Martin Svensson
Is the lead guide and founder of MWSguide.
Martin’s 20 years of leadership experience began in Scandinavia training people in rope access, safety and rigging skills. Since qualifying in 2005 as an IFMGA mountain guide he has been working with individuals and groups (both private and corporate) leading a full quiver of mountain activities including skiing, rock and ice climbing, mountaineering and expedition climbing.
Martin has progressively tuned his communication skills and developed a deep interest in the way people think and the way they interact within their natural environment. While his experience has taken him half-way around the globe he is happiest staying close to home - a small village in the French Alps.
Martin’s exploration of human potential through the energy-arts has revealed a path that compliments guiding. These practices can be incorporated into mountain journeys to deepen the experience and help his clients to restore balance.
Who we are
Lisa Auer
No longer takes the sharp end of a rope on guided trips but is responsible for putting MWSGuide’s ideas on paper and on the web and allows the journeys of mountain and mind to come into fruition.
Lisa’s path has changed from a life full of travel and adventure to one that is centred around family and the realisation of ideas that have been brewing since she and Martin began guiding.
A passion for skiing that evolved from ski racing internationally through her teens to extreme skiing; led to a career mountain guiding based between New Zealand and the Alps. Lisa’s direction changed again when she and her husband started a family in 2010. The common thread through her life’s path has been a strong connection with the natural environment and the communication of her journey through, teaching, photography, writing and design.
Collaborators
When we collaborate with other guides, we always work with colleagues who share our guiding ethos.
Our role
Our role is multi-faceted. We are mountain guides, ambassadors for the natural environment, protagonists of holistic thinking and, hopefully, facilitators of dialogue and change.
Mountain Guide
We have often pondered the importance of the role of mountain guide. Since people typically come into the mountains on holiday, for leisure how serious can it be?
We don’t mend people, or improve their well-being or make our planet a better place to live. Only, we realised, perhaps we do!
Apart from the obvious need to keep people safe, mountain guides are primarily ambassadors who facilitate connections between people and nature, and direct people’s appreciation to this beautiful fragile planet which we all hold in the balance. If you wish to learn more about the credentials of a qualified IFMGA guide – please read here.
Facilitators
Our role is as facilitator in the exploration of our thought limitations and our mind-scape. We recognise the limitations of our own conditioning and operating out of our true being is a work in progress. We are not setting out to teach anything or to achieve any particular results. Indeed, we have more questions than answers.
We do not claim to hold expertise in the domain of thought. We are working from a standpoint of insight. We are combining the skills we have in guiding which includes our familiarity with working with the rhythms of nature and the energy that can be harnessed from the mountain environment. From these conditions we seek to create a context whereby individuals, a company or group with their unique dynamics can create space for themselves, explore their limitations (both individually and collectively) with the potential to break through them. By holding the intention to see our thinking for what it is, we can see where we can take it, where it can take us . . .
What led us here
The mountains have led us to a new way of seeing. This way of seeing provides deeper understanding of the cause of much of the conflict in the world (ranging in scale from personal relationships, to business communications, even conflict between nations . . .).
This new way of seeing gave insight to a path towards creating harmony. We have looked in depth at the problem of avalanche hazard assessment (deciding whether or not to ski a slope) and our difficulty in seeing clearly which leads in the mountain culture to many near misses, accidents and tragedies. We see this problem, lack of ability to see clearly, as an analogy for and a microcosm of, many other human experiences in fields diverse from snow safety.