Paul Lorenz Interview

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 Carv 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.

Hello and welcome to the Global Skiing Podcast. Today I'm talking with a good friend of mine, Paul Lorenz, and, uh, we're going to discuss some topics today such as short turns technical skiing and his idea of, I guess, good skiing overall. And Paul is a pretty highly credentialed skier, and I guess some of his accolades include 2-time member of the Australian Demo Team, part of the technical committee for the Australian Professional Snow Sports Instructors Association. He's run several ski schools. I'm actually talking to him today from his ski school in Japan, Niseko, and he's also a Level 4 trainer for the Australian Professional Snow Sports Instructors. So, welcome to the show, Paul.

Thanks for having me, Tom.

Anything else I've missed out there? Any other things you think of?

No, that made me sound really good. Yeah, keep going like that, that's good.

Yeah, good. So, could you just give us, for those of you who don't know, like a just a bit of a background of where you started with ski instructing, how you got into it, and to where you are today.

Yeah, sure. Well, I grew up in Queensland. My parents took me skiing when I was a younger kid. I was 3 years old when we went to New Zealand for the first time, and I fell in love with it there and then. So I grew up, and we didn't get to ski that much. I got, you know, went skiing on the family trip sort of once every couple of years, but I really had a passion for skiing. I absolutely loved it, and I kind of hung out all year long to go on the ski trip, which was 5 days of skiing after being in a car for, you know, 2 days of traveling down from Queensland. So I just loved it. So the first opportunity, I went down to Threadbone, did the hiring clinic to become a ski instructor. And it was more just to get the training and to get a bit of an insight into ski instructing. And I just, you know, furthered my passion for the sport. And they offered me a job and kind of never looked back. I'm now 13 years in, worked in, in Thredbo for most of those seasons. I've done a season now in Mount Hotham as well in Australia, also taught in Beaver Creek, Whistler, uh, St. Johann in Austria, and then now in Japan. And it's, uh, it's just one of the best lifestyles and sports to be involved with. So I'm still loving it and can't wait to, to keep going.

Excellent. And so, um, as part of second time on the demo team How are you sort of preparing and looking forward to Interski? And for those, I guess, who don't know what Interski is, Interski is an international congress where teams from snow sports instruction across the world come together every 4 years and share ideas on technical elements, teaching, trends in the industry, all sorts of things. So that's currently in just happening in the future, in, uh, sorry, September this year in Argentina. So yeah, how are you sort of preparing and what are you hoping to get out of that experience this year?

Um, well, trying to obviously get out skiing as much as possible, but, um, you know, I think Induski is an interesting congress. I think it's, uh, you know, from speaking to guys that have been many times, I think you get a different, uh, feel and you go for different reasons each time. I think last time I went, it was quite an overwhelming experience. Just, you know, the hype of Interski and skiing with the best technical skiers and coaches and instructors in the world is, like I said, a little bit overwhelming. So I think you're just going there and taking it all in, you know, and finding out what's what and kind of seeing what the purposes are. And it's a lot of information to take on. So I think this year, you know, I definitely want to go. And show a little bit more of what the Aussies can do. I've been training with yourself, Tom, and then Riley, and the other guys on the team as well. We've put a lot of time into our own skiing to kind of show what we can do. So it'll be interesting to go over there and try to show Australia's best skiing. I've also been talking to some of the guys on the other demo teams that are pushing the sport as well. And it's, you know, it's interesting to have a chat with them on Facebook and Skype and this sort of thing, but to have all those skiers in the one resort to, you know, to really chat and communicate about skiing and where it's going, I think is something I'm really looking forward to. So it's going to be great.

So, sort of on that topic, what do you see, what do you yourself see as the really important elements or things that make up good skiing in your mind, and when you watch someone come down, like, what do you think? What do you classify good skiing as?

Yeah, well, I think it's, you know, that's a really interesting question because it's a really broad question, you know, and it depends at the end of the day what your objectives are in skiing. And I think for most turns, well, for all turns that you're doing in skiing, I think you can have 3 objectives. And I think the first one is speed down the hill, you know, so from getting from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill as fast as possible. So that, I guess, is one— if that's your objective, that's one. The other one is the amount of deflection of your center of mass across the hill, you know, so whether you're going straight down the hill or the center of mass is being pushed from side to side. I think that's another objective. And then the last objective is is rhythm, you know, so how quickly or how quick the rhythm of your turns are, and that can be said for short turns or long turns or bumps, any style of turn, I guess. And the interesting thing about that is I think that they don't necessarily all go hand in hand, you know.

Yep.

So, for example, speed down the hill and rhythm of turns go quite well together, but the faster the rhythm and the faster down the hill, the less deflection there is.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, so the more deflection there is, then obviously the others have to come— there has to be compromise somewhere. So, um, and then, you know, to achieve those goals, I think, uh, you know, trying to tap into a bit more of the forces that are involved in skiing, you know. So, um, you know, particularly when I was going through my education as a ski instructor and, um, you know, training, I was using a lot of muscular effort to try to make these things happen. And, you know, I guess looking more into the external forces that are involved in skiing, you know, so setting the ski up so that it can be pushed against by, you know, the forces that are created through a turn to achieve that deflection or to achieve that rhythm, so there's less muscular effort involved. You know, I think when you really watch a good skier, it doesn't look like they're doing much because at the end of the day, I don't think they really are doing a whole lot. but they understand very well how to align their body against the forces that are acting on them so that they can be at work and the skier, you know, is more just aligning himself against it and not putting too much effort in.

That's a really good point, and I'm going to stop you there and ask you, so was there a point, you said you used to feel as though you skied with a lot more muscular effort, do you remember what sort of training you did, or if there was a moment, or when something clicked? Was it what someone said when you sort of started realizing it was more about sort of manipulating the forces than using pure grunt force in yourself?

I guess, I guess yes and no. Like, I think I always had— I always felt that I was quite strong, and, you know, I felt confident and in the coordination or the control of my legs. I don't know how else to say that. So I was very, you know, if something didn't happen, I would make it happen. And I think when I started to work more towards those 3 objectives that I mentioned before, first of all going more with the speed, I found that it got to a point where the movements and strength that I had were insignificant. In relation to the amount of force and pressure that can act on the ski. When I say force or pressure, the external force, the, you know, the centripetal force that can push against your ski. My movements were insignificant to the amount of pressure that can build up. And I found that if I tried to work too hard to use my muscles or to turn the ski or to edge the ski and force it to come around, I was putting myself in a position that wasn't as well aligned against that force. So the amount of, you know, I guess the amount of energy that could be created was far less. And I found that, you know, if I was particularly when I was going at those speeds, if a significant force did build up to work against on my ski, I wasn't in a position to deal with it. So I had to start thinking more about how, you know, and my brain works in a, you know, very much a you know, think about things, I guess the physical theory rather than—

Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess just trying to think about how at that speed I could have— I could stay in balance without— Yeah. —you know, getting shot into the back seat or landing on my back or crashing into a tree really. So, I found that to have any result and, you know, to stay in balance with that sort of force at that sort of speed, I had to do less and think more about my alignment against it. So, I guess that was the big thing that changed. When I found that, you know, finding the right alignment against whatever force was pushing my skis, when I found that position, that created much more of a deflection, a much quicker rhythm to push my skis back underneath me than anything that I could ever do. I thought that was very cool. So, I guess the— how do I say it? I guess the road to progress my skiing is now trying to tap into more of that external force through alignment. You know, I don't mean alignment of, you know, my boot alignment and my leg alignment. That's what I'm talking about, more alignment of my center of mass or center of gravity against, uh, you know, against my base of support and where, where the pressure is coming from, you know.

Yep, yeah, because I remember, uh, a day out skiing with you talking about this idea of sort of imaginary trampolines facing sort of in from the sides of the hill, situated all the way down the hill, all the way down the fall line, and imagining you're sort of bouncing from— that's— is that the kind of the same sort of—

exactly. So I think that, you know, I mean, when you go through your levels, you talk a lot about the different skills involved in skiing and how you turn the ski and how you edge the ski and all this sort of stuff. And that's all great, and that's definitely a way to, um, to, to train the body to move in a way that these things can start to work. But I think at the end of the day, really high-end skiing is how well you can set the ski up on its edge so that something can push against the edge or against the base of the ski. So, you know, when you do put the ski on the edge, we all know that it bends, and you know, you can start to use that, the ski bending a little bit like a, you know, I guess an analogy would be that trampoline that you used. Yep. So, if you think about somebody landing on a trampoline and the mat of the trampoline bending and then shooting you back up into the sky, you know, the ski, not exactly the same way, but can work or give a similar feel or energy as you go through the turn putting it on the edge. You know, you can allow the ski to bend and release to give you that same sort of kick across the hill. You know, if you start thinking about this sort of idea, I guess the thought becomes less about the ski turning across the hill in the sense of twisting the ski across the hill or letting the edge guide the ski across the hill, and more about this idea of the ski bending and releasing to push you, either the center of mass or your legs, back underneath you, but either way across the hill. So there's less, like I said, force, strength in turning the ski and more that this pressure is shooting across the hill, kind of like trampolines that are set up. On a 45-degree angle. If you were to run and jump on this trampoline, you'd get pushed back across the room. I guess the same idea when you're skiing down a hill. And like I said, I guess there's less thought about turning the ski across the hill. If you can get those forces to push you across the hill without so much turning effort, I think it's a lot more efficient. So, I've been playing around with that a little bit more, and it puts a whole different spin on a turn or skiing as well, because while this doesn't happen exactly as I'm saying it, I guess a feeling or a bit of a mindset would be that the skis are basically traveling straight down the hill the whole time, and you're really bending and releasing the ski on one side of your body. And again, this is not what's happening, but maybe more of a mindset or a thought that the skis are then being pushed underneath you while still pointing down the hill. Until they're on the edge out the other side of you, bending and releasing, and pushing them back underneath you again. So, it almost feels— it puts a whole spin on the idea of a turn being from the skis pointing across the hill in one direction, making a C and pointing the other direction. It's more thinking now that the skis are pointing down the hill and they're being pushed from one fall line to another fall line, if that makes sense. Yep.

So, I guess that ties in with this sort of one of those three things you talked about, speed down the hill. Right. And you, I guess you have to be pretty comfortable with getting your mind around that sort of like training or skiing with that intention in mind, really. Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah, skiing fast down the hill. So, I know that's something you played with and are still playing with, but can you give us some ideas, training ideas things you used to do to get comfortable with that and how you kind of explain to some people this idea of speed and that perhaps it isn't so scary.

Yeah, well, that's an interesting, you know, thing that I've been playing around with, and we've talked about this a lot, and it's, you know, it's a bit of a crazy thought too because I don't want people to listen to this and then say, "Oh, Paul is saying to go crazy straight down the hill and all this sort of stuff," but I guess the thing that I've been thinking about about a little bit is that, you know, I think most of us, or most people in the, you know, that are confident skiers or advanced skiers would feel pretty comfortable going straight down most groomed runs, you know, particularly green and blue runs. And so what I mean by straight is, you know, you're not putting the skis on the edge, you're not turning them, you're just going straight, you know. And when you do that, you don't, you know, the scary thing I think at first for most beginners is that you feel like you're constantly accelerating, which isn't actually true. You know, you'll accelerate to a certain speed and once you reach that speed, you know, I guess the maximum speed of that slope or the terminal velocity on that slope, you don't then keep accelerating, you know. And I guess the thought is that once you get to that speed, if you're comfortable at that speed, that's as fast as you can go down that slope, you know. So I was playing around with, you know, trying to get to that sort of speed and then, you know, at that speed then starting to introduce a little bit of more edging, not so much turning the ski, but I guess you could think about it a little bit like an edge roll, and then allowing the skis to increase edge and the pressure to push them across and further away from you out to the other side into more of a turn. Now the interesting thing is at that speed the pressure builds up very quickly, and if you can think about or imagine a turn you know, back to the traditional idea of a turn being a C-shape, you know, most of the pressure that pushes on the ski pushes on it perpendicular to that C. So if you think about a C with something pushing on it perpendicular to each part of that C, you can imagine that from the fall line onwards, there's quite a lot of pressure that's actually pushing you back up the hill or against that direction of travel, which is for you down the hill. You know, so that's the really scary part. You know, that's the part that causes a lot of issues, you know, particularly if you're going fast. So, I guess the idea of going straight and adding a bit of this edge roll idea, or allowing the ski to be more edged than turned, and the force that builds up, you know, pushing the ski across, and then playing around with the timing of it. So, you know, enough force can be built up through the top part of the turn and the fall line to create the energy to push the ski and you across the hill. But then, you know, the timing of when to start to release that edge or flatten the ski a little bit so that you don't build up too much pressure after the fall line, which is against the way you're traveling. And, you know, if you start to get into that area of the turn where there's still pressure building up and you don't come off the edge, that's where things start to go wrong. You know, so playing around with that sort of timing idea But the other thing is at that speed, obviously, the pressure builds up very quickly, as I said. So, just playing around with how much edge you can really manage at that speed as well. And I think, again, taking back to the idea that we're all comfortable to go straight down the hill, if you start to get into a position where the pressure's too much to cope with, or you can't deal with it, or you feel like you're getting spat out of the turn, for use of a for lack of a better word, if you think that going straight is you're comfortable with, well, that might be a safety, you know. But most people do the opposite. Most people do it, ski down the hill, and when they feel like they're getting out of control, they'll turn the ski across the hill and try to wash off speed, which is, like I said, the bottom half of that turn where most of the pressure builds up and works contradictory to the way you're going and actually puts you in a worse position, you know. So, I guess the idea is that when you start to get into that that feeling of not being able to deal with it or not being able to cope, rather than allowing the legs to get so far away and edge angle to increase, get the legs back underneath you and start taking it straighter again. You know, you're already at the maximum speed on that slope, so you're not going to increase speed that much, you know, but you'll decrease the pressure because your skis won't be as far away on as much edge. So yeah, I don't know, I don't know if I explained that as well as, as I could have, but that's kind of— no, no, an insight into, into what I mean.

Yeah, you know, definitely, definitely.

I mean, I think once you're Sorry, go ahead.

I was just going to say, I think it's just a really interesting approach to training that you have. It's something I've noticed skiing with you a lot. You, say, take a concept and you really take it to the extreme, so you, I guess, have a really good understanding of the edges of your capabilities. So, you know, I know in moguls you know, the same idea, straight lining through a zipline set of moguls knowing that there is going to be a certain point, you're just going to reach a top speed and you're not actually going to go fast from there. So, as long as your brain realizes that you, you know, you're not going to die at this point, then you can actually, I guess, manage these kind of what would be felt as out-of-control situations maybe a little bit more comfortably.

Yeah, I think, I think that's it. I think the, the key, I think, in skiing is to not be afraid of, of the speed, you know. And that's an easy thing to say, but to, you know, feel, feel comfortable to do that is another thing. So I guess, you know, going out and training this sort of, this sort of idea or concept, but also having, uh, you know, it's one thing to have faith that the, that you're going to get to that top speed and stay at that top speed, but it's another thing when you know, you're going down quite a steep run and you feel like you're accelerating, accelerating, accelerating, this is never going to stop. You know, I guess the more you put yourself in a position or situation like that, I guess the more you do actually believe that, you know, you're not going to end up accelerating to your death. Yep, yep.

So, now I don't know which way around to ask this question. I've got 2 questions for you. Is to do with you competing in the Japanese technical competitions just recently and what you got out of that, so just talking about that. And then the second one is what you're currently working on in your skiing. I don't know, I'm not sure which way around it would be better to explain it, whether the technical comps have changed maybe something in the way that you're looking at skiing, or whether you would want to talk about that.

First?

Yeah, I'll leave it to you.

I don't know, I mean, it's an interesting question too because it's, yeah, it's interesting because the Japanese technical comps, you know, I kind of went in these competitions, I went in this competition and I've been training a lot with the Japanese guys here because, you know, I did want to try to have, you know, get more of an insight into their skiing. I think the One thing that should be noted is that all of the countries that attend Interski, that have their demo teams and all this sort of stuff, they're all very high-level skiers. You know, you go to Interski and you watch the best skiers in the world and you see that it's just next level. They're really strong skiers. And you also see the standouts from each country and it's quite inspiring. What I've found is, in a lot of the countries that I've worked, is that that demo team is the height of skiing, and of course within that demo team, the team members push each other, and that's really great. But one thing that I've noticed about the Asian countries, more specifically Japan and South Korea, they have these technical skiing competitions, and you can see even from the outside, knowing not a whole lot about it, that this really does push and evolve their ski technique. And this was something that I thought was really interesting because we don't have this idea of technical skiing in Australia or anywhere else I've worked with. You have racing and that sort of thing, but not a judged event on ski technique.

Is there actually any— are there any other countries you know of that really do? And maybe just explain what these technical competitions are.

Yeah, so there are other countries. I've done them in the States. In the States and in Canada, but not to the same degree, you know. So, I guess for most, if you're listening to this and you're a ski instructor, the competitions are a little bit like the free skiing parts of your instructor exams. So, I just competed in the Hokkaido State Championship, and basically the tasks are long turns, short turns, a rhythm change on GS skis, a rhythm change on slalom skis, and bumps. You know, you do certain tasks each day and then progress through to the semi-finals and finals. I guess the reason why I went in was to learn a little bit more about their technique and what it is that's evolving their technique. I had no idea on the first day, you know, I didn't know what it was they were doing or looking for, so I went into it trying to show the best technique like you would at an instructor exam. One thing I noticed was just how fast everyone was going, you know, and I thought, this is crazy. It's almost like this, you know, they're almost losing their form a little bit because they're going so fast, you know. And I spoke with some of the demonstrators there. There were some high-level demonstrators there. There were interski team demonstrators, and then national demonstrators, and then state demonstrators. And I was fortunate enough to be, you know, I'm good friends with one of the Hokkaido demonstrators who talked to me through the whole competition and it became apparent that the most important thing for them is obviously good technique, but speed down the hill. And that's a really interesting concept because the speed down the hill is not something that is— you don't just achieve speed down the hill. You can always take it faster in what you're doing. So you can never reach a certain level, and that's something that continues to evolve the sport here in Japan. So where we would be trying to you know, show really nice round turns and early edging and nice deflection, all this sort of stuff, they're all trying to do that too. But they're trying to go faster than the next person. Right, do that but do it faster. Yeah, exactly. And it's a constant one-upmanship on each other, you know. So you get to the point where these guys are flying down the hill. I mean, I did a lot of training, like we talked about, speed down the hill, but this is just a whole other game, really. And unfortunately, the videos that you got, that, you know, you see on, uh, you know, on YouTube and the DVDs of the Japanese competitions, they really don't do it justice, these guys justice, on how fast they're going, you know. And I'm not just talking down a green or blue slope. All of these, uh, tasks are done on a black slope, right, you know. So that it's, it's a very steep black run that these guys will tuck into for 30 or 40 meters into their longs, and, and almost the same for their short turns. But it's really interesting because it can change and warp the sport as well. We talked before about those 3 objectives being speed, and then deflection, and then rhythm. Unfortunately, they don't go hand in hand. Like I said, if you're going very fast down the hill with a fast rhythm, particularly the rhythm doesn't go hand in hand with deflection. The further you go across the hill, being pushed across the hill, however you're doing it, whether you're turning the skis or the pressure's pushing you, the further you go across the hill, the slower the rhythm has to be, and the slower your speed down the hill is going to be because you're traveling further. With that in mind, you look at these Japanese competitions and their ski technique is molded by this such heavy emphasis on speed. So, you'll start to see in their long turns, they don't really do much after the fall line, they already start absorbing or softening the leg from the fall line or even before. So you see these turns which I would even describe as Super-G turns. I would do, on the first day when I didn't know what I was doing, I was doing 10 or 12 turns, GS turns on GS skis like you would around a GS gate. And these guys were going possibly 2 or 3 times the speed that I was going, but they were doing 3 turns. You know, and they were massive Super-G turns, you know. So I thought, okay, well, that changes what they're trying to do, you know, that they're trying to really incline through the top of the turn to get a lot of edge angle and have some sort of force working, you know, push them across the hill until it works against the way they're traveling, which is down the hill. And then they're softening and trying to not let the skis turn much more across, which is interesting. And, you know, this is just my observation of it, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and then the same with the short turns, you know, they were— they wanted to see a very arky, loopy, uh, round turn, and they kept using the word deep turn, um, you know, and I think that the deflection in their mind was more a deflection of their feet across the hill, because if you watch their center of mass, it hardly moved across at all. There was no deflection, um, you know, so the center of mass went straight with this very loopy, round, arky turn. And again, you know, in that situation where there's center of mass is going straight, they could go so fast. It's funny because I did all this training with the idea of I want to get more speed, and now I felt that I'm comfortable with the speed and I want to add more deflection. For the last year or two, I've been trying to get my center of mass to be pushed across the hill more, and then I come to this competition where they're all not doing that at all. They're going as fast as they can. Again, these guys are doing it not just competing against each other, but on the steepest groomed slopes they can find. So, this is kind of a really cool concept because it does evolve the sport, you know, so it's quite interesting.

So, it's almost like it's a little bit of a different kind of culture of skiing compared to, you know, going to somewhere else in the States where you'd find people training gates, and so there's obviously a different objective. They've got to go fast, but they've got to get around things, so there does need to be this element of deflection, and with that taken out, the wind out, you know, they don't have to do that. They've kind of created their own—

Yeah, it's a bit bizarre.

—sort of take on skiing, I guess.

Yeah, it is, that's exactly right, it is bizarre. You know, and it's, I guess it might sound really funny as well, unless you've seen it or you're into this sort of, you know, this idea of technical skiing, because it's not timed, but it's very, very clear to see, you know, when you're there, who's going, how fast people are going. and I guess the judges are all ex-Interski or national team demonstrators. They're all examiners and they're all competition champions, so they're very established in what they do. I think anyone that's in skiing that has some sort of eye can see a lot. You can see the result and effect of certain movements. These guys are very good at seeing, you know, how certain movements affect the ski, and it's very clear to everyone there how fast people are going. You know, so I think it's— while it sounds like a bit of a funny competition, what's the purpose? You know, these guys definitely have a good eye to see who's more efficient and who's going faster, you know, and who's, you know, I guess, creating the most performance turns within the task.

So 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 Carv 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. Yeah, it's interesting.

Yes, I mean, uh, just something I, I mean, I was just recently over in Japan, uh, not on Hokkaido but on the main island, and something that is really of standout notice is just how many people are out there trying to ski technically well. All these people out there on carve skis and really taking it seriously, and, you know, like lapping zip-line moguls and getting spat around everywhere, and some of them skiing really well. And just the number of people skiing technically well really blew me away. I couldn't believe that kind of culture. It was really cool, very inspiring as a technical skier myself.

It is very cool, you know. The Japanese are really into technique and doing things the right way and practicing and practicing. And that's very different to, I guess, a lot of the Western ski resorts. So, you'll see a lot of, you know, just members of the public out doing drills and exercises and that sort of thing. You know, these technical skiers, the champions, I mean, these guys that are winning these competitions, the state champs and the national champs, you know, that are Japanese demonstrators, they are, you know, they're like rock stars over here. Japan has one of the biggest ski industries in the world. There's a period where I think Japan was in the top 3 countries in the world for ski sales. I mean, the industry is huge here. you know, these guys that are showing the best ski technique in a very technically-minded country, they're just— not ski— you know, they're just gods, really. There's a lot of money in the top guys, and they're very, like I said, like rock stars. They go around to resorts and do, you know, signing autographs and all this sort of stuff. So, it's a very prestigious thing, and you know, they're superstars over here. It's very cool. It's a very cool culture to see. Yeah, you know, that sort of technique, as respected as it is, you know. And I guess, you know, this last competition that I went to, it had a feeling a little bit like, you know, I've been to World Cup races around the world, you know, and the feeling is almost like, you know, a World Cup race, you know. I remember being at the, um, in Kitzbühel for the Hannekam Downhill, and this has that same sort of feeling, you know. They have all of the servicemen there, all of the teams there, you know, servicing skis, and I've got a whole you know, set up at the bottom, and each night they've got a whole tuning shop set up in the gymnasium, and you know, there's big crowds all there watching, and it's, you know, it's a big deal. It's a really cool vibe. Yeah, incredible.

And I just thought for listeners, you've made a really cool series of videos of your experience of this competition, and yeah, if you want to check it out, they're really good, not very long, give you a good insight. is it on your Paul Lawrence Clinics YouTube page? Yes, yeah, that's right. Yep, yep. So if you search Paul Lawrence Clinics on YouTube, you'll be able to find Paul's videos, day 1, day 2, day 3 finals of the Hokkaido State Championships, which I highly recommend checking out. You did really well, I enjoyed those videos.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, it was good. Excellent. So, following that competition, now I can ask you, what have you taken away? What are you going out working on in your skiing?

Well, it's interesting, you know, one thing that's really— I like the idea of is, I guess, the idea of versatility. This concept of speed down the hill, or as fast as you can down the hill doing everything. I said that was an objective I was training for and now starting to introduce more of the deflection. Even over the last year, as I was starting to get more deflection across the hill and resist those forces a little bit more to push me across, I've tried to get a compromise between those 3 objectives. I think that's something that the Australian organization, the APSI is trying to do well and show, you know, good speed down the hill, good performance, and, you know, to build up force and push your center of mass across the hill through a turn in a pretty, you know, in a reasonable rhythm. You know, so I guess trying to find a compromise between all three. And at the moment, leading into Interski, you know, that's what I want to be showing. That's what we want to be showing as a team. And to be honest, that's what I think is good skiing, you know. But at the same time, after this competition, I'm also trying to, you know, I guess, ski a little bit more, more like the Japanese, in the purpose of coming back next year and trying to improve my results. You know, and I've been training a lot with the Hokkaido demonstrators here and working on, you know, just, I guess, more discussing and finding out what it is that the judges are looking for there as well. So, you know, but I think, like I said, with those 3 objectives in mind, again, you can't you can't achieve one of them. You can always do it more, you can always get a faster rhythm, you can always get more deflection, and you can always go faster. So, you know, while the last, I'd say, 3 or 4 years for me has been training in these areas, you know, to come over to a competition that I guess has the similar sort of objective is quite inspiring for me and gives me another focus in my skiing. So yeah, I think one thing that I'd really notice, I guess, is a from a technical point of view, if you had to look at a movement or something within the skiing, is just the height that these guys stay. They're quite low, their center of mass is quite low. They spend a lot of— their transition is very compact, and it's quite interesting. That's something that I think I ski quite low, but it feels like I'm very tall compared to a lot of these guys. Something I've noticed even through the 3 days of the competition. I started to notice just getting a little bit more compact through the transition. And I think that, I guess the purpose of that is being, you know, your hips and center of mass staying at one height, you know, and allowing the legs to extend further out to the side to create a higher edge angle and have more pressure pushing against the base of the ski, you know, and then not rising up and and coming up too much between turns so that you can then move to the inside of the next turn more quickly, or have the legs move further away from you, depending on what style of turn you're doing. And that's something that we firmly believe with in the APSI, so it's not a new movement, but I guess taking it to that next step of being really low in the transition like some of these guys are. Almost like a, this is a bit extreme, but almost like a bump turn. Absorb mogul between the turns. So, I guess that's something that has been changing a little bit in my skiing, yeah.

Yep. How about in the moguls? Do you notice, have you changed anything from watching their mogul skiing or competing in a mogul competition?

Yeah, well, that's a funny one because of all the tasks I mentioned, the mogul skiing is one that you know, mogul skiing is mogul skiing. There's not a whole lot of difference there between, you know, how we do it and how they do it. And, you know, you ski the bumps, the rounder the bumps, the rounder you ski, the straighter the bumps, the straighter you ski. Again, their major priority is speed, and I was blown away at how fast these guys were going in. You know, these guys aren't skiing a World Cup style turn. You know, it's— they are as round as possible. You know. Yeah. And I know that that's the focus in World Cup moguls, you know. I know that they're talking about a lot of edging movements, you know, but these guys are skiing more, you know, I guess a technical short turn like you would see an instructor-style short turn or a racy-style short turn and trying to get more of this sort of performance in the moguls, which is quite cool. Yeah. You know, and still doing it on— they're all doing it on a 165. Some of them World Cup slalom skis with race boots, you know, so it's not the same setup as a World Cup mogul skier, which is quite interesting. And like I said, the speed they go into it is pretty impressive, you know.

Yep, cool.

You'll be interested to see on one of the videos, I got a little bit back and lost both skis on one of the runs in the moguls, which was a nice little blowout in the middle of the run. It was a pretty long run though, they go about 100 bumps one run, you know. So that was a lot of stress to have halfway down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine. Um, cool. So I guess, so to start wrapping things up, um, I was gonna say, if you were to give some, like, a couple of pieces of advice for that, you know, that person, that technical skier, whether they're instructor or just someone that's really into skiing, to maybe perhaps go go out and help push their skiing to the next level? Like whether it's concept, drill, some of the things you've mentioned already, what would you kind of reiterate or what would you say would be some good advice you wish you'd maybe had earlier on to help your skiing progress?

Yeah, I think identifying the couple of people, you know, in the world that you like the skating, like the way they ski. So that might be watching some of the top racers, or watching the top technical skiers, or the Mo, whatever. There are videos up on YouTube, and identify the ones that you think ski well, but more than that, you need to determine what it is about their skiing that you really like. And it'll come down to, at the end of the day, those 3 objectives that I talked about, but what is it that they do in those, in the way they ski that gives you— maybe it's an aesthetic sort of look that you like, or, you know, one of those objectives they're doing better than other people. But identify what it is and watch a lot of video and take a lot of video of your own skiing. You know, I think it's interesting because I think some of the best skiers out there generally are people that are able to mimic movements. You know, and then, so what I mean is they're able to go and watch something or see something or hear about something, and they can go and kind of do that movement as close to that, you know, that demonstration as possible. So, you pick the skiers that you want to look like or ski like and work on how you can become, you know, start looking like that skier and take a lot of video to check this. You know, and then once you're at a level where you feel comfortable with the way you're skiing and you're able to make adjustments easily, then you can start to push and work towards improving or pushing the limits on those objectives I mentioned before. So, that's a big part. There's been lots of people that I've looked up to in skiing that I'm trying to look like, or I like elements of their skiing, and I've tried to put into my skiing. So, that's helped me out a lot. And then the other thing is, a lot of the guys that are doing instructor levels and training, and particularly people that are training around the world in different organizations, you know, there can be a lot of confusing things said by trainers, top-level trainers, you know, demo team members. You know, communication is a funny thing because the trainer might be saying exactly what you need to hear, but you're not receiving it the right way, so it means nothing. You know, so I think having— when given feedback or taking feedback, it's really important that that feedback makes sense to you and is justified. You know, so you might have the best coach in the world, and if you don't understand what he's saying or don't believe in what he's saying, it's a bit of a waste of time. So it has to make sense in your head why you're doing what this person is telling you to do, or why you're trying to work on the feedback they've given. And without being rude, ask them why. If it doesn't make sense in your head or it doesn't work towards one of those goals you've set, or it doesn't work towards that person that you want to look like, then maybe just, you know, move on to, you know, take it with a grain of salt, you know, and try to get as much feedback as you can from different people and take the feedback that means and works for you, you know, means something and works for you. Yep, very good advice, very good advice.

Well, I really appreciate the time you've given us here chatting about skiing, Pauli, and I thought if people don't know, you've actually you've got your own business as well as running the NBS ski school. You've got some clinics you run, short-term clinics.

Have you got any coming up or can people find out more about that? Yeah, so I have a website which is called paullorenzclinics.com and all the information about upcoming courses is on that website. We have different courses, we have a short-term clinic which has been pretty popular. You know, I'm looking at a long-term and bumps clinic, but the release and launch of all these clinics will go up on that website, so keep an eye out on it. And there's also a Paul Lorenz Clinics Facebook page which will keep people updated with new courses and events, so check it out.

And you tend to post a lot of videos of training you've done and things you do on that Facebook page? Facebook page too, so that's probably the best way for people to keep updated, isn't it? Yeah, yep. Yep, perfect. Paul, again, thanks very much for your time, and— Thank you. Yeah, yeah, look forward to getting back to Australia and doing some more training and more skiing with you.

Yeah, it's going to be good. Thanks for having me, it was great to chat, and hope to do it again soon. Thanks for listening. All right, thanks, Paul.