be push back on it. Like I can imagine a solider thinking, “I don’t want to wear that device because what if it tells me I need to take a break?”

SZ: Professional sports teams are beginning to experiment with useful ways to monitor a player’s work/training load and mental/physical recovery by the use of biomarkers. They can monitor an athletes level of hydration, stress levels, how much sleep the athlete is getting etc.

MH: I think they are trying to do it but again you’re only going to get as much feedback as the user will allow. You need buy in from the athletes and soldiers themselves first. Some athletes are fascinated by that stuff and some athletes don’t want to track that information. When I am coaching some people want to know specially why they are doing something and can talk for thirty minutes about it and some people just want to be told the workout. Some people want to know why this device or methodology is going to work and others will just say they don’t care and they perform just as well.

SZ: What are your biggest challenges as an endurance athlete?

MH: Balance. In the endurance world time management is very time consuming. With a compulsive personality it’s very easy to want to do more and more and more. You think you’re just going to get better and better and better. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes you dive into this thing head first and other things in your life start to fall by the wayside whether it’s your family or whether it’s your profession. Balance is the key. That’s why a coach provides objective feedback, because the athlete themselves are the last to know and don’t have a clear picture of what’s going on.

SZ: What are you doing professionally these days?

MH: I’m doing a lot of consulting. I was a technical advisor for some movies, Zero Dark Thirty was one of them. I am a product consultant for Under Armour, and most recently I’ve been doing technical consulting for the Call of Duty video game franchise which is surprisingly fascinating. My athletic goals have been side-lined temporarily while I work but I need to get back at it pretty soon. I have goals to participate in the Superfrog Triathlon again and I’d like to get back to the Hawaiian Ironman World Championship. But I am taking a more balanced approach to my athletic and professional endeavors these days.

SZ: Mitchell thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule for this interview.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
*This article can be read @ Examiner

Tracy Austin, tennis

Tracy Austin Holt is the youngest ever U.S. Open singles champion and youngest inductee of all time in the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Austin won her first professional tournament at age fourteen in 1977. Over her professional tennis career she won thirty titles including three Grand Slam’s winning two Grand Slam singles titles at the U.S. Open 1979, 1981 and one mixed doubles title at Wimbledon in 1980 with her brother John. It was the first brother and sister team ever to win a Grand Slam event. Her tennis career was slowed after back injuries and recurring sciatica began to impair her mobility on the tennis court. By 1983 before her twenty-first birthday Austin’s tennis career due to injuries was waning. Though in 1988 she began the road to a successful comeback reaching the semi-final of the 1988 U.S. Open Mixed Doubles with partner  Ken Flach. Her comeback was ended by a near fatal car accident in 1989. The car accident damaged her knee and inhibited her from training intensely enough to continue to compete at the elite level. This life change eventually redirected Austin’s professional career into television commentating.  She currently is an analyst covering major tennis events for The Tennis Channel through-out the year and the BBC during Wimbledon.

Tracy Austin Holt long ago made her career transition from player to commentator although she keeps her tennis skills sharp.

SZ: One of your big world impacts was when you became the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Open. As an adult besides family and children what accomplishments to date are you most proud of?

TAH: Starting a new career in television after retiring from professional tennis and finding a nice balance staying stimulated between working and raising a family. Trying to strike that balance is very tough and everyday I’m constantly trying to balance everything. I’m really into trying to be centered and balanced. There are adjustments I have to make everyday in achieving that balance.

SZ: There’s not a lot of lull time. You also have foundation that puts on charity events.

TAH: For twenty-seven years I had a charity event for under privileged children that is no longer going because the two gentlemen that ran it passed away. But for those twenty-seven years it was a huge impact for needy families. The money raised provided services for dentistry, psychology and health needs. That was very important to me for all those years. More recently I’ve participated in about five tennis celebrity events to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research because my brother John has M.S. I believe that if an athlete has a platform and is able to give back it’s certainly very rewarding I was telling my husband the other day that I need to stay in shape because I  still participate in tennis exhibitions, I stay knowledgeable because of my commentating job, then there are the different needs of being a mom, and wife. I am leaving for Singapore later this week to cover the 2015 WTA Finals. I will be away for eleven days which is great for my commentating career but tougher for the family. I’m constantly trying to find that right balance.

SZ: Even though juggling multiple responsibilities can be overwhelming it’s nice that you are able to continue to use all your skills, knowledge and insight. These opportunities keep life interesting and stimulating.

TAH: The key like anything else in life is to find a balance. Yes, I do commentating but not too much. I keep my foot in the door so that I’m engaged and knowledgeable so I’m very much a part of it, but the majority of my time is spent at home.

SZ: What is your commentating schedule for the most part?

TAH: I work for The Tennis Channel through-out the year mostly in the studio but attend the Indian Wells, the BNP Paribas Open, as well as the Miami Open. I cover some of Wimbledon for the BBC, and usually work at the U.S. Open.

SZ: Do you have a favorite tournament?

TAH: I love Indian Wells. I just love how relaxed it is. It’s like a mini Grand Slam in a beautiful location. That’s probably my favorite.

SZ: What’s a typical day like when you commentate?

TAH: There isn’t a typical day. For example I just received my schedule for Singapore and I don’t start working until 4pm on some days. There is a lot of research and I must say research is so much easier now than it was fifteen years ago with the internet and the WTA/ATP websites. Before the internet trying to extract information about player’s head to head’s and all that it just wasn’t readily available. Now I can read about what a player says, and how they felt after each match. I enjoy doing that type of research and preparation. When I work from the studio in Los Angeles I am now commentating on the men’s matches as well as the women’s and that’s opened up a whole new category for me which is exciting.

SZ: Are you assigned certain objectives or an agenda in match reporting?

TAH: No, it’s never like that. The network will tell me I am going to cover certain matches and sometimes they pair me with another commentator. I frequently work with Paul Annacone and we’ve worked together enough that we have a feel for how much we each talk during a match. We do have a meeting about forty-five minutes prior to going on air. During that meeting we discuss about what we will talk about on camera and assess whether we need a graphic to illustrate certain information. For example; right now there are four spots left on the road to Singapore, so we may create a graphic that highlights the first four players (out of eight who have the most points) in yellow, then show the next four players and their point total leading into the tournament, followed by the next eight players that have a possibility of qualifying and the conditions that it would take for them to make it into the final eight. That creates a fluid discussion as we simplify the information for the viewer yet highlight why the matches are important to the players.

SZ: This summer you played in the Wimbledon Ladies Invitational doubles event. During the year you play in several tennis exhibitions. What do you do to stay physically fit and tennis sharp?

Austin stays active playing charity and WTA legends events as well as commenting for The Tennis Channel, and BBC during Wimbledon

TAH: I play a couple of times a week just because I enjoy it. Playing a few times a week also makes it easier when I play events. I also played the U.S. Open this year.

SZ: Do you go to the gym?

TAH: My life for so long was, “I have to go to the gym, I have to do this, I have to do that.” These days I take hikes, walk, swim, go to yoga sometimes, and stretching class. My exercise is not set in stone and I like it that way.

SZ: Nothing like a TRX class or pilates?

TAH: There are certain parameters that I have with my body at this stage of my life. I do some yoga but it’s in the effort right? In the trying.

SZ: Yoga is the most uncomfortable….

TAH: It’s very difficult but in the trying I feel better the next couple of days, then stiffen up again. Or I will be in a yoga class and look up at others in class and think, how did they get their body to do that? But that’s okay. We are all good at different things.

SZ: In your book, “Beyond Center Court: My Story” at age two your mom enrolled you in a program with Vic Braden at the Jack Kramer Tennis Club, in Rolling HIlls. You credit Vic Braden for making tennis fun for you. What do you remember about the experience that made it fun for you?

TAH: Vic had such a large personality. It wasn’t about enrolling me in his class because I basically just rolled out the pro shop door to play with Vic. He was just a lovely man with an infectious personality which drew me to his court. There were lots of kids, lots of balls and lots of games. He just made it fun. It wasn’t about perfect technique or perfect footwork. It was about engaging the kids with a lot of laughs, a lot of smiles and I just got hooked.

SZ: Most kids pull away from demanding expectations. Reflecting back to the early days when you were coached by Robert Lansdorp, how did Lansdorp’s “tyrant” coaching style help mold/motivate your tennis skills and contribute to your young playing success?

TAH: I think Robert’s personality and his persona drives a lot of kids away because it’s very demanding. He is a tyrant. He demands perfection from players but also from himself. I’ve never seen the guy give less than one hundred percent in any lesson whether that player was nationally ranked or a casual player. I respected him immensely and I respected that he wanted everyone to become better. That’s what his goal was in every single lesson. I wasn’t pushed by my parents, I was self driven. I recall feeling like no-one was going to get in my way. I wanted to go in the direction I was going. I woke up everyday with goals and with the desire to become better. I felt that when Robert was pushing, working me hard it gave me  confidence that he thought I could do more. That’s how I interpreted it. I think others may take his coaching as being critical but to me I saw it as a positive that he had confidence that I had more there.

SZ: His pushing was in alignment with your inner belief that “I can do this.”

TAH: Yeah, I mean I felt that he wanted the best for me. If he thought I could do more that gave me confidence that I could do more. When you think you can….it’s like certain people come across a coach and that coach says the right thing, then all of a sudden, the person goes, “Wow, okay this person believes that I can win Wimbledon.” Hana Mandlikova coached Jana Novatna to the 1998 Wimbledon singles title and a career high ranking of number two in the world. Because Hana thought Jana could win Wimbledon, Jana believed she could win it. All of a sudden Jana was a changed player.

SZ: Your son Brandon Holt is going to attend and play for USC next year. A hot topic in junior tennis these days is the issue of gamesmanship, poor line calls, coaches intimidating opponents etc. As a parent have there been times when your son has had to deal with this issue while playing an opponent?

TAH: This is a timely and appropriate question. It’s an issue everyday. There are some kids that actually play tennis and complete matches without cheating, without swearing, without throwing their rackets, and without medical time outs There are plenty of those kids but unfortunately in my opinion there are way too many kids that are pulling a bunch of shenanigans on the court. The disruptive kids use everything. It’s just disappointing and I’m very vocal about this. I’m very vocal that if you are fourteen years old and are still cheating, throwing your rackets, swearing wildly which my husband was at a match and the kid yelled, “F ***” as loud as he could while a grandmother and her six year old granddaughter were sitting watching the player’s. That’s when my husband decided to get on the Southern California Disciplinary Committee. Because you know who’s fault it is that at fourteen years old kids are still behaving like this, it’s the parents. They have not come down on the child for his/her behavior. If my son ever thought of pulling these shenanigans it wouldn’t happen because the chance of these kids becoming professional tennis player’s are so slim that I want to build a great human being instead of a mechanical tennis player with bad manners.

SZ: I watched an ESPN documentary on Roger Federer and one of the statistics they cited was that he has won more sportsmanship awards than any other professional player.

TAH: Apparently as a child he wasn’t a great sport as his parents at one point took away his rackets. They let him know that poor behavior wasn’t going to be allowed to continue. The boundaries were set. Whereas clearly there are junior players doing rotten things on court, bad manners, bad sportsmanship, and creating distractions to change the momentum of the match. They are clearly not being given any boundaries. The only thing important to their families is the “w.”

SZ: What’s your advice to parents that are on the end of their child being cheated in matches?

TAH: There’s nothing you can do. I mean you can go ask for a lines person. But what happens is the umpire comes onto the court for two games and then they leave. Because there are very few umpires at these junior tournaments. My husband suggested paying more money for entry fees so there can be additional roaming umpires at tournaments. My third son chose not to play tournaments because the experiences were so bad in the first few tournaments he said he didn’t want to continue. I told him okay because I am not sure I wanted to sign up for this again either.

SZ: But that’s huge….

TAH: But it’s not going to change. It’s not going to change cause they aren’t coming down hard enough on it.

SZ: If the USTA would provide for umpire money for tournaments I think there’s an opportunity for change. I would like to see the USTA say, “Hey this is where money needs to go so we attract, develop and keep really good players in our sport.” We are losing talented players to other sports.

TAH: I know so many players that have been lost from tennis and my third son is one of them. I’ve already gone through the tournaments with my second son and I’m now like, okay that’s fine. It takes a certain mentality to stick it out. First of all it’s a one on one sport so that’s more difficult than some of the team sports. Players are responsible for calling their own score, their own lines, then all of a sudden someone throws in
cheating, medical time-outs, bathroom breaks and everything else. My son played a match where his opponent called seventeen lets in the match. There aren’t seventeen lets in a month when you play. It’s just crazy.

You have to make an impact on the parents to create change because they are the ones that need to change their child’s behavior, when the child is ten, eleven or twelve. If a child is still acting up at age fourteen I’m not blaming the child because the child has obviously gotten signals from the parent that what he/she is doing is condoned in their house. If the parent were to change the messages then the child is going to change his/her behavior. I believe change starts at the top like everything in parenting. Words say so much but modeling says a lot. If you are modeling bad behavior or condoning it, without saying a word that sends a message.

SZ: I still don’t understand why the rules allow for bathroom breaks during a set. At the end of a set sure.

TAH: We can go on with this discussion for days.

SZ: Along with your son Brandon, which junior players should fans keep an eye on for the future of the game?

TAH: Taylor Fritz obviously as he just won his first Challenger. It’s only the second Challenger that he’s ever played. So Taylor has a huge upside. I think this group of young men, the Tommy Paul’s, Frances Tiafoe’s, Jared Donaldson, Taylor Fritz, these kids have a real opportunity to make a big impact. Now who knows, they are working very hard and they have great promise which is very exciting.

SZ: Tracy thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule for this interview.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro

*This article can also be read @ Examiner

Aaron Zigman, film composer

Aaron Zigman is an award winning composer who has developed over fifty film scores for major Hollywood directors and studios. He combines his classical background and training with strong knowledge of contemporary music. Some of Zigman’s film scores include The Notebook, Bridge to Tarabithia, The Proposal, and most recently he worked on Mr. Right and I Saw The Light, the Hank Williams Story. Both movies were shown at the recent Toronto Film Festival.

A native of San Diego, Zigman began training as a classical pianist at age six. While in his third year at UCLA, Zigman signed a four year song writing contract with Almo- Irving. In the mid 1980’s he broke in as a studio musician working with producers, Don Was, Gary Katz, Steely Dan and Stewart Levine. From this experience he got a foot in the door and started to get a name for himself as a producer/writer and soon wrote the pop hit, Crush On You for a group called The Jets. In the 1990’s he entered the film industry, with his work being featured on film soundtracks for Mulan, What’s Love Got To Do With It, Bird Cage, License to Kill, Caddyshack and Pocahontas. It was inevitable that Zigman’s lifelong devotion to classical music would eventually lead him to the film scoring stage.

SZ: I was looking at your website and listening to some of your pieces this past week. Your music is just beautiful.

AZ: Thank you I just wrote a seventeen minute piece for cello and piano. It’s a serious concert work.
We had our first concert at the United Methodist Church in Palos Verdes. It was the finale and received a standing ovation. Cellist Andrew Shulman and pianist Robert Thies will be performing my work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Sunday, October 4th. The classical station KUSC will be broadcasting the performance live.

SZ: That’s exciting.

AZ: It’s very exciting. The cellist, Andrew Shulman was the principle for the London Philarmonia Orchestra at the age of twenty-one. He worked with that symphony orchestra for fifteen years then came to Los Angeles for the L.A. Philharmonic and then started working in the movie studios. Currently he’s the principle for the L.A. Chamber Orchestra.  Andrew concertizes every two weeks and is an incredibly savant cellist. Robert Thies will perform on piano. Even though I’m a very accomplished pianist, it would have taken me six or seven hours a day of practicing to be able to play this piece. That’s why we have concert pianists who dedicate their life to performance art.

SZ: It’s nice for you that you’ve achieved recognition in your field so you have access to these artists that are at the top of their field. What a wonderful place to be.

AZ: I was commissioned to create this piece of work. When I write a piece of this magnitude it’s wonderful to work with musicians who are so experienced they can take the piece to a whole different level.

SZ: Once you’ve written a piece like the one you are describing…

AZ: The process is a collaboration with the artists. Once it’s written I send the material to them and they practice it. First they spend time with the material and work out their parts. Later we meet and start to rehearse.

SZ: Once you’ve written and performed this piece at a later time can you take the material and ….

AZ: Oh yeah, it can be programmed in any orchestra.

SZ: Few people probably know that you are an accomplished tennis player and could have played in college at the Division 1 level. What events happened along the way that shifted your athletic pursuit and talents to a full time music focus?

AZ: I was an accomplished junior tennis player up to around fourteen years old. At fourteen or fifteen I made the decision to venture off to make my life 100% music even though I kept playing through my first year in high school. My high school Point Loma High School had a good team. We had Kelly Jones who became a top professional doubles player. That year we got to the finals of C.I.F. . I think if I had been in really great tennis shape we would have won. I lost to a player who I’d beaten the year before in junior tournaments. I just stopped practicing tennis but I was still playing on the team for the first year and a half of high school. Then I quit because I could not put any more time into tennis.

SZ: What events happened along the way that shifted your athletic pursuits and talents to a full time music focus?

AZ:  I’ll tell you exactly the defining moment. At fourteen years old I was at Yale University playing with the Yale tennis team because they were recruiting guys like me who were ranked top in Southern California. I was in my second year of the fourteen’s. I was invited to go on an Ivy League tour. I played with Princeton, Yale and Harvard. When I was visiting Yale one of the team members knew my interest in music and invited me to attend a piano recital. That night there was this amazing pianist who played a free form style of jazz. He played very much in the style of Keith Jarrett. Jarrett had a hugely successful album around that time in the 1970’s called the Köln Concert. It was his tour de force record. So this pianist was playing wild stuff and at that time my facility was almost that good but not quite. By the time I was sixteen I could rip something like that out. But it was during that Yale performance that I had my epiphany.  It was so cool. I was very much into jazz at fourteen and fifteen years old. I was into Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, and Keith Jarrett at that time. It was after that recital I said to myself “I am going to make music my life.”

SZ: Are there lessons that you learned playing competitive tennis that carry over into your work as a composer?

AZ: When you play competitive tennis you are competing against someone else and you have to win. Playing music at that age I didn’t have to win I had to become better within myself. When I lost a tennis match that made me upset or hurt emotionally I would find myself going to the piano and playing for hours. It was my place of refuge and solace. I realized at that time I wasn’t competing against anybody and it was much more doable for me in the sense of an emotional response. Now I am in a business where I am one of the go to guys for film composing. The thing I learned from playing tennis is that I know what competition is. I can handle rejection. You cannot do what I do for a living without having a thick skin. With that said it still does hurt when I lose a film to another composer when I believe I should have gotten the opportunity. So there is competition. It’s almost like I’m back in tennis competing in a way. There are usually about twenty composers vying for the number one spot for a big or medium film.

SZ: What a great place to be. I’d rather be in that spot than the guy in the twenty-first spot.

AZ: My gratitude is that I am almost always on the list of composers who are considered for a movie. I just completed a documentary piece for Antoine Fuqua for the Suge Knight documentary. You know I don’t do a lot of television but this was for Antoine Fuqua one of the greatest directors in the world. He directed South Paw, Training Day, The Equalizer and many more movie hits. Antoine Fuqua is a guy I couldn’t say, “No” to do a thirty-seven minute documentary on Suge Knight. I had to write and deliver the music within a week. It turned out really well. My hope is that I can work for him one day on a big feature.

SZ: Do you have techniques to quiet your mind or environment to access your creativity I would imagine there is some pressure to turn out creative work when there is a dead-line.

AZ: That’s a really good question and sometimes it’s very hard to turn off my brain especially when I have an eighteen hour day. I try to stop working by 10 or 11pm but you know sometimes there is nothing I can do about it. I just completed a five month run on two movies one called Mr. Right with Anna Kendrick, which will be released Nov. 27th and “I Saw The Light,” the Hank Williams story. Both movies were in the recent Toronto Film Festival. In fact Mr. Right closed the festival.

SZ: What do you do if anything to quiet your mind. There’s a lot of pressure when you have a week to deliver a large volume of work. How do you access that creativity?

AZ: Sometimes I just listen to classical pieces of music to take me away from my work. I’ll go on-line and type in Opus 69 #3 Beethoven with Glenn Gould and Lenard Rose playing a recording that was done in 1975. That’s what I kind of do to wash away the notes that I’ve been working on all day. As human beings we need to sleep so that’s kind of one of my little tricks. I have a huge record and cd collection of all kinds of great classical, jazz and all music but I find the internet very accessible and quick.

When I create I don’t think in technical or mathematical terms until the idea is formulated Musical composition is formulated in improvisation. Once a pianist like myself sits down and begins to play and start thinking about what I am writing all of a sudden a little tune will emerge, a little spot light and I’ll go, “That’s interesting.” Then I formulate and keep playing then all of a sudden I’ve created sixteen bars of music that I’m writing out. Then that improvisational experience is turned into a mathematical one. Before my little dots go on my score there’s a lot of thought, preparation and revisiting.

Film writing and concert writing are two very different things. In film writing I am serving the film and it tells you what to write. I have to stay within the parameters of the film. In writing concert music for the stage I can write anything I want and in this day and modern age rules can be broken. Composers can do things that weren’t allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules. As you well know there was a riot in Paris when The Rite of Spring was played. It was a piece of music people couldn’t handle. They were enraged by it and then somehow the piece became accepted. I like to adhere to form and symmetrical writing but it’s very…

SZ: There’s more flexibility within the art form.

AZ: The best way to get the best score out of me is that I watch the movie without music.  A lot of times I walk in after the film has been shot and the music editor or director has already laid in the pieces of music that they like or think that works well with the film. So they say,”We kind of want this but in your own voice.” If I see a cut in its’ raw form I say, “If you temp this you’re going to spoil what could have happened. Just let me  demarcate where you want the music.” We will have a music editor in the room and we all agree where the starting part for the music will be and no-one puts any temporary music in and they just let me write the score. That was how I worked on The Notebook. The only score that Nick Cassavetes, the director, temped was a scene which was one of the bigger moments in the film when Ryan Gosling is kissing Rachel McAdams in the boat during a deluge of rain. Cassavetes temped that piece from Out of Africa. It took me four or five drafts to get him to love what I was writing because he was so attached to that piece of music.

SZ: Do you go on set to watch the filming?

AZ: All the time. I’ve probably done this on fifteen or twenty films. I did it on The Notebook. The landscape in South Carolina is breathtaking in certain seasons. I wrote the opening piece before the movie was completed. The solo piano piece during the opening sequence was written before they were even half way done shooting. They edited the sequence to my music instead of the other way around.

SZ: I read where you said, “Visualize the future you want for yourself and one of the key ways to getting there is networking and creating relationships.” How did you know or develop what you wanted for the future?

AZ: You decide what relationships are going to be worth it. You look at a director and think this guy is innately a great director and he’s got a bright future. You try and nurture the relationship. This day and age we have to do a little more networking than we used to do. All that does is make sure you befriend the people you are working with on a project so you hopefully carry it over to the next one.

SZ: What is your advice to young composers trying to break into this business?

AZ: You have to be involved in student films. Work on gratis unless you’re going to a school like USC which has a very good film/music department. Berkeley and a few others are good as well. In my opinion USC is probably the strongest in the country so if a student goes through the USC program then they can work on shorts for composers. That way they can develop a reel to show people what they can do. Another suggestion for young people is to find some Indie film where the budget is 2mil and the film makers aren’t going to be able to afford someone with my experience. Although if the film is 2mil and I think it’s going to be the next Oscar contender I will probably do it. If it has great content I will do it.

SZ: Aaron thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to speak with me.

*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
*This article can also be read @ Examiner

Professional stuntwoman Jessica Harbeck

Jessica Harbeck grew up in Dallas, Texas and as a child loved jumping out of trees, wearing costumes and playing multi sports. During college she played softball for Illinois State University for two years then transferred to the University of Colorado where she competed on the track team, heptathlon, as well as playing fullback for the rugby team. After college Harbeck moved to Los Angeles to break into the business of stunt work. Some of her television work includes, CSI: NY, True Blood, Revenge and American Horror Story. Her film credits include, Bridesmaids, Battle Los Angeles, Get Him to the Greek, Star Trek into Darkness.

Elite stuntwoman Jessica Harbeck

Today Harbeck continues to participate in stunt work but has branched out with her business partner, Timothy Eulich and started En Pointe Action Designs a stunt coordinator company that designs and executes action sequences for the entertainment industry. Most recently she just wrapped up her first feature film stunt coordinating job, Swiss Army Man starring Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano.

SZ:  I read that you began your career in 2005. How did your career as a stuntwoman take off?

JH:  I wish I could say my career as a stuntwoman “took off” from the day I stepped foot in Los Angeles.  In reality and in the moment, it felt more like a slow crawl through peanut butter.  After graduating from The University of Colorado where I was a member of the Track & Field team (heptathlete) and played fullback for the women’s rugby team I moved to Orange County.  I was lucky enough to have an amazing Aunt and Uncle who let me live with them while I found a job and got on my feet.  If it weren’t for them and their support, things could have gone very differently for me so I thank them daily and plan to pay their goodness going forward.  I worked at Starbucks in the morning, drove to Los Angeles in the afternoons to hustle stunt work and train, then drove back to OC in the evenings to work at Trader Joe’s.  There was a great amount of luck involved in what happened next, I met an actor on a movie in which I was doing background work and we struck up a conversation about what we really wanted in life.  I explained I was doing background work to get my SAG card and hopefully someday become a stunt performer. He told me he knew a stuntman from one of his acting classes and offered to hook me up with him.  He came through and put me in touch with stunt coordinator Banzai Vitale who turned out to be one of my greatest mentors.  Banzai sacrificed his time and energy for years teaching myself and a small group of buddies what we needed to know if we wanted to become real stunt performers.  He trained us in all of the basics (fights, falls, set etiquette, etc.) and was always there to answer a question or lend a hand and also put us in for work when he thought we were ready.  I then met a stunt coordinator named Charlie Brewer who at the time was the stunt coordinator on the TV show Monk.  Charlie gave me a huge boost in my career because he put me into some hard hitting spots and helped me build the confidence I needed to keep getting work from others.  Charlie would do his best to give me a day of work if he could, he didn’t owe me anything and did it out of the goodness of his heart which to this day I can’t thank him enough for doing.

SZ: I have to say the work looks like fun but obviously dangerous in most if not all situations. What is the typical length of time it takes to learn the choreography of the stunt and the training behind it? How much improvising comes into play during a take?

JH: Stunt work is one of those professions which keep your body and brain on their toes because the learning and training never stop.  The business is constantly changing and the only way to survive is to be as prepared as possible while staying open and flexible to the changes.  The way I physically train my body to be prepared is through massive amounts of yoga mixed with as much ocean time as possible.  I call this my happiness workout, because being in a gym is just too stuffy and being happy when I workout matters to me.  I love to be in nature when I’m breaking a sweat.  I surf, body surf, stand up paddle, etc. rock climb, and spend time training in martial arts at The Inosanto Academy which was founded by renowned authority on Jeet Kune Do, Dan Inosanto.  I try to mix it up while not over doing it because at this point it is the work which will take a toll on my body over time so I consider training to be upkeep rather than tearing myself apart like I did when I was twenty.
As far as improving stunts during a take is concerned, we typically do not do this.  Our goal is to make something look spontaneous, dangerous or nasty then get up and do it again and again and again.  The timing of stunts becomes a huge safety issue therefore we map out and rehearse our stuff until each player has it burned into their mind.  If a stunt performer decides to take a chance and change something about their performance without communicating it to the team it could lead to disaster, injury and even death.  Because we work as a team any changes must be communicated to all players involved in the action sequence.  Communication is a huge part of our job and the only person who should ever change anything about the action is the stunt coordinator, or the director, and when a change happens it is important to make sure everyone is on the same page and ready to go with it.

SZ: Most people have no concept of how grueling doing stunt work can be and the athleticism involved. What do you do to prepare yourself mentally for a difficult stunt scene?

JH: It depends on the stunt I’m about to perform, but as far as mental preparation I definitely use visualization techniques when it comes to things like choreography, stair falls, driving etc.  If it’s a hard hit I tell myself over and over how much I will destroy the object I’m going to run into/break though/be thrown through.  I will say, “Jess, you are going to destroy that floor.  You are going to show that floor just what it means to be broken, and when you’re through with it no other floor will ever want to be in the same room as you again.  Knock it out.  Kill it.  Break it where it counts.”  I typically go to mental Viking mode and psych myself up as much as possible for the upcoming destruction.  I thank my rugby days and my former marine of a father for this mental edge.

SZ: You started En Pointe Action Designs and now work as a stunt coordinator as well as a stuntwoman. What is the role of a stunt coordinator?  How and where do you discover talent?  What temperament and other qualities are useful to make it in this profession?

JH: I started En Pointe Action Designs with my business partner Timothy Eulich who just so happens to be one of the most talented and thoughtful stuntmen I have ever encountered in the business.  He is definitely the yin to my yang, which is why we have been able to work together for so many years creating quality action with directors and producers we love. The role of a stunt coordinator is to create and design action sequences which support the directors’ vision while holding safety of the performers and any crew involved in the shot to the highest priority.  Most stunt coordinators were once stunt people themselves so they know the talent pool well.  I am lucky enough to perform stunts and have personally worked with a large amount of the incredibly talented stunt performers who are working today.  If someone I know thinks they are the right fit for a job I’m coordinating they will usually shoot me a text or an email letting me know.  If it’s a newer person or someone I haven’t met they typically email or mail in their resume and headshot introducing themselves.  The business has changed a lot since I started, specifically concerning social media.  Facebook has helped many new stunt people connect and get in touch with stunt coordinators we once found to be unreachable.

Diving out of the way of an explosion

If someone wants to make it as a stunt person having a very diverse physical background and a positive attitude are very helpful traits.  It is important to be in control and to not come off as reckless because we are expected to create controlled chaos, get up and repeat.  I find having a team sports background has helped me a lot as far as connecting with others and keeping my ego in check.  At the end of the day we are all just a team creating a piece of art we can safely walk away from and hopefully feel proud to have contributed.  It’s imperative to check egos at the door. It doesn’t matter if you’re the lead double or doing a non-descript fight in the background, our work ends up in the same piece of artistic entertainment. Our relationships and connections with the humans we have worked with are what matter most. That relationship of trust and communication without ego is what translates best to the end product, which then creates connection with the audience.

SZ: If you were to make a movie that involved action that would require stunt work what type of action scenes would you include in the movie and why would it be fun or interesting for you to create this?

JH: If I were making a movie involving action, I would care more right now about being part of something in which the female archetypes kick ass rather than having their asses kicked by the patriarchy.  I’m so bored with the same old story line in which men are the hero’s. These old stories hold us down and stifle evolution of society by teaching children from a young age women are victims that need saving and men are hero’s.  I want to see more stories of women who are doing amazing things and are smashing the glass ceiling left and right.  I think it is this type of visual which will empower the young women of the future.  I just read about the two females who were the first to graduate from Army Ranger school 1st Lt. Shaye Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest. Becky Hammond is tearing it up in the NBA as the first female assistant coach.  We are witnessing the inroads of change by Jen Welter the first female to coach an NFL game, and Sarah Thomas, the first female NFL referee.  These women are making their mark in history right now.  Those would be killer stories to tell and being part of the team creating the action to support those stories would be an honor.

SZ: You hold a distinguished position being a member of the Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures, an invitation only organization for Hollywood’s top stuntwomen. Besides the honor of being selected to this association for your professional contributions what are the benefits of being on the inside of this organization?

JH: Being invited into the Stuntwomen’s Association of Motion Pictures was one of the biggest honors in my career.  My two mentors, Lisa Hoyle and Heidi Pascoe took me under their wing in a big way and helped me become part of the team.  I am thankful to them both for life for their commitment to helping me grow.  Being a part of the group has benefits on many levels.  First, it is a statement to the stunt community, which says “I am taken seriously by my peers and get along with my coworkers.”  It’s a badge of honor and pride to be counted among the most hard working, hard hustling, and talented women in the business.  Some of the insider perks of this are:

*Being in the direct company of other women who coordinate and a few who second unit direct.  We are comprised of 28 different women, many of whom carry with them expertise in areas I am not as familiar as they are. They help answer any question I have about a job and have also given me coordinating jobs on shows they run in town.

*We keep each other working so if things are slow I can email or text one of my sisters who is running a show and say “Hey, have anything for me?”  This is not something you can just ask a coordinator normally so being pulled into the club and being given the keys to the network is a huge deal.

*I have a pool of 28 talented, experienced, stuntwomen with wide ranging backgrounds to pull from if I need to hire someone for a job.  It is incredibly uplifting to have a team of badass women on your side night and day who are there through thick and thin when you need them.

SZ: Let’s say someone starts out their career as a stuntwoman what doors open by being in and around the business if they wish to transition at some point? You have expanded into a stunt coordinator business. What other transitions do people make?

JH: Transitioning from one department to another in Hollywood can be a challenge or can happen over night if you’re lucky.  Most people work incredibly hard to break into their chosen career path, if it ends up happening transitioning can be scary because you know how much work it took to get to that point and the idea of doing it all over again can be daunting.  It is also difficult to break out of the role you worked so hard to pigeonhole yourself into.  Moving from stunt performer to stunt coordinator means you have to make connections with directors and producers which can feel like a career restart after spending the last however many years of your life making connections with stunt coordinators.  It is a delicate dance with social politics playing a huge part.  Luckily, the transition from performer to coordinator is a more natural one and the stunt coordinators in your life who understand that difficulty and are in a position to help will do so if it’s deserved and they have the resources.

I’ve seen stunt people move up from stunt coordinator to 2nd unit director, which is an awesome and huge career jump.  2nd unit directors are in charge of shooting most of the action footage and are found mostly in the feature film world.  One of our group members is a stunt coordinator and also a writer.  I’m not sure how tough that transition is because I have never tried it.  Again, it can be tough to move from one part of the business to another because everyone you’ve worked with for years has only viewed you as a “stunt coordinator” or “stunt performer” and you have to make it known you have other talents and interests.  It helps to be in the business because then you have access to people in other departments who know their stuff.  But it can hurt because everyone views you as the one thing you do well.

SZ: Do you have any favorite stories from work you’ve done as a stuntwoman?

JH: One of my favorite days of work ever in the world occurred on the show “Grace and Frankie.”  I was there to double Jane Fonda in an episode where she slips on yogurt and falls to the ground during a fantasy sequence.  The director was a hilarious and legendary woman who sensed my aversion to hair and makeup and was teasing me about wearing false eyelashes on the job, which I loved.  My boss, Jill Brown, is a woman who also happens to be a great friend, and I was in the presence of two of the most legendary actresses of all time, Jane and Lily Tomlin.  After I performed my stunt and the nerves had worn off, I realized just how incredible this moment was and thanked Jill and my lucky stars for the opportunity to be surrounded by matriarchy.  It is so rare in a male dominated business and it is days like this one which fuel my feminist fire to burn brighter and stronger than ever.

Another cool story, I am lucky enough to get called to double an incredible woman on NCIS: LA named Daniela Ruah.  The first day I started doubling her I was climbing over a fence and running after a bad guy during a foot chase.  I performed my action for camera a few times before Dani arrived to set and once she was there she jumped in to do hers. Dani is an incredible athlete and can do most of her stuff.  I’m usually there as insurance and to do the redundant work so the repetitive nature doesn’t make it difficult for her to come to work the next day and do it all again. (She is the lead actress and works many many many more hours than I do making her job physically and mentally exhausting.  I typically come in for a day or two per episode giving me more time to rest up and prep for the next one).  That day, right before they were ready to roll, she looked at the director and my boss and said, “Wait wait wait, did Jess get camera time yet?”  I fell head over heels in respectful love with her in that moment because it was proof of just how much the woman cares to understand her on-set family.  On TV we are paid residuals if we make it on camera and because Dani takes the time to understand what it’s like for others, she wanted to be sure I was on camera.  I find her selfless nature to be incredibly refreshing and also the definition of feminism because we are a team, not competitors.  I’m there to support the character she has created and we are no threat to each other, if she wins I win and vice versa.  To steal a term from my gardening muse Travis Nuckolls, it is Hollywood symbiosis at it’s finest.
 
SZ: Is there anything you would like to add?

JH: I just wrapped up my first feature film stunt coordinating job.  The film is called Swiss Army Man and stars Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano.  Go out and see it and prepare to be blown away by what The Daniels (genius directing team) have created, it will be more than worth it.

SZ: Jess, congratulations on your success. Thanks so much for taking the time for this interview. I have a whole new understanding of the world of stunt work.

*Featured guests are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro
*This article may also be read @ Examiner.