Summary of the Conversation: 

-Exploring the societal pressures as human factor on professional athletes

-Sasha shares how she balances decision making in the backcountry with a very mindful approach inclusive of her nervous system

-Sasha cracks the code on the best Human Factor Hack; creating mindful presence in a meditative, naturalist inquisitive approach to the mountains.

-Sasha talks about the preventative nature of choosing backcountry partners by engaging in conversations that share each others unique stress signatures and what each partner needs in high risk scenarios.  

Sasha is a professional skier and meditation teacher, and the founder and director of Mountain Mind Project. She has spent her lifetime training her mind and body. Sasha has competed at the highest level of skiing and mountain biking, winning the Freeskiing World Tour and competing on the Freeride World Tour and Enduro World Series. In high school, she was invited to travel with the National Development System and race internationally in the recruitment pipeline for the U.S. Ski Team. She’s always loved the mental game. 

Her meditation practice grew out of her time as a competitive athlete. Sasha saw – in herself and those she loved – how accidents, trauma and life’s load can compound over a career. During years of illness and chronic pain, Sasha became a qualified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher by the UCSD School of Medicine MBPTI.

Sasha’s style of meditation is to engage fully within the inherent risk of life, refined from her time spent in the inherent risk environment of mountains. Her mission is to normalize that the health in mental health can be cultivated – through deep relationship to self, others and the natural world from meditation practice.  

Sasha is the daughter and granddaughter of Vietnam war refugees and keeps one foot planted in the Mountain West of the U.S. and the other in the Mekong of Vietnam.

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

AVSS

Drone Amplified

Partner Sponsors:

CIL Avalanche

Safeback

onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor:

OpenSnow

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Bob Keating