Volume 2, Number3
December 28, 2001

Contacting pmts.org

Need to contact the pmts.org office? We don't yet have a telephone, but we're here and ready to help! Diana Rogers is processing all member applications and questions, event registration, orders, etc., so we have changed the mailing address to get things to her more quickly.

The best contact method is via e-mail, at
info@pmts.org

The next best way is to call Harb Ski Systems at (303)567-4663. They will relay your inquiry to the correct individual.

The slowest way, but still functional, is to send us traditional mail. The address is...
pmts.org
c/o Diana Rogers
PO Box 111
Dumont, CO 80436

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To Reach for the Gold, Go for the Green, by Peter Stone

Having lived and trained with the "guru couple" (Harald and Diana) for the last six weeks, I am confident I can share with you some accreditation secrets.

I have witnessed and been on the receiving end of the expectation of excellence. You know when you deliver it, and you know when you don't.

Why do we need to be excellent? Because excellence is required out on the hill when leading skiers through learning experiences. The first step in attaining excellence, and some would argue the hardest step, is achieving the green level in PMTS.

"But isn't the green level the first and therefore the easiest step?" I hear you ask. Well, it's the first step, but don't be fooled into thinking it is the easiest. Because when you enter into the world of PMTS green, you step headlong into a world of excellence.

For those of you who are planning on taking a step into excellence, this is for you, my insider's tips for 'being excellent' during a PMTS Green Accreditation.
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Step 1 - Clear your mind and open it up to new possibilities.

As humans we interpret the world through screens. We build our personal screens through our past experiences. It is our internal voice. Some of you may be thinking already, "This guy is a jerk. I don't have a screen. I know I don't have a screen. I don't need to listen to this crap!"

Well, I would say to that voice inside your head, a voice that speaks constantly at around 90 words per minute, "Turn off the screen, buddy, open up to the possibilities, and we can get started."
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Step 2 - A PSIA, CSIA, APSI, USCF, etc. screen is going to slow your progress during a PMTS learning experience.

This program is new. It is powerful. It is different. It is unlike any traditional training you would have experienced before. Watch for your screens, recognise them, try to push past them and go outside of them to experience this program fully. If you can do this, you are well on your way to excellence, and not just as a ski instructor.
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Step 3 - Prepare fully

Don't think you know it. Know it. Excellence isn't about trying to guess the answer.

Student Directed Ski Instruction is unlike any class lesson you will have taught before for exam purposes. Read all the sections in the Instructor Manual. The back section is fantastic.

Let me say this in another way (hint: let me appeal to what is in this for you):
If you would like to be successful on your PMTS Green Accreditation (hopefully one of your motivations) then read the Instructor Manual on Student Directed Ski Instruction carefully (task) otherwise you may fail (statement of fact).

Release / Transfer / Engagement ("RTE") - The three elements of a turn in PMTS. Understand them. Understand what each element is trying to achieve. Assess skiers through these elements. What can they do? What can't they do? Where do you need to lead them?

If you take a look back at your traditional teaching models and assess them in terms of RTE, you will be even better prepared for success.

Hint on RTE - If a skier is stuck in a snowplough and they are trying to turn, what is the main thing they can't do? Answer - Release the ski!
Big Hint: Release is what most skiers are working on.
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Step 4 - Listen

Listen to your feedback. Open yourself up to the possibility that you may be asked to make changes. Then make them!

Listen to the feedback given to the other skiers in your group. Process it. Anticipate it. Learn from it.
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Step 5 - During the exam, give a lesson rather than an exam lesson.

Teach the skiers rather than teaching the lesson. Remember, it's about the skiers.

Best of luck.

There are plenty of you accredited guys out there with plenty to share on this and many other subjects. OK, I had to write something as I can't hide from Harald and Diana, but don't make the mistake of hiding; the world is too full of hiders, as excellence is all about stepping up to the plate.

Peter Stone is an accredited PMTS instructor

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Congratulations to Early Season, 2001-2002 Accredited Instructors

We held two green-level accreditations at Loveland, in early and late November, 2001. Participants came from New York, Virginia, Colorado, and Australia. It's great to see the demand for PMTS accreditation spreading further around the country and the world. Congratulations to the following early birds who attained their green level!

Loveland, November 2001...
Scott Burns (Mt. Buller, Aus, & Kicking Horse, BC), Willy Draper (Sunlight, Aspen, and A-Basin, CO), Paula Martin (A-Basin, CO), Viv Pisanello (Killington, VT), Marc Read (Whitetail, PA, & Bryce, VA), Peter Stone (Mt. Buller, Aus, & Kicking Horse, BC)

Good job, and have fun teaching!

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Read Peter Stone's article regarding excellence in the pursuit of accreditation...

What We Share, by Kim Peterson

(This article is an excerpt. Further articles will appear in upcoming newsletters, and the full text will reside in the PMTS.org library. -Ed.)

What a great job. We get paid to share the very things that make us happy. People come to us asking for us to explain the things we love to talk about, to show them how to do the things we love to do, and to be excited about the things we enjoy doing. We choose how we will share those things. In some cases, we may opt to share new vocabulary words. Other times we may share physical sensations associated with skiing. If we don't pay attention, we may only share the things that make sense to us, the movements that work for us, and the experiences we've had with skiing. No wonder that some of our guests leave unsatisfied.

What is sharing?

If you've ever had the opportunity to watch children play, you will recognize that children endorse a revolving hierarchy of sharing. Sometimes the cops win, sometimes young boys are the mothers, and sometimes students teach the teacher. Monsters, however, are generally defeated. Children may or may not learn the convention of sharing their toys. It is ironic that some children want to play with others but insist on keeping the toys for themselves. In this scenario, there is no real play, only quarreling about who has the right to the toys.
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Learning to ski shares some metaphors with learning to play. In this case, however, the issue centers more on what to share, and how to share, than whether or not to share. If instructors are the only ones who share, there is no real play. Learning to ski can digress to performing learning tasks, criticisms about the quality of improvement, descriptions of performance levels, waiting for breakthroughs, and comparisons with a few final forms. On the other hand, if guests are the only ones who share, accomplishment, discovery, exploration, improvement, and the value of the lesson may be compromised.

The balanced sharing of words, meanings, excitement, and experiences may hold an essential key to unlock successful interactions with guests.
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Sharing Words

Imagine teaching a class of advanced skiers comprised of an elementary school teacher, an orthopedic surgeon, a 14-year-old basketball player, and a telemarketer. Since each of them have skis, a lesson voucher, and a lift ticket, you can probably assume that they want to learn and they want to ski. Maybe you would agree, however, that there is a potential for confusion because of the different vocabularies of each of your guests.

For example, the simple command to "flex your knees" could be clear to the elementary school teacher and the orthopede. Maybe they have recently used the word "flex" in their professions. To the 14-year-old and the telemarketer, however, "flex" may mean everything from diversified funds to strutting your stuff.
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In another part of your experience, you may invite everyone to "point your skis across the hill". Everyone seems to do fine except the surgeon. Immediately upon pointing her skis across the hill, she stood almost completely on the downhill ski, tipped the ski uphill and rode the railed ski in 180 degrees of a circle until her skis were pointing uphill and she fell down backwards. The moderate advice to "point" may have described directional information for the other three, for the surgeon however, it meant direction, transition, transfer, rotation, and ultimately falling down.

Finally, toward the end of the lesson you demonstrate upper and lower body separation on behalf of the telemarketer who seems to swing his shoulders across the hill with every turn. As part of your explanation you might even let out the words "counter-rotation". Is it conceivable that the next thing that happened in your lesson was a decrease in everyone's performance? The surgeon may become so rigid that she can't really allow her skis to glide across the hill. The basketball player may look down the hill but everything else faces across the hill; the schoolteacher may still be focused on the idea of flexing knees. And the poor telemarketer may overtly twist his shoulders one way while pointing his skis the other way.
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Sharing words may be described on this scale:

If I allow the scale to tip too far toward their words, I may sacrifice the accuracy of the communication; if I tip the scale too far toward my words, I may compromise the guests' understanding of the communication.
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Here are some possible ways to promote sharing words.

1. Have the group create new words to represent the movements, equipment, forces involved in skiing.
2. When it is appropriate to use jargon, take a moment to clearly define the jargon so everyone can use it appropriately.
3. Use words that are common to individuals' experiences.
4. Allow individuals to choose the words that describe concepts most clearly for them.

Our hypothetical group lesson might have been more successful if you demonstrated flexed knees and asked the telemarketer to describe to the group what you were doing. Maybe he would have said that you were bending your legs. You could continue by explaining that when you point your skis across the hill, you ought to be careful not to twist your hips and shoulders or to allow your ski to make an abrupt edge angle. Finally, you might ask the basketball player to describe separately what his feet, hands, neck, and head do when he tries to guard a player on the opposite team. Subsequently, you could relate his description to the movements he is making in skiing. At the end of the lesson, you might invite the schoolteacher to summarize in one sentence what she wants to remember about skiing when she comes next time. Sharing words can lay the foundation for sharing experiences.
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Kim Peterson is a PMTS trainer and the developer of Student Directed Ski Instruction™

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Report from Fall Camp, by Diana Rogers

What do you get when you mix a mountain, early snowmaking, and good weather? The chance to host 40 PMTS enthusiasts, from skiers to instructors to trainers. Copper Mountain once again provided great early-season conditions, including a wintry performance by Mother Nature one afternoon.	Smiles all around!
The campers were a diverse lot, both geographically and in age. Ages ranged (my guesses!) from the 20's to the 70's. We had campers from around the country, including Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Plus, we had a camper from Germany, and three "shadowers" from Australia. WOW! It's very exciting to see the growth of PMTS, both within and beyond its traditional regions of strength.
There was a lot of learning time at camp, from the full days on snow, to the lunchtime discussions, to the video sessions in the afternoon.
As a coach, it's always a pleasure to ski and spend time with our "old friends". Even more rewarding is to see the progress you have made over your years of attending this camp, and other training events. To our new campers, I thank you for attending, and I hope that we'll see you again soon at another event.
I owe a special thanks to Susan Osborn, PMTS.org member from Colorado, who helped me organize camp. From calling campers, to receiving payments, to providing me with organized tallies, I couldn't have done it without her. Thanks!
Was camp good? We think so. Could it be even better? We know so! We'll be mailing a camp evaluation form to all attendees in the coming weeks. Please take the time to fill out the form so that we can make GREAT SKI CAMPS FOR YOU!

Diana Rogers is a pmts.org trainer

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2001-2002 Schedule of Events

Start planning now for the North America College at Copper, in early April! Our newest event, it takes place from Thursday, April 4 through Sunday, April 7, 2002 (the weekend after Easter). You can sign up for either camp event with the camp enrollment form from the web site.

North America College - À la carte training - select your course every day. The snow at Copper Mountain in early April is fabulous, and we’ll be able to ski all of their expert terrain, including the peaks and bowls. We’ll have sessions on teaching; skiing improvement; off-piste skiing; racing; alignment (indoor and on-snow combined); biomechanics (indoor evening session); and, we’re working on having Dean Nicholas, the mentor of US Ski Team member Erik Schlopy, provide indoor sessions on how to achieve your best performance.

We are arranging group lodging and group-rate tickets. We will be sending a flyer (or online flyer) to all previous attendees and members once we have all the details. That will be the lodging enrollment.

Full Schedule - The tentative schedule for the rest of next season’s events is posted on the web site, at www.pmts.org/schedule.htm

Some events (particularly Midwest accreditations) will be added later, but you can start to plan your winter’s training now.

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School within a School Participants

We know that many instructors, accredited and otherwise, are teaching PMTS Direct Parallel within their lessons, and that's great news for skiers. But, the real question is...

Which ski schools are teaching PMTS Direct Parallel and telling the public that they're teaching it??

School within a School participants for the 2001-2002 season include Arapahoe Basin, CO (still in training); Solvista, CO; Tyrol Basin, WI; and the Direct Parallel Ski School at Kicking Horse, BC. We applaud these ski schools for making the commitment to teaching a new program to their skiers, and wish them great success, not only in teaching the program, but in attracting new lesson-takers and in motiviating their staff.

The "School within a School" licenses help a ski school participate in Harb Ski System’s marketing for PMTS Direct Parallel with prices and participation requirements that are achievable and a good value. The School within a School licenses do not require training of the entire ski school staff, so they offer a way for a ski school to use PMTS Direct Parallel, to advertise the availability of PMTS Direct Parallel lessons, and to receive nationwide and local marketing from Harb Ski Systems without committing their entire staff - a potential training challenge. It allows a ski school to move quickly to become a licensed PMTS ski school, with the benefits of being able to advertise the program, while having more time and flexibility in training the non-accredited staff.

If you would like more information about the School within a School licensing program, please contact Harb Ski Systems by e-mail (info@harbskisystems.com) or phone [(303)567-4663]. If you’re an instructor, not a trainer or ski school manager, we can help you put together a packet to present to your ski school directors.

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Summer Footbed & Alignment Training Course

Harb Ski Systems is planning to hold more footbed and alignment training courses this summer, and you are invited! Previous course attendees are now working as alignment specialists, and there is good demand for the services of skilled instructor/alignment technicians. If you know other folks (skiers, instructors, shop technicians) who would like to attend, please feel free to invite them.

The six-day course includes:
• how the foot and ankle work in skiing
• influence of equipment - footbed, boots, skis, bindings - on skiing performance
• fore/aft balance
• performing the indoor footbed and alignment assessment - understanding and practical
• making footbeds - theory and practical (lots of practice)
• determining alignment from on-snow maneuvers and skiing (from video footage)
• installing alignment shims & working with bindings
• information on obtaining the supplies and tools necessary for footbeds and alignment

The course costs $720, which includes training materials, all supplies for footbed and alignment practice, and lunch each day. At least one session will be held at Harb Ski Systems, in Dumont. If there is enough demand in another region, we may be able to bring the course to you (with sufficient prior planning!)

If you are interested, please RSVP as soon as you can with preferred dates and location for attendance. Send an e-mail (info@harbskisystems.com) or call if you have questions -(303)567-4663. We hope you'll be able to attend!

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Administrative Corner

Hello, members! It seems that that the first words out of my mouth every time I send the newsletter are, "Sorry it's late!". Attempting to write an edition right after the Fall Camp seems to be particularly bad planning on my part, since it's virtually certain that I won't have reports back in time for a November publishing date. So, I think I'll bump the schedule to December. If you like or dislike this idea, let me know!

The best part of having a December newsletter is that I can send all of you my seasonal greetings:

Happy Holidays!

To our Eastern and Midwestern members, I hope that the weather starts to act wintry soon, so that your seasons may improve.

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