Paul Lorenz Catchup

Hey skiers, thanks for tuning in again to another episode of the Global Skiing Podcast. This evening I chatted with a good friend, Paul Lorenz. I always enjoy talking with Paul in regards to skiing as he has very clear ideas and his explanations are spot on, and the understanding of all the details in skiing, in my opinion, is some of the best in the industry. So in this catch-up, we talk about a couple of really interesting things, so some of which are related to movements for initiating a turn and what Paul's been playing with this season on a longer radius 30-meter GS ski, open and closed chain movements of skiing, so listen in to find out about that, how a recent injury helped Paul to improve his training product for his candidates, so that's quite interesting, especially for those of us who are trainers out there or working in some kind of training capacity, And then finally, what the latest projected production videos are about. So, hope you enjoy being a part of a catch-up between two good friends and get something out of this latest episode. Cheers, Tom. Just a general conversation between mates.

Yeah.

Oh, there's Archie. Archie going off in the background there. Anyway, I was— you know how— I did that beer and biomechanics night at the Jindabyne Brewery, and there was one thing you came up to me afterwards and were like, oh yeah, that was really good. Was it— what was it to do with the Super Nation?

You asked me about something in the middle of the talk, and I was in the middle of talking with Riley about something, so I wasn't actually listening. And then you said— and then you asked me again in front of everyone, and I said something, and I came up— it was about what I thought Marcel Hirschl was doing in that photo.

That's right. Yeah, I had a freeze-frame photo of Marcel because he just like—

I just wasn't prepared and I just said what I thought.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, have you— do you— did you at all this last season, um, I don't know if any of the stuff I said is different to what you kind of believe in or made you think, you know, in a different way about, um, those, you know, joint mechanics in the body and skiing? Um, yeah, did it kind of?

Yeah, it did. It made me think about it differently. Well, I guess I— it, um, it firmed up what I was like, um, exploring in, you know, the idea of, uh, pronation and supination, and that maybe you don't actually need as much as everyone thinks about, you know, the arch of the foot and all that stuff. You just solely bounced on the middle of your foot the whole time, except in the edge change. So I thought about that a little bit more, but I think, you know, obviously you're going to continue to teach arch of foot and pronation because, I mean, it's a tangible feeling that you can relate to. But I also thought, when we first started talking about that, you said to me that I should speak to Nate, you know, earlier with the outside leg so that I didn't have the issues and the pain, and I could then hold more stuff. That makes sense, but I can't think of— I can't do it when I'm skiing because I've even tried to ski down and try it.

Yep.

And the only time I can really have much control over that, my foot and ankle, is really in the transition. And maybe that's just because that's the only time I've really trained it.

Yeah.

Outside of that, I'm trying to keep my leg straight and just be balanced and deal with huge amount of force. Yeah, um, I found it very difficult to even think about it at that point in the turn.

Yeah, I guess one thing I've, uh, maybe come to a realization is that that kind of supination movement with the foot is a little bit, uh, passive. Like, it's more through how you position, you know, your pelvis your arms, your upper body that feeds down into allowing your foot to be a bit supinated. Does that make sense? Yeah, so you're probably, you're probably doing it a bit already, I would say.

Yeah, if you're so hard up on trying to balance through the arch and roll your foot through the turn, then that blocks what you just said, your body, but putting you in a position that then passively supinates. Yeah, like pronation causes the knee drive and then rotation.

Exactly. Yeah, if you keep taking it, like if you do a little bit, you kind of get what you want at the start of the turn, but you keep doing it, it feeds up into— yeah, everything rotating that way.

Be with your feet in the transition and you skate with your body through the turn.

Yeah, that's a pretty— I would, I would, I would Definitely agree with that after this last winter in NZ.

Yeah, once you're under the blade, no matter what you do with your feet, you've got to be aligned. So that's— your feet are kind of irrelevant after that point once your center of mass is in far enough and obviously fore and aft balanced so that you're— it's a balanced force.

Yep.

So your feet, forget about that so much.

So this was, this was something I've been I was thinking about just recently is, um, do you know the difference between an open chain movement and a closed chain movement?

No.

I'll quickly explain it. So a closed chain movement of the body would be when the furthest part away from the body, so the foot, is fixed on the ground.

Yep.

And then another part above it is, is moving freely. So say that the hip, so So the pelvis moves forward, the foot's still. That's a closed chain kind of like flexion of the ankle. Yeah, and an opening is when the foot's free and the pelvis is sort of still.

What the— oh, okay.

Yeah, so like if you were in the air, say you went off a bump in the air and you kind of pulled your feet back under you. That would be an open chain, like pulling back movement of your feet or extension of your hip. Whereas if your feet are on the ground and you— and your feet can't move, that movement would result in a closed chain extension of the hip.

Yeah, so then just— I know there's a question coming. Maya, what about the situation where neither the upper, like the hip and the feet are closed, both can move? Wouldn't that be an open chain?

Ah, that's, that's where it becomes a gray area. That's kind of like, yeah, a little— that probably is going to be more on open chain because I guess the real definition of closed chain is that the bottom end is completely fixed.

Yeah, coming into this conversation being totally ignorant and not knowing why, if you had to ask me and write that out, I would think that a closed chain would be where one end is fixed and an open chain is where neither end is fixed. That would make sense in my head. I know that's wrong, but that would make sense.

Yes. Yeah. If you look it up biomechanics-wise, people will talk about an open chain. Typical closed chain exercise for your pecs would be a push-up.

Yeah.

Whereas an open chain would be like a dumbbell press, like a bench press kind of thing.

I don't think that either of those, I mean, I don't know, you've obviously talked about this a lot, but I can't imagine either of those really apply to skiing because you don't have either locked. And you know, the— yeah.

Well, this brings me to my point. I was thinking because the snow is slippery, it, yeah, like you're saying, it becomes very hard to make a closed chain for fore and aft movement because you kind of move forward, and that's why beginners can't walk up a hill with their skis flat and they slide back down. You know, you try and move back and forth and you just slide, your feet move underneath you and you kind of go nowhere. So in the fore and aft plane, like, open chain movements are really what's happening. But in the lateral plane, as soon as you tip it on the edge, 'cause the edge can kind of bite, that becomes more purely closed chain type movements. And rotation's kind of a bit, just depends on the, a bit more on the edge grip really. 'Cause if the edge is gripped, then you can rotate your body against a fixed foot position. And then if the ski's kind of flat, yeah, yeah, it could be, yeah, it could sort of spin a little bit. Um, yeah, I was just thinking, I was like, that's kind of interesting that, that in the different planes your body would have to move differently. Um, because most people when they go to make a fore and aft adjustment probably try and do it through a closed chain type of movement like we're used to walking or whatever, or standing, you know, if we're kind of falling backwards, our feet are planted, we pull our upper body forwards relative to our feet. But in skiing, if you did that, you kind of don't go anywhere.

Yeah.

Whereas if you're actively really pulling the feet back or moving the, the base, which is free, it sort of would have more of an instantaneous effect on where your mass is over your feet.

Yeah, I think when you do, or whenever I've done training, when this is introduced fore-aft in the Level 1 and improve your training, you know, you're obviously always thinking about the center of mass, base to support being the constant, but then I always COVID support being variable and mass being the constant. And I think somebody that goes from intermediate skier into an advanced or expert, you'll never be advanced or expert skiing unless you have the ability to move your feet fore and aft, body center of mass stays in the same spot. That's absolutely necessary, particularly in bumps, particularly in shorts. But I think long term, it's a bit of a combination. That would be the only time where I feel more the center of mass moving around.

Yeah.

Brace to support. But the interesting thing on this is that, like, you're trying to, like, bend a way of moving on skis into something that maybe have made being defined not on skis, where you're standing on something where there's friction, no movement.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what— so that's what I was trying to—

this doesn't help anyone saying this really, but if you— the only way you could really prove that something is open or closed is measuring how fast the feet are moving in relation to the center of mass. And if one's constant, the other's not. But regardless of whether one travels faster than the other, the way you muscles you use to do a closed chain or open chain would differ on skis anyway because you don't have friction.

Yeah, but I mean, but I guess you have friction. It's, it's the degree of friction because snow has friction. It's not completely frictionless, so it's all on a scale of, of things, right? So there would be an element of it, but it's just a lot less than the usual environments that than people are used to. I was just thinking about it going, well, that kind of makes sense why so many people struggle with fore and aft is because their way of usually adjusting fore and aft is all relative to how we balance on land, which is friction for your feet all the time to kind of adjust against.

Yeah, when you talk about it or when you're teaching it or when you're trying it, Usually you're doing this stationary on skis on snow, and it's actually very hard to do, to moving your feet without your center of mass moving. Yeah, you need someone to put their poles in the ground to do it, so there's some sort of torque or resistance. Yeah, if you're very good at using the right muscles to stabilize the core, then you can do it. So I find whenever the best result that I have when you're teaching someone to do this is actually doing a shuffling exercise, so one foot back, one foot forward, so there's a counterbalance going on. You can even do that while you're moving from the middle all the way through the turn, shuffling one foot forward, one foot back. And then when you start to— when the brain starts to recognize what muscles you're using to pull a foot forward and back, even though it's offset by the other one, it can then recognize how it can be done with both, and that's sort of a stepping stone into being able to actually move the feet, or that's what I've had the best result.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, the interesting thing I was thinking about too is like open chain type movements require more like contraction, like concentric shortening of the muscles, whereas closed chain movements, it goes into more eccentric.

Yeah, um, stopping a force from falling or being—

exactly, you're basically managing a, yeah, a mass going out of balance, whereas the other one you're kind of manipulating.

Trying to push.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think it's just kind of interesting that like in the different skills there would be a slight different kind of way the body would have to learn to move. And if people are not very clued in or I guess, you know, don't have that in their repertoire, then that's possibly an area that they would be slower at learning things and struggle to, you know, be versatile.

Yeah.

Yeah. Did you— was there a point you recognized or you realized playing around with that, like the shuffle type thing you're talking about, really had a big impact on your skiing?

Do you remember going, "Oh wow, yeah, that's actually making my short turns rip all the bumps way better." I mean, as soon as you start trying to ski bumps, well, it's a necessity, and it wasn't really a point of saying, or it wasn't a point of recognition. I think there's a more clearer point of recognition when, in the last few years, I've really tried to figure out how to teach this in a successful way. The only success I've had really with that, because you know, like for example, at a high level we talk about dolphin turns for moguls or for fore and aft or for pressure control. And no one can do it, you know, not a lot of people can do a dolphin turn when you teach them the first time. And it's simply for the fact that they can't move their feet forward and back. And 2 years ago I did a Level 4 free course and I, you know, and the other thing is if you mention dolphin turn to someone, they have a preconceived idea and then they go and do it and they don't actually try to do what you tell them. I think it was last year, or maybe even this last season, I came straight out from lunch and I said that I just want to do a warm-up. I started in shuffling, so there was no preconceived that we're going towards the dolphin. We're doing shuffle, and then I just tried to get them to shuffle pushing their feet forward and did it over bumps until they wheeled. I tried to exaggerate it, but they still had no notion of this dolphin. Then once we'd already gotten to that point, then talked about the pulling back in the shuffle to get the tips to hit the ground first. And I managed to get people that I would in the past have thought, this is a pointless exercise because they won't get it. I managed to get them, everyone, to be able to do a dolphin over a bump. And even some of them to be able to dolphin in a zipper line in that afternoon of doing this.

That's cool.

Which was incredible. Like, I've never seen that before, ever. So that was definitely something. Something in that shuffling. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I guess something in that you didn't— they weren't able to kind of jump to conclusions of, oh, we're doing dolphin turns.

What was interesting about sort of three-quarters of the way along, when I first talked about putting the tip down, someone said, oh, this is like a dolphin turn. And the second people started talking about it, they said, yeah, They weren't doing it as well because they were starting to—

Yeah, bring in their ideas of doing dolphin turns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're totally right. That's where people become a bit stuck, eh, because they don't have the ability to, to kind of be stable with the upper body and freely move the lower, the lower body. And like you pointed out before, like, you know, there's a difference. A lot of people straight away won't actually move their ankle and from their knee. They'll move their whole leg as a big lump to kind of move, to shuffle from, hey? So they're kind of—

if you look at people that are less active in life, you know, I mean, of course there are things where you're using an open chain, like a dumbbell example you had before. Yeah, typically when you talk about balance, people are usually in life that aren't so actively balancing on their feet, and so the closed chain is always the case, always. yeah, yeah, there's any situation outside. And then if you look at, um, relating this to people that are maybe more sporty that aren't necessarily involved in skiing, coming up with analogies that give a similar feel, like if you're on a— maybe like a BMX and you're doing a track, or going along like berms on a BMX, like from side to side, that would give a similar sort of feeling of the bike riding that berm but the center of mass staying constant. that sort of same idea that we're trying to get. You know, and you can think about a bunch of different examples, but I guess somebody who's not super active or not super athletic, there will be very few ways of getting anything out of their life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the tricky thing about skiing, eh? Because it does really differentiate it from a lot of other sports, is this, you know, does require this sort of finesse with these kind of movements because of the snow being frictionless. Not completely frictionless, but yeah, it has less friction than we're used to dealing with. So, yeah, anyway, that's good.

And there's a bit of a break, like it's a bit like cutting in and out. So, hopefully you can hear me okay.

Yeah, I can hear you okay. It's kind of— Yeah, it's not the best quality. Is that your Japanese line, is it?

No, we've got awesome internet.

Okay. To be honest, probably. Telstra. Hey, so what did you— I think I chatted with you a bit when we caught up in Australia, but your focus in Threadbo this year, you're on your bigger GS, longer Striderfist GS ski a lot. Is that what you're working on?

Yeah, I spent probably a little more than half of the season on a 30-meter ski.

Liked it?

Yeah, I just wanted to see what would happen, you know. Like, I don't— we always get a lot of feedback from people when they see videos and that sort of thing saying that we're always on a slalom ski and we couldn't do it on GS skis and all that, and I guess it wasn't that, you know, it was more to just be out on it a little bit more and see if some of the things that you do on a slalom ski are maybe possible, you know. This season, when would it have been, so like the last season in Japan, I stopped, I kind of moved away a little bit, on the right terrain, moved away a little bit from the notion of trying to pure carve and arc everything. Like, I was trying to pure carve parts of the turn but not all of it. So in the past, you know, you're thinking about going from one edge straight to the other and slicing straight away, but now I'm thinking about setting a steering angle and then purely carving. Steering angle means that you can load the ski sooner into a turn because there's— when you do put the ski on the edge immediately, there's far more force straight away to bend the ski and get a rebound. So I found skiing, you know, skiing a lot more with a pivot at the top of the turn, not excessively, I'm talking from the skis, let's say they're at 3 o'clock, there's a pivot or a swing, you know, Richie Berger talks about it as a swing, you know, whatever, like the skis are crossing under, but as they're crossing under there's a slight bit of a steering angle set. When they get far enough out to the side, you can land on the edge, and this is even still before the fall line, but then you have immediate ski bend and pressure and rebound. And so I thought, you know, look, if this is happening then on a slalom ski on steep enough terrain, then, you know, obviously there's still going to be more pressure on a slalom, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get the same, or, you know, pretty impressive rebound on a GS ski if you can get the blend right. According to the speed you're going, the hill, and how much of a steep angle you create. And sure enough, I think if you get the right speed and you have the right terrain, you can have in the short term that same amount of rebound almost. It's just a different way of getting it. And I'm not saying that it's like what Neil Fortune made, as you said. I'm just saying that you're still taking the idea of a trampoline across the hill, but you're landing on the ski in the fall line. And getting off as soon as possible and landing on the ski in the foreline. Yep. Thinking about the ski turning from 9 to 3 and rolling onto the new edge and up.

Yeah, yeah.

Been discussing this sort of idea because, uh, or I'll start again. It was interesting skiing with Richie Berger back in March or February, March, and he, without talking about this, has said that a lot of the competitive skis in Japan and high-level demonstrators are shifting a little bit to this sort of focus of having a bit of a— he called it a swing, a bit of a swing return before you land on the edge. This is starting to be something that we're looking at more and more. You know, obviously the huge emphasis was always on this pure carving idea all the time, always edging edge to edge and all the rest of that, you know, but there are possibly benefits to doing more of what I'm talking about now. So anyway, back to the question about GS skis, yeah, I found that some of these things were possible with that sort of session. And it was also good, you know, what I did realize is that, you know, the movements are very similar. When you first get on a GS ski, you think, geez, this is radically different to a slalom ski, and it's not. But you need to be going down the hill, and the pressures involved are greater. So if you can find the confidence to get that speed and pressure, then really you are moving in at the same rate with the same body parts. And I think that's the big thing, you know, like when I first got on it took me about 4 or 5 days to be able to feel comfortable, like my brain processing me traveling at that speed to be able to feel comfortable. And it is really fast.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was really good. And then the difficulty is, you know, particularly in Australia, the runs are not very wide, they're not super long, you know. So when, like, it was great, I was on the GS here when I was training with Jess, the athlete that I ski with. Because you're skiing at that level and a lot of the exercises are fast and moving and all that. But then when I started to go back and do courses, there wasn't really the facility to be able to ski at that speed and like that, so I ended up switching back to the slalom ski to do the courses. And they were level 4 courses as well, like maybe the race and freeski course would have worked with it, but not the teaching so much.

Yeah, yep. And you feel you had some good like good days where it was really happening and you're—

Oh yeah, I mean, once you're used to it, I think I had some good days on the GS ski. The most noticeable day was when you go after 2 weeks of skiing on that GS ski back onto a slalom, because unless if your speed and the amount of pressure isn't right, so the speed down the hill isn't right, you have to be so incredibly centered both fore and aft and how much you move in on the GS. If that's not right, you just fall over. Obviously, if you're going faster than you need to, then there's enough force to hold you up. So anyway, you kind of have to exact your movement pattern inwards and where you are balanced on the ski when you're moving in. But then you put a slalom ski on after 2 weeks, and honestly, I think they were the best slalom turns I've ever made in my life. It was like you couldn't do no wrong. On a slalom ski, you've got this much leeway, and on the GS ski, you've got this much. Yeah, it's like perfect.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's great. It's funny because, you know, within a day of skiing on the Falmski, you start to get lazy again and go back to, oh, I can just— yeah, yeah. That was really interesting. And, um, got some video on the GS skis. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to post any of it.

Hey, if, if I was to make you think about— so back to this shorter turn where there's a little bit of a swing, yeah, slash pivot at the top of the turn. Um, where do you— how are you making that movement? Where in the body are you getting that pivot to really come from so that when you do hit the edge, you're strong and still in the right position?

It's a good question and I probably have maybe a better answer down the track. And you know, because I've looked at this a lot and I haven't quite put my finger exactly on what it is. What I would say is, for now, the feeling, because I can tell you that, and then what's exactly happening, maybe I'll tell you that down the track.

Yeah, okay. Your feeling is?

If you were to stand on a trampoline, just a regular trampoline, and you wanted to jump, if I said to you, Tom, I want you to jump as quickly as possible, the most amount of jumps you can in a minute. You'd be there with your center of mass not going up and go—

Yeah, almost sucking your legs up. Yeah.

Exactly. So now, if I said do the same thing but on a trampoline either side of you, so you've got a trampoline at 45 or more degrees to them, you're doing that side to side.

Yeah.

It's almost like your feet are not changing direction in the way they're pointing. So when you land on one trampoline, they're pointing straight ahead.

Yeah.

And then you suck them up underneath you, and then you push them out to the other trampoline.

Yeah.

They haven't actually changed direction where they're pointing. They're always pointing straight forward.

Yeah.

Okay, so the feeling when you're doing a short turn is that you're hitting the fall line, and then once you get the rebound, it's not only pushing you across the hill, but you're also softening to the point where your legs get light, so that's still pointing straight ahead underneath you, looking that way, and then landing on it again that way. So it's not so much the idea of a twist and—

Yeah, it's not an active—

yeah, yeah. Maybe the skis don't turn across as much as maybe they did when you purely are, you know. But when I go and look at the video when I'm doing this and I feel like I'm successful, the feeling is obviously different to what's actually happening. The skis still seem to be turning across the hill as much as they always do. And then there is a definite, what looks like maybe a heel push, which makes sense from a short position as the legs are going away. But I guess that's, here's something to think about, maybe. Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent here.

No, no, no, no, no. My brain's ticking as well as you're talking about that heel push. Makes sense though to me.

So that's one step, but now I'm going to contradict that.

Okay.

So when I'm thinking about making a turn that's shorter than the arc of the ski at the highest performance, yep, meaning if I just bang— if I put the ski on as much edge and pure carve, that's sort of the arc of the ski. So if I want to add something to it, yep, then I think about turning the front of the skis, the front half from my toe piece onwards I think about pulling that up almost.

Yeah, like the tip of the ski, you're pulling it up towards, yeah.

Towards the knee and across, that'll bring the ski back around.

Yeah, because when it's on an edge, that would—

Break it off the edge, you know.

No, it wouldn't, no, no, if the ski's on an edge, pulling the tip up would make a shorter radius.

Right, so that would break it off the edge and start that turning, right?

Okay, yeah, okay.

Carving, you know.

Yep.

So, um, what I, I guess if I'm, you know, the other idea I had was maybe it's not a heel push. Sometimes it feels like that, but maybe because I, if I watch the ski, there's still a definite edge change. The ski is definitely on a new edge before it starts turning.

Yep.

But as soon as I'm on the edge, then I'm starting this idea of pulling the foot faster through the arc, or up. Up is the same as doing a boot arc and pulling it fast. Yeah, right. If you pull the foot faster through the arc than the ski can travel, it breaks off the edge and turns, right?

Yep.

So the ski rolls on the edge, and then as the leg extends, you, you time the extension with the pulling. Up until it's at the fall line and then you lock it on the edge.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's really interesting because, you know, Tom Langtry talked to Richie Berger, you know, last season in Myoko, and he said, tell me something about short turns. And the whole concept was breaking down the turn so that you pure carve parts but not others.

Yeah.

And his gist was that you're trying not to pure carve the first section you're landing pure carved on the second section, and then you're breaking the ski off the edge through the end of the turn. So it's like carve, pure carve, carve, carve, steer.

Yeah.

And that's— and, you know, like, I kind of put two and two together there to say, well, maybe that's the same thing, but I just sort of went through it again.

Yeah, it kind of sounds like, um, really, at the end of the day You're trying to be able to do everything that's possible in skiing.

In one turn.

Yeah, in one turn. Like, it's, you know, it's not saying that something's right or something's wrong. It's just like, you do this and this is the outcome. So, here's some different outcomes.

That's a good point. Because I think there are benefits to being locked on an edge and benefits to not. And when you're locked on the edge, the benefit is you have absolute grip, and that's the only way that you can really be acted on by an external force to its full potential. So there's a part of the turn that has to be that. But there are disadvantages to being locked on the edge as well, because you have far less amount of how much the ski will turn. Once it's on the edge, you don't really have a way to dissipate the pressure at all until it's acted on you as much as it's going to. So I think being able to play around with it, you know, yeah, you can have parts of the turn that are locked on when they're needed and parts of the turn when they're not. It's a good thing, you know, and it takes a lot of skill. And you know, when you get it right, far out, it's rad, you know.

Yeah, yeah, because you still get that real punch and zing, but you feel like you're more in control of it.

Totally. The other thing is when you put the ski on the edge without setting a steering angle I mean, the ski has that, but it's a very— like a low steering angle or whatever you call that in Australia. But when you put the ski on the edge, you're going in one direction and you just edge the ski, due to the shape of the ski, it'll start to turn. But it's a very small steering angle, so that's a very small amount of pressure that will build up until the ski bends more and more and more and more and you turn more and more, and then the pressure gradually comes on progressively. Now we know all the benefits of that. but it's also a very boring way to build up. There's no sort of spike in pressure quickly. There's no sudden hit, there's no sudden, like a trampoline where it hits enough to go again. I think the idea of being able to have it at your fingertips when you need it instantly and the most potential external pressure, this idea kind of makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Hey, how is your How's your back and everything going?

Yeah, not great at the moment because I'm just at a desk 10, 11— I've started into the 11-hour days sometimes without moving. Sitting on a Swiss ball now, which definitely does engage more, but subconsciously I've managed to figure out how to wedge my heels in so I don't use any muscle whatsoever. Like if you— like the ball wedges between your heel and your bum. Use any core. And I didn't even know you could do this, but all of a sudden I realized that I wasn't feeling any workout, you know. I thought, that's odd. And then I realized that now I'm just naturally doing that.

Yeah, your body's kind of hacked around it to be lazy. You're just like so good at doing that.

But I'm stretching every night, but I am feeling like back pain when I'm not, and I'm not even skiing or doing anything yet, so that means it's not good. I'll start skiing on the 7th with New South training, so I'll know a bit more then, but I'm stretching a lot and I've also found some real inflexibility and weakness, you know, with my left hip. You know how that side's always been the weaker side, I always rotate a little bit on that side, and that's been the most aggravation in the hip flexor on my left side. Well, what I found was I sat on the edge of a table like this and just did the exercise that Riley does in Project KITS.

Yep.

And what was interesting, if I just sit there with my legs straight and I try to move my knees from one side to the other— oh, sorry, my outside knee to touch the inside one like that.

Yep.

When I do it with my right leg, it just flops in, no worries, I can go all the way and no issue. When I do it with my left one, I can get to not even touching the other leg. What I started to do when I really pushed it, I started to feel maybe I'll just stretch it by pushing it and just holding it like a stretch. The stretch came more through the glute, like the upper hammies and glute. I thought, "Okay, well that's the thing that's stopping the— makes sense." That's where the attachment is. Then I started stretching that glute and I'm so significantly less flexible. In my left glute than my right or anywhere else. Like, that's the weakest link.

That's kind of the— yeah, like, that's where it all tightens up.

So I've been really massively making sure, and it's way off, like, it's so asymmetrical. So I'm really hammering that at the moment. And when I stretch, like, if I stretch for a minute my left glute, I do that exercise again, like Riley's exercise, and it's like much the same.

Yeah, right.

That's also why there's been such over— what did my physio say? I've got a hyperactive hip flexor. Well, it's because it's fighting so hard against the glutes.

Against the tight glute, yeah. Sweet. So you've found some good— you've done some self-exploration to find out what's actually kind of holding you back there.

The back was caused by the fact that rotate on that side and the QL was working so hard to not die.

Yeah, yeah.

So if that gets better and I don't rotate on that side, then there'll be less strain on the back as well. And hopefully—

yeah, good. Awesome. Um, so how would you— how, like, you— how would you rate this last season in Aus for you? You feel like you overall made some, some progress, some, some good changes? And even— and I'm not just talking about your own skiing, but you know how you, you're definitely on a, on a mission to teach and train more effectively. Do you feel like you achieved some of that this season?

Um, yeah, so from— I'll put the start of the skiing because that's quick and easy. I, uh, I didn't ski for 2 months of the season because my back was too bad. There was no progress with skiing whatsoever. If anything, it went the other way because I just wasn't doing it. I still ran some courses with the injured back, just sort of around and coaching. And so yeah, definitely had some wins with how to communicate certain concepts. And it's interesting, the one we talked about before, that was one of the main ones. Yep. Get someone to break into that next level of skiing, being able to adjust that. We've always known that, but how to actually do it. And then I think I started to develop within myself, which is something we all train and it's going to be like, yeah, that's obvious and you know all the words, but just where someone is on the— and this is how bad it is, I can't even remember the terminology we use for it now— what phase of learning a student's in. Not necessarily adhering to what's in the manual or what's written about this, but being able to recognize when it's enough to just keep doing nothing more. We try this and we're all as trainers and instructors so fixated on the end goal that we rush people. It's like you see a win at this stage and you're like, "Okay, you got that, you got that, we're winning. Okay, now we're going to do this next bit to get to the end form." So just having the patience to, even in a week-long Level 4 course where somebody is— the end form is why they're paying the money because they want to pass Level 4. Being able to say this person is not capable of moving to the next step, which is 5 steps before the end form. We've just spent a whole week and I'm still not going to move on. And that means they're not going to go for this Level 4 this year. And you know what? That's the best thing for them.

Yep.

You know what I mean? Say, "Okay, you had that win on Tuesday, so now on Wednesday we're going to just—" and even if you don't get it, at least you know what to do in the future and all that. Yeah, yeah. That has been—

yep, yep. Yeah, it's hard, hey, with courses because that's definitely the tendency of, you know, you feel these people have paid for all this course content and everything and you've got to kind of deliver it, but to be truthfully, honest, you're going to, like you said, do the best by them by actually just sticking with what they really need to nail.

Yeah, and that's a hard one because it's not something that's— it's not that we lack that energy in it, it's battling your own insecurity of being able to not live up to their own and the candidate's expectation of the end form, you know.

Just say that once again, it just broke up a bit.

I think the trainer's insecurity— yep— to not reach the end form, which is the objective of the trainer and the candidate by a certain time. And as bad as this sounds, like this is going to be said very poorly, but I'm going to say it. I started to care less about people skiing well and cared more about where they are in their stage of learning. Because ultimately that will have a bigger impact. So at the end of the week, if people were no closer to necessarily the end form but were on the right track in where they were in that phase of learning for the task they were doing, that was like a major success or I was starting to realize I care less about that and more about that. So that was cool. Yeah, that was a cool thing.

Did you find it was easy enough for people to accept that or did you find people that were actually pretty happy with it?

100% because the acceptance of the new thing that you're learning is always completely disconnect between the trainer and the student. Yeah. 100%. And it's not until you go and do something brand new that you really experience that disconnect. So what I mean by that is like a quick example I could give you would be when I took up snowboarding for the first time and someone said, "Just put your arm there," which for Every one of us as a trainer knows how weak that sort of feedback is, just put your arm there, because it's how much impact that can have. But for the learner, this is a whole new concept that has to be taken on and learned through the learning phases properly. So they're absorbed in this notion of just moving your arm there, and so their acceptance— it was the word you used— their acceptance of that being enough is times a billion. But as the trainer, you're thinking, you know, is their acceptance enough? And they're worried about, are they just going to be bored with that? You know, I also felt the same thing when I went and did the scuba, like the open water scuba diving course. I was just so— and there's new information and processing that. And I'm looking at the trainer thinking, this is your like standard auto response day that you haven't even planned for. It's just like run of the mill. You're on autopilot, and I'm like totally absorbed in what you're saying. So, like in the course, do they accept that? Yeah, 100%, because they don't realize, they're not actually aware of it. And that's the same thing.

Yep, it's mostly the issue comes from the trainer's insecurity of not being a level 4 trainer and producing level 4 candidates at the end of it.

Yeah, and you know, that's also different as well to everyone, that's obvious, but the difficulty comes as well. I mean, in that where I felt like I was having those wins, I had a group that were all reasonably similar in where they were on the timeline or where they were on their— in their phase of learning. They were different schools but maybe similar phase of learning. So that was kind of okay. You could move faster and slower and it works, but then I think the difficulty comes when you got people in different phases of learning. Yeah. Not necessarily different skill or ability level, but different phases of learning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You've seen that I've been working towards a good, like a gymnastics handstand. Yeah. So, that goal started—

What's that? It looks good. They're going well.

Yeah, it's going well. Well, I started in March. With the goal of being able to do it pretty well by the time Archie was born, which was 3 weeks ago. So I got that. So it was good that I gave myself— like, I guess I'm referencing this to skiing because it was a pretty new skill set I had to learn, especially balancing on your hands, totally different to your feet. Um, what's that? Yeah, exactly. Close chain. But it was pretty cool because I hired a coach or a trainer to help me, which was totally necessary. And yeah, just picked away at those areas, the skills in the handstand that I sucked at. Just spent hours and hours every week just doing boring drills. Trying to feel, you know, where my pelvis was when I was upside down on my hands relative to all these other bits. And yeah, it just, it took so long. And if someone had gone, right, here's a week to learn a handstand, I reckon I wouldn't be as good a form as I am now. Whereas this guy was like, here's 3 areas you're really bad at, here's a couple of drills for those areas. Go away and yeah, so I just had him once every like month and that was it and just worked out on myself.

So there's someone that definitely would have a good understanding whether he's cognizant of it or not of the phases of learning? Say that again? There's someone that whether he's cognizant of it or not has a good understanding of the phases of learning? Yep. Or is future-proofing his business? Yeah. I think it's—

I think it was the former. I think it was the former because, yeah, it was sort of like we did a bit of a trade, so he wasn't getting that much out of it. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's cool, that's cool. So it sounds like not, um, I guess not being able to focus on your own skiing really helped you channel that energy and focus into the training, training of others side, which is, uh, really nice to hear.

You know, when I was injured, because one of the times it happened was actually on course, the first time. So I had to do the next 3 days or 4 days of the course without being able to turn. Like, one day I couldn't turn. Yep. And I came to the course and I said to Andy, look, you know, I can't turn, but I'm really happy to do this. And you coach me fine where you don't actually ski, that's fine. I can do this as long as the guests are happy with— like, as long as the candidates are happy. And so I spoke to the candidates on that day and I said, look, I can't ski, but are you okay with this? And they were all like, you know what, you're coaching, that's fine, no worries. Yeah, so as soon as we went out there, this whole focus of having to perform well in front of them and do the best turns was out the window. Yeah. And what you said, like you fully then, it's just completely as it should be about them. Yeah. Trying to do the best turns in front of them to show them or to impress them or anything like that.

Yeah, yeah. Cool. Super interesting, yeah. So, really good, I guess, realization.

Yeah, and that really worked for the visual learners too.

Nice. Hey, so you— when are you finishing— when are all these new videos coming out?

Well, I'm working on them a lot at the moment. We're going to start bringing them out on the 9th of December. We're in a bit of a tricky situation. There's a backstory to this, so I'm not going to answer the question straight away. We're in a tricky situation because we have a huge following with Projected. We have people that are talking about it. You look at any of the free content and the amount of views. And we have such a massive following, but it doesn't relate to the sales. So we've sold— like our biggest selling video has got 1,000 sales, and the trailer's had 80,000 views or something ridiculous. So there's a few things going on there. We're trying to figure it out because Riley and I are at a point now where with those sort of numbers and also the cost involved to make these, Riley and I are carrying this in a big way. Financial side. So we need to figure out a way that the videos can sustain themselves, otherwise we may not be able to continue filming. So we're looking at doing these episodes which are shorter, they're 10-minute episodes, something that you could watch on a chairlift. Let's be honest, no one really wants to sit and watch one person talk about skiing for an hour and a half, so 10 minutes I think is more digestible. And then also the price point, you know, bring it down to like $2 or $3 is another thing that's kind of— those two things will make it more attractive, but also breaking into informational content that's going to affect everyone, so not just a really elite skier, but like my mom who's a really good blue skier, skis blues runs, she gets a lot out of those videos too. And also then somebody who's a trainer might will get something out of it as well. So getting a bigger market I think is a good one. And then the other thing is there's obviously the problem we have with people that are a group of 5 mates buying one video and all watching it together. And it's not necessarily that they're sharing it illegally, like I would probably do it the same way, but definitely not getting the sales that represent how many people are seeing it. Yeah. We're thinking about maybe doing it more on a rental basis where you rent, you pay $2 or $3 to rent it for 24 or 48 hours, and then we have a subscription as well where you pay like $10 a month and you get access to everything that's in the series while you're paying the $10 a month. You know, obviously we're going to lose a little bit come March when all of them have come out because you can pay $10, watch them all, you know, and then cancel your membership. But it also, you know, potentially we want people to sign up in December, an episode comes out a week, they pay their subscription, and they keep it going and get a new episode each week, and then they have it through the summer, they pay their subscription and can keep, you know, have access to those videos and resources. We've got some new skiers as well, we've got Takao Maruyama, who's the Japanese national champion at the technical competitions, and an absolute— probably when I skied with him, that was the first time I've skied with him, sorry, second time when we were filming, and he is on the same level as Richie Burger, you know.

Yeah, I got to ski with him at the NZ Tech Champs.

Yeah, unbelievable skier. He's very good, very, very, very impressive. So him, he's been one, and I'm actually editing him at the moment. And then we've got one coming out with Yama Kesuke, who's the second place holder of the National Japanese Technical Championships.

So not to give it all away, away, but what could people get from these two guys' tips?

These two guys are a little bit different, so all of the other episodes are very— they're called how-to-ski episodes. Yeah. These two ones are special editions with more visuals, their background, what the technical competitions are about, what they're doing in their training. There's no exercises in it. Yeah. They're a bit longer. Like right now, the one I'm editing with Takahashi is more around the 17 to 20 minute mark. and maybe the intermediate skier is not going to get a whole lot out of it at all, but I tell you, anyone like you or me will absolutely froth on this episode. Cool.

And so then in the more the how-to ones, like give us one thing that maybe one of the skiers is going to talk to the public about.

I can tell you all of them, and there's teasers where you can get a bit of a feel for each episode as well. Like, I think the first one is going to be Jonathan Ballou talking about how to get into powder. So it's a progression from starting out stationary on the groomed and activating the right muscles to then make the right movements in powder and help break through the powder and then be able to turn. So this is stuff that whether you're a good skier or not—

That's, yeah, that's really good.

I'm doing one on early edging, so how to go from one set of edges to the other without any sort of twisting or anything like that, so that you have the ability to edge the ski as the first movement. Again, that's relevant to somebody doing a parallel turn, to somebody who's pure carving, making sure that the right joints are moving to do that. Nadine Brunnenfelder is doing an episode on how to improve your racing but not in gates. So somebody who, you know, is a recreational racer maybe a club racer or somebody who's going for a Eurotest, you know, that doesn't have access to gates all the time, can still improve their gate skiing. John Alson is talking exactly about what we talked about earlier of relationships with the center of mass and the base of support, both ways. JF's talking about how to be, you know, more resistance in skiing through the outside leg. You know, so there's a bunch of different ones and it is levels of skiing.

Yeah, nice, nice. That's good, good, good to hear that, uh, you and Riley are both back in the videos again.

Yeah, it's exciting, and it was— it made it a little bit more tricky to shoot the films, um, you know, because you're in it, and then, you know, James Wilkins and Robert Benjamin, they're our two other videographers. I mean, they were working hard because they were filming everything, um, You know, and it was— they were doing a great job and we couldn't have done it without them. So, and then it meant they had to be skiing while there were two cameras on, which was good.

Yeah, nice. Cool, they sound good. They sound good. Yeah. Nice, man. Well, I think that's probably a good amount of ski talk for us now and a good little catch-up. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was good. It's good to do it in a bit more of a less formal environment. So I'll do— what were you going to say? I think we got pretty techie in there.

I think it'll be interesting to see how many people— do you have stats to see how many people actually listen till the end?

I don't have stats on how— if they listen to the end, yeah. Like obvious dropouts. Yeah, yeah, it could be that they start this episode and stop after a few minutes Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I think people will find it interesting. I certainly did. It was good. I always enjoy our chats. I always find little gems in there of just the way you explain and think about things, because I think it's a little bit different to how everyone else comprehends stuff. You have a good way of viewing some coming from many different angles, which I think helps. That's why, coming back to your improvement in how you're training people, I think that's why you get really good results there, because you are a good trainer in terms of getting the message across in different ways. Thank you, I appreciate that. That's nice of you to say. Yeah, no, no, definitely mean it.

It also, you know, I find I have a lot of conversations about skin with a lot of people, as we all do. But you're the right person for this sort of thing because you know how to ask the right question as well, and that's pretty important, I think.

Yeah, otherwise you can't get it out. It'll just be in your brain. No one else will get to suck it out. It'll just be floating around and you'll just keep getting better than everyone.

Oh yeah, right.

So when— so you've got this winter Japan, you'll do the tech comps again? Yes. Yep. And then you'll go to Europe and do some more filming with Projected?

Might even go to the States.

Oh, the States. Cool.

Go to Mammoth is actually what we're talking about with Jonathan Balou. Oh, nice. A few benefits to that. Also, Aspen Skiing Company just purchased Mammoth. Jonathan is quite far up in that company running in the Aspen Mountains.

That's true, yeah, very cool.

But also, you know, there's the opportunity, and I don't know if you're putting this out to the podcast or not, but we're always talking about doing Projected Camps. It's something we've been looking for a while now where you can come for 5 days, train maybe a different day with a different athlete, and on the 6th day maybe even do filming with the athletes. And the following, we have people jumping at it, but we've just got to get the right systems in place, the right insurance, obviously the right approval to be operating. But that might be something that could start in May in America. Oh, cool.

So it might even be— yeah, might even be possible in May 2018 for people to go to a projected camp, possibly.

Yeah, I'm not saying that's going to happen, but I think in the next year or two there will be the option or the possibility to attend Jet Set in India somewhere.

Can I say that people heard it here first? Sure. Have they heard it here first or have you told other people that?

He hasn't even heard that part yet. Of course he has. He's actually the main driver of it. He really wants to get the camps happening. Yeah, I've actually— I've been the one slowing it down because I want to just make sure all the boxes are ticked. And yeah, so, and you know, that's— once that's figured out, then it's all good.

Yeah, nice. Yeah, yeah, good. Oh man, awesome. Well, that again, great conversation. Thanks very much for, uh, for your time, and I hope people get something out of this episode. All right, we'll say goodbye.

Okay, bye. This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carve leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis. It's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.