1974 the interest for "Hot Dog"-skiing (later called Freestyle) exploded over in the U.S.A.   In Lappland we carefully followed what happened "over there", we
red the magazines, saw the movies .... and we got inspired.
"Hot Dog" was rapidly indentified with freedom, absolute freedom.
 
And in Riksgränsen we jumped higher and higher!
 
That summer, a big Hot Dog-camp was organized in les Deux Alpes in France. Headcoaches were the Garcia- brothers from Chamonix, together with Pierre Poncet and Henri Authier, also from France, and Manfred Kastner, Austria.
( Manfred later became the first in the world in succeding  to land a trippel somersault in competition. / U.S.A. 1978 ).
Some "hot" americans were also guest-coaches at the camp in les Deux Alpes.
 
Together with Felix St Clair Renard and Henric Gustafsson from Sweden, I was there, on the glacier ....


                   

... learned the first ballet-tricks, did the first somersault ..... and was ready to leave Riksgränsen to fly on ! ....

                       
                             

When I heard that Camel was going to sponsor a big ski-circus, and organize it in Europe that coming winter ... I decided to go for it !
When the snow began to fall in november, I packed my old "buggy" and rolled south ... towards the Alpes.

At the first contest, beginning of december, we "signed in", around 40 guys and 5-6 girls ... from all over the world.
We were two guys from Sweden, Sven Arnborg from Uppsala, was the other one, 

The competitions attracted a lot of spectators.
This first year almost everybody competed in all the 3 disciplines ; airials - moguls - skiballet.

"Camel Hot Dog World Trophy" hit Europe like a tornado, with contests every weekend all over the Alpes. The skiing without rules and slalompoles, got established also in Europe. More and more skiers joined to compete during
the winter. 
 

                                           The year after, a Europe-Cup was started, and later also a World-Cup. Many of us competed in both cups.
                                
                               
                                   

  The skiballet was my favorite discipline, alone or with
                            Stephanie from Canada.
 
        
                       


                     

The winter 1976-77, I became member in the Roy Ski-team, and choosed to share my time between competitions and giving Freestyleshows.

That winter we toured all of Sweden, and visited more then 30 places. We built our jumps by hand, often in the middle of the towns and cities, in small slopes.
We had big sucess with well-choreographed shows ... a mixture of skiballet and spectacular jumps, often hand in hand, sometimes up to 5 skiers.
                           
           

We had our own soundsystem of course, and often also our own light.
Quite often we had more than a thousand spectators, sometimes the double.
Mostly we did nightshows, now and then jumping through burning rings, etcetera.
Hardrock music was a must, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath were our favourites, and the Queen of course. Their classics "We will rock you", and "We are the champions", often started up, and finished, the Roy Ski-shows !

                          
                            
             

In the summers we used to organize Freestylecamps for young people, wanting to learn tricks and jumps. Mostly this was in the north of Sweden, Björkliden and Riksgränsen.

Other ordinary members in the Roy Ski Team were my brother Thomas Buchar,
Anders Johansson and Pär Ljungström from Västerås, and Göran Wahlén och
Göran Hammargren from Stockholm. Guest-artists were often Stephanie Sloan,
Canada, and the american Gary Bigham. Now and then also other skiers ...
 ... like Phil Sifferman and Micheal Godfrey, both from the States.

The year after, the shows continued. It was great and good times.
In the competitions I managed to, finally, make some wins myself.
Of course it was a fantastic feeling to stand there, on top. My bad "competition-nerves", had ruined the "final-runs" many times throughout the first years, but after a summermonth in Stockholm, where I studied Meditation seriously, I succeeded in controlling the nerves much better then earlier.

                        
                                                   
                       



                       

After that I started to "cut down". My brother Thomas and me opened Freestyle Sportshop in our hometown, Jönköping. The two following winters I just did some Mogul-contests.
Now and then I joined, as guest-performer specialized in ski-ballet, the famous Volvo Ski Show.
That was real special !
Thomas and I went to U.S.A. for a month, were we tried the well-known powder
in Utah. We skied Snowbird and Alta. and also took a week of heliskiing in the  Bugaboos, Canada.
An extraordinary ski-trip .... and impossible to forget ! 


                                  

During these years I also reconnected with skiinstructing.

Other sports were "pushing" though ... I did skateboarding, a lot of rollerskating, but most of all; windsurfing ! 
The windsurfing absorbed me completely. It took more and more of my time, and after education to become International windsurfing-instructor, I decided to leave the north, for the beach down in the south. Year was 1981, and I settled down in Cyprus, to start up my own windsurfing-school.
                       

                  
 

                                  


Despite all the violent skiing, it actually was the windsurfing in the waves of the Mediteranean which made my back collapse.
I was forced to go through back-surgery, and to leave both skiing and windsurfing for a longer period. 

8 years of rehabilitation followed, where the eastern training-methods, Qigong
and TaiChi, became my most important keys back to balance and full power..

When I returned to the snow after these eight years, it was with another presence, another rythm. Influenced by the eastern attitudes I found myself listen in a totally new way, when the skis
cruised down the mountainsides.
New experiences entered my life the years that followed. Skiing, philosophy and spirituality were woven together, and the skiing got a "depth", like never before. 

That´s how TaiSki and ZenSkii was born.
                                                                                  Peter Buchar

 
                      ... read more about  TaiSki and ZenSkii at www.zenskii.com         


                                                                       www.peterbuchar.com