The Boot Setup Workshop — Comfort AND Performance From One Pair of Boots

Most skiers don't realise how much extra feel and control they could be getting from their boots. The liner masks the spots where the shell is pressing too hard, and the body quietly adapts around it. In this video I take you inside a real boot setup workshop I ran at one of my Big Picture Skiing camps at Sun Peaks, with Demelza and Jason coaching alongside me. You'll watch real members find the modifications that gave them better feel and finer control the very next day on snow. 🎁 Free video — the one I don't put on YouTube: https://bigpictureskiing.com/yt/154-seethebigpicture A note before you take this to a bootfitter: This isn't me trying to disrupt the bootfitting industry. I have a lot of respect for the craft — modifying a shell to a foot is real skill and there are plenty of bootfitters out there doing it well. The footbed conversation is the one place where I've arrived at a different conclusion than the mainstream approach, based on my own logical thinking, what I've felt in my own skiing, and what I've watched play out with hundreds of students on snow. Here's what I see when my students try the minimal footbed experiment. They pull out their expensive custom orthotic, drop in a flat insole — often the free one that came in the box with their boots — and ski on it for a day or two. They come back and report one of two things: EITHER they can't really feel much difference between the cheap flat footbed and the expensive custom one — both work fine on snow. OR they can feel MORE control over their balance and edging — the foot is freer to choose where to load pressure, and that shows up in the turn as better feel and finer ski control from the feet. Around 95% of the skiers who try this experiment land in one of those two camps. They don't find a negative. They find either neutral or better. So the honest question for the recreational skier becomes: why pay $250+ for a custom orthotic if a minimal flat insole does the same job — or a better one — for your skiing specifically? If you walk into a bootfitter's shop, please don't say "Tom Gellie says custom footbeds are wrong." That's not what I'm saying, and it's a bad way to start a conversation with someone who's about to help you. Instead, try: "Could we run an experiment with a flat or minimal insole? I'd like to feel the difference for myself before committing to a custom one." A good bootfitter will be open to that. If they refuse to even try, that tells you something about how flexible their approach is — and you can decide from there whether to keep working with them. The legitimate uses of custom footbeds still stand: post-injury rehabilitation, specific medical conditions, filling volume in a boot that's too high, alignment issues that genuinely need correction. If your bootfitter has a specific reason for recommending one for YOUR foot, listen to that reason. The conversation I'm opening here is for the 95% of recreational skiers who got handed a custom orthotic as the default — without ever testing whether it was actually helping their skiing. DIY Boot Punching tool https://propasnow.com/en-au/products/ski-boot-punching-tool Chapters: 00:00 Intro — why this workshop matters 02:06 The shell test (could you ski with just the shell?) 05:00 The tipping test (foot vs shin) 09:35 Eversion and inversion mechanics 11:22 Punching and grinding — the right way to modify 13:35 When you need a different boot (the Asian-foot example) 15:55 Reshape the boot to the foot, not the foot to the boot 17:30 Footbeds — the reframe and the history 22:36 The 3D snug fit and volume management 24:30 Footbed testing with the group — Lynn's one-foot demo 30:00 Knee tracks the pressure (habits vs alignment) 35:00 Closer — the snug-fit prerequisite and the volume reducer 38:00 Final recap and where to go next What I'm suggesting in this video is an approach that allows better feel in your turns and more refined ski control from the feet. A snug shell, punched at your specific hot spots, a more minimal foot bed, refined foot movement — comfort and performance from the same pair of boots.