Probably all of us have been in the situation where your motivation to go skiing was not as big as usual. A possible reason for that could be you are either currently despairing on a trick or you simply feel overskied. So what to do against it? One of my recipes is to watch an edit by Dan Hanka. My friend from Czechia is radiating so much fun while he is skiing, that I immediately get infected again to go for a shred.
This is just one reason among many others, whey we are very delighted to tell you guys more about Dan today in our interview:
Hey Dan, all good buddy? How was your pre-season so far?
Hey Christian! I´m all good! Pre-season is going pretty good! I´ve been to Hinter and now I’m at Stubai – the setup is really sick here!
For those who don’t know you yet, let’s fire some quick questions first:
Dan Hanka lives in: Little village called Vysoka nad Labem – about 800 citizens – Czech Republic
Your age: 24 years old
You get sponsored by: Faction skis, Life is Porno, Skicentrum Destne – YOURpark
Freeskiing means to you: My religion, love and mistress
My favorite skier is: I don´t have a really favorite one, there are lot of them.. But I would probably choose Chris Logan.
The first twin tip I skied with was a: Dynastar – Candide Thovex
Best afterparty you’ve been to: O´Neill Soldiers
In 5 years you wanna be: Still rippin the park or pow
In 15 years you wanna be: Working in the ski industry while shreddin.
Alright, thanks for that, now let’s get serious. Why do you think freeskiing is the best sport in the world?
Because it´s free and you can do whatever you want to, it´s the most fun thing ever… also the feeling I have while skiing and stomping tricks is fulfilling me in a really strange way, it´s like a skigasmus or something.
Did you also have moments yet, where your opinion got unraveled? Any development or thing in our sport that sometimes gets on your nerves?
Well, the thing I really like about skiing is, that it´s free and there are tons of ways how to do it. So the thing I kinda don´t like is the FIS with all it´s rules and stuff. But that doesen´t mean I´m the ‚FUCK FIS‘ guy. It´s just the other way of skiing, and if somebody is enjoying it, it´s good! I don´t mind to take part in slopestyle comps, it´s fun! So I would say no.
You are surely one oft he best riders from your home country. Still we haven’t seen you competing at any World Cups nor the Olympic Games. How come?
I´m more the shredding kind of guy. I love to go through the park, and think of different ways how to hit stuff, or hit urbans or what ever is skiable. But I´m not against competing. Probably the main reason is, I was not chosen into Czech Freeski team back in the day when it was formed, so I couldn´t afford to travel around the world and do world cups. For these events, there´s my good friend Mario Skala. And he´s pretty good at it – he represented us very well in Sochi!
Tell us quickly a bit more about freeskiing in Czechia, Is the sport still growing there? Which ski resort should we go to?
There are not many of us, but those who are skiing are really passionate about it and the number is growing every day, even though skiing is really expensive for Czech people. Also the resort´s are building better and better terrain parks. But still, if you wanna be good at jumping, you have to go abroad. I think you should definitely visit YOURpark at Skicentrum Destne. It´s the home ofthe O´Neill Soldiers event, and the park has lots of original, skatepark style features with it´s own lift and a kind of freestyle friendly bar with good food, drinks, music and vibes!
Money and expensive travels are surely the major issues you have to struggle with. How tough was it for you to get your name out there and make life easier? Is your life actually easier now?
Definitely everyday struggle! I have some older friends, that taught me a lot back in time about self-management and how everything works in this kind of industry – that really helped me a lot. And then there were two breaking points: The first one was, when Johny from Czech Faction sent an email to Beanie from Faction HQ with some of my footage (I don’t think my skiing was outstanding or something) and maybe she has seen some potential or I don´t know, but she put me tin the Faction Europe team. So there was finally no need to borrow skis and stuff from my friends anymore, as I had a really, really bad life phase in that time and could not afford anything. That made stoked on skiing and gave me the first idea, that I should not take skiing only as a hobby. The second breaking point: When I first met Bernie (Martin Bernard) 2 years ago and filmed the Speedin´ edit in about 3 or 4 hours. He was also a skier, but he wanted to start a filming career. And I was a skier who needed a filmer….. We figured out, we share the same opinions regarding music, skiing, filming and pretty much everything. So we started to cooperate. We put the Speedin´ on newschoolers.com and the next day we were really SURPRISED how insane it went on all the community servers. That is probably the first time my name has been introduced to a ski community and got into the business. If it is easier now? Not at all, but it´s way better than it used to be. I´m still broke all the time, counting every god damn penny, borrowing money from my friends and shit. But when you realize what skiing is able to give you back – it´s totally worth it.
Past spring especially the Faction Collective edit episode 3 went viral, actually for a very good reason. It seems like there is a very special vibe in the Faction team. Can you confirm that and/or describe it a bit more?
100% CONFIRMED. For me definitely the webisode trips are the best. It´s so much fun with the team, everybody is crazy in some way while he is skiing, your jaw is just dropped all the time, because everybody is going crazy all the time, doing their own thing – Candide going massive, Pablo doing dub backies everywhere, Delorme buttering all around, Corey smashing into the rocks, Etienne calling us pussies behind the lense etc… But all of us at Faction loves skiing and what they´re doing, and that probably creates the vibe I think.
What are your plans for this season, will we come again into the pleasure to see some banger edits from you?
For this season I´m gonna make my own webisodes called Smelly Socks. The filmer is Bernie, who also created Chargin´ and Speedin´. It will be basically a videoblog about my winter activities containing all the best bits of skiing, crashes, friends, travelling, fun and the behind-the-scenes as well as weird places that we discover on the road. In total there will be about 6-9 parts over 2 minutes during the whole season.
We will do some free stuff give away competitions, publishing behind the scenes footage and releasing dates for all of you guys soon. So if you´re interested, you can find us on instagram under: smellysocksrocks
or on facebook: www.facebook.com/smellysockswebisodes
The other project I´ll be involved in is called ¨In Between¨. It´s an Eastern Europian project containing Czech, Polish and Slovaks best skiers. Should be online for free in the end of the season – keep an eye on that one too!
You can also find it here:
To round up this interview, anything you want to get off your chest?
My life dream is to shred the Windells camps park at Mt. Hood at, so if anyone out there wants to help me to get there, I would be the happiest person ever.
Than I would like to thank Faction skis for taking care of me, supporting my thoughts and visions. Martin for being the best filmer and Hanzi for making Soldiers the sickest event of the year!!!!!
Also thank you Christian for the interview, and everyone who will read it.
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