Volume 2, Number 1
February 23, 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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Congratulations to 2000-2001 Accredited Instructors (thus far)…

PMTS Direct Parallel accreditation is picking up momentum this winter. Two accreditations have already been held, at Solvista (formerly Silver Creek), Colorado, and Tyrol Basin, Wisconsin, and several others are scheduled this winter (click for schedule, locations, and contacts).

Congratulations to our newest, Green-level accredited instructors:

Tyrol Basin, January 2001...
Gary Bjorgo (Tyrol Basin), Robert Cook (Tyrol Basin), Reece Donihi (Tyrol Basin), Cliff Gonyer (Hyland Hills), David Helgesen (Tyrol Basin), Kris Kruse-Elliot (Tyrol Basin), Barbara Meythaler (Mt. LaCrosse)

Solvista, February 2001...
Mary Herzig (Vail), Steve Keefer (Eskimo Ski Club), Paul McKinnie (Aspen), Larry Thomas (Vail)

Good job, and have fun teaching!

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PMTS.org patches

We have spiffy patches featuring the pmts.org logo. (The trainers at fall camp at Copper had the patches on their uniforms.) Actual size is 3.5" x 2.5".
Order one or more now to wear your colors with pride! They cost $5.00 plus postage. If you order several at once, you’ll save on postage per item, so get with your friends and buy a few!

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Embroidered polo shirts

We now have a limited quantity of polo shirts available, embroidered on the chest with the pmts.org logo (same size and colors as on the patch).

The white, short-sleeved shirts are either 100% cotton mesh knit, or 50/50 jersey knit. They have a knit collar and banded sleeves. They look great (we'll have a photo soon on the web site). We have sizes M thru 2XL.

Cost is $20 plus postage.

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Membership cards

Permanent membership cards have been sent to all members for whom we had a photograph. If we have no photo, we can't make the card for you. All you non-photographed members, send us a photo - nothing fancy, a B&W printed image of a digital photo or scanned photo is fine.

Despite our best efforts, we never heard anything of substance from ISIA (International Ski Instruction Association) regarding the possibility of PMTS.org becoming a member of ISIA. We'll continue to pursue this.

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Report from Skiing Magazine's Industry Summit, by Rich Messer

Members of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA) gathered in Vail, Colorado, in December to discuss the state of the industry. After much hand-wringing and too many PowerPoint presentations, the mood was unsettled but everyone understood a few basic facts:

1. Our growth rate is so low that you would not accept it from your most conservative investments;
2. Our demographic profile is going the way of the Oldsmobile division of GM;
3. Our appeal to the youth market and upwardly mobile ethnic markets has yet to be formulated.

When all this sunk in to managers, manufacturers, and marketers, it seemed obvious that the best solution was to go skiing. The first day presented an opportunity for Harald Harb, Bob Emery, Bob Hintermeister, and me to ski with a group of skiers of diverse interests and abilities, and present information about PMTS Direct Parallel. From this collection of about 30 folks, we had some with serious interest and some who were along for a free ski lesson. It was adequate, but lacked a format to present the process fully. The following morning, PSIA managed to coax about 6 to 8 people out to their presentation.
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Clearly for the 250 attendees, better ski teaching was not a priority. However, the analysis from NSAA clearly shows that a better guest experience results from increased proficiency. A Vail marketing manager proudly announced that they could get a new skier to blue terrain in six days. Teaching PMTS Direct Parallel at Solvista (formerly Silver Creek), we regularly get people to intermediate runs in three days! Does the industry care? Not yet.

Improved teaching systems and mass transit have a lot in common: most people approve of mass transit – for everyone else! The idea of better skiers in fewer lessons has appeal, but the cultural change needed to accomplish the transition is simply overwhelming and resorts are waiting for someone else to move first. Without change in our guests’ experience, the gloomy predictions will show their ugly accuracy in ten years.

Rich Messer is a PMTS trainer and Ski School Director at Solvista (formerly Silver Creek), CO

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Ski Europe, Ski Better

What’s the ultimate combination of great food, scenery, ski friends, snow and terrain, and time to work on your own skiing? The PMTS Instructor College in Hintertux, Austria, May 7-11. We still have places available in this year’s college. A mere $1000 includes virtually everything (not lunch, drinks, or airfare), and gives you five full days of coaching on one of Europe’s premier glaciers. If you’re interested, contact Diana and we’ll tempt you further!

You don’t have to be an instructor to attend, just a solid advanced-level skier who wants to work on your skiing, so bring your friends or spouse!

For more information about the 2001 PMTS Instructor College, see the schedule and website.

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Looking at the Olperer, 3478 m

Lunch deck at the Tuxer-Ferner-Haus, 2660 m

The Wants and Needs of Students, by Kim Peterson

Service suggests more than a minimal commitment to fulfilling skiers’ desires. Our success as an industry depends on our ability to not only teach what they want to learn, but also to teach them to want the things they don’t even know yet. For example: a new student may have the fundamental desire of skiing safely. In the process of teaching them to fall, to ski slowly, to put on their equipment, and to negotiate the chairlift, couldn’t we also teach them to want to ski parallel, to want to ski more difficult runs, to want to take another lesson?

If you told a 5 year old that they could have a candy bar or a dollar bill, they’d likely take the candy bar. If you told a High School student that they could have a car today or admission to college, some would be more tempted by the car. If you tell a skier that you can be safe by learning the wedge or teach your body movements that will help you for the rest of your skiing lifetime…you guessed it… many will choose the wedge.
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Consider the position of power we hold as skiing experts. We literally have the opportunity to educate the desires of our students. They may not even know how to want the thrill of skiing proficiently. There are powerful techniques for identifying what our students want to learn. You might adopt some of the following five practices for identifying the needs of your students:

1. Invite your students to describe how they will know whether or not you’ve done your job by the end of the lesson.
2. On the first run, or in the first 10 minutes, have your students point to the skier who is skiing the way the student wants to ski.
3. Inform your students that your job is to be their skiing genie, and that their wish (within reason) is your command. And have them tell you their wishes.
4. Start the lesson by informing your students that what they want is more important than what you want to teach them and at any time they are welcome to tell you what they want.
5. Structure your introduction in such a way that the students can stop the lesson at any point and tell everyone (or you) what they have learned.
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There are obviously infinite ways to identify when you are addressing the needs of your students. Isn’t it ponderous, however, that traditionally we’ve only paid attention to when we were meeting the needs of everyone except our students. In PMTS we call that "directed". You will frequently hear us ask you where you are directed. Traditionally, instructors have been directed either toward their own needs (money, personal preference, past experience, or what they’re currently practicing) or the needs of the larger organizations (certification, class handling procedures, time slots for lessons, adults vs. children, and set standards). Personally, I’ve yet to meet the student who paid money for me to enjoy myself while I taught them. Equally rare is the student who will pay to look like PSIA says they should look. Have you ever met the student who says I’d like to be a level 4, or a perfect wedge skier? If you have, I think we’ve done that student a great disservice.

We should probably say something about wants and needs. Maybe there is not a large distinction between these two words. I do know, however, that needs seem to be more powerful than wants. Maslow probably cringes in his grave when he hears how we refer to his hierarchy. Ski instructors candidly throw around the comfort and safety needs but rarely (if ever) mention the love and self-actualization needs. The whole purpose of Maslow’s hierarchy was to describe our drive for higher and more profound motivations. What does skiing have to do with self-actualization? I know several instructors who are convinced that if they could only certify at level 3… then they’d be self-actualized. Well, I recently got my level 3 pin (I wear it next to my PMTS trainer pin) and was sorely disappointed that self-actualization didn’t come as part of the award ceremony. Maybe I should ask for a refund?
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The needs of our guests exceed our capacity as instructors to meet those needs. Some have financial needs, psychological needs, medical needs, social needs, and spiritual needs. Unless you want to be a rabbi banking psychic who administers first aid and counseling, we probably ought to conclude that we are not capable of meeting all the needs of our students. Instead, it seems that skiers come to us with only information, movement, and motivational needs. Your ability to identify and address those needs will accurately describe your success as an instructor.

What about wants? While needs are more powerful, wants are more service oriented. The magic of teaching skiing happens only when both wants and needs are met. For example, if a skier wants to ski parallel, we can assume that they need to do that within the confines of safety (movement needs), with minimal understanding (information needs), and from a standpoint of kindness (motivational needs). But what if we can teach them to ski parallel, too? They’ll probably never thank us for keeping them safe (but maybe), but they’ll be ecstatic that we taught them to keep their skis together. Here is a short list of some wants you will likely encounter this season:
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1. I want to be treated with respect… not like I was a beginner.
2. I want to ski with my family.
3. I don’t want to waste time getting all my gear together.
4. I’d rather be skiing with my friends than with this class.
5. I wish I could be an expert skier.
6. I want to avoid falling.
7. I want to spend as little money as possible.
8. I don’t want to be embarrassed.
9. I want my friends to be impressed.
10. I hope that this is fun.

You may see that wants follow the same pattern as needs. Each of the wants described fit into a information, movement, or motivation category. This is powerful! If we can describe these categories, we can more successfully meet both the wants and needs of students. Look for upcoming articles to sharpen you abilities in these three important classifications.

Kim Peterson is a PMTS trainer and the developer of Student Directed Ski Instruction™

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It Took a Spiral Fracture of my Femur to Pass the PSIA Level 2 Exam, by Mike Simmons

My saga began 12 years ago at a small mountain in North Carolina where I attended a ski-instructor camp and was hired for weekend teaching. I was great at the "snow-plow" which I learned had been changed to the "wedge". I was determined to get better with my own teaching and skiing and started attending as many PSIA clinics as my wallet could afford. Sometimes I would ski brilliantly, and then the next time I could not repeat my performance. This became increasingly frustrating, coupled with the fact that what was being taught in the clinics was constantly changing. It started with lots of emphasis on "rotary", then up and down movements, then stepping off the uphill ski, then "projecting your weight down the hill", then inside leg steering, then using four edges, then shaped skis, and now we are supposed to ski in a wider stance. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to throw my weight down the hill. It was a very elusive concept.

I was told that my performance was adequate to go for the level II exam which I embarked on. I passed the written and teaching with no problem, but I failed at the skiing. I was told by the examiners that they thought I had an alignment problem and that I needed to learn how to flex my ankles more. They suggested I put a heel wedge under my footbed. So I did and went home and practiced flexing my ankles in front of a mirror.
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Next try at the exam, same result. I needed to flex my ankles more and they suspected an alignment problem. I showed the examiner my heel wedge and he suggested a larger one. I bought a larger wedge, practiced flexing my ankles more and went back for another try. You guessed it, the same result. I was told I moved up and down like the trees instead of projecting my weight down the hill. They suspected an alignment issue and that I needed to do exercises to promote ankle flexion. "Perhaps you should take up jumping rope," one examiner said. I went home and had my wife watch me flex my ankles, first in socks, and then with my boots on. She thought I was flexing my ankles. I then went back to the ski slope and tried some more to flex my ankles and "project my body down the hill" It continued to elude me.

That March, on a very icy day, I was making a turn to the left into some very large bumps that were as hard as concrete. I had a pre-release of a binding and quickly became airborne. I started to bounce from one bump to the next, resulting in a spiral fracture of my right femur. Unfortunately, I was not put in traction and lost about 1.5 inches of length off my leg.
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I had been so frustrated with my exam experience that I had set up an appointment to visit Harald Harb’s alignment center at Winter Park, Colorado, late the same month. Needless to say, I had to cancel my appointment. When I healed from my injury it was apparent that I really needed help to overcome the short leg deficiency if I was to ever ski again. That December, with a rod still in my leg, I made a new appointment with Harald. By now he had moved to Aspen. When I arrived at Aspen, Harald was unavailable, so he assigned Diana to my cause.

Under Diana’s care, I discovered that not only did I have a short leg, I was knock- kneed, a pronator, and was wearing the worst possible boots for my anatomy. The increased wedges that were put under by footbeds had greatly exacerbated my difficulty to ski. I was so far out of alignment, it was a miracle that I could even ski to a Level I.
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After changing boots, getting new footbeds for the pronation, and compensating under the bindings for the alignment and short leg it was time to see how if felt on snow. The immediate sensation was nothing short of incredible. For the first time in over 25 years of skiing I could really feel my edges! Prior to this, sometimes I would have edges, and sometimes not. I could never find a consistent pattern to feel them.

Then it was time to try and undo my wedge entry turns and dependency on the big toe to initiate my turns. After so many years, I had learned too well. It took a lot of diligence on Diana’s part to erase that from my memory pattern. We are still working on it.

Needless to say, this was the answer to finally passing the Level II PSIA exam. It took proper alignment and learning PMTS to bring my skiing up to the level I was so desperately trying to achieve. Had I not fractured my leg, I would still be chasing that elusive goal!

Mike Simmons is an accredited instructor at Sugar Mountain, NC

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Teaching Workshop, by Diana Rogers

Reducing the "Leap of Faith" in Ski Instruction

How many of you have seen the movie, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"? If you have, think back to the scene where Indy is approaching the secluded and well guarded cave housing the holy grail. After defying death in several traps, he finds himself at a seeming impasse: a bottomless chasm separates him from the grail. The instructions from Indy’s father were to take a "leap of faith". Indy hesitates for a moment, and then, trusting his faith, he steps out into the chasm. Miraculously, a camouflaged pathway is revealed, leading Indy to the cave with the grail.

In the context of the movie and its message, the requirement of absolute faith to reach the holy grail is an uplifting idea. However, as ski instructors, we should not require our students to have such faith in us in order to reach their goals.
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An important factor in your success as an instructor is your ability to determine what the students desire from their ski lesson, and how to get them to their goals. However, equally important in your success as an instructor is your ability to reduce the "leap of faith" that your students must take.

Even if you are teaching the most effective technique you know, and you’re breaking it into small and easily assimilated steps, your students don’t necessarily understand how your lesson activities will meet their needs, especially if different skiers in a group have expressed different motivations. If you don’t expressly link your lesson activities to your students’ motivations, then you are asking your students to take a "leap of faith" and trust that at some point in your lesson they will reach their own grail, on the other side of the chasm.
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Rather than hoping your students will step into the chasm, it’s beneficial to reveal the camouflaged pathway at each step as you proceed through the lesson. Students are more likely to participate enthusiastically in your lesson if they know how the activities relate to their wishes for the lesson. The following workshop should help you learn to relate your lesson activities to student desires in a concise and informative manner.

First, write at least three activities that you often perform during a lesson. Second, write three diverse student motivations that you may encounter in a lesson. Then, you are going to write a brief sentence or two, explaining to each student how the task meets their motivation. Here’s an example to get started.
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Activity:
In beginner lesson, step skis from fall line to a complete stop in both directions.

Motivations:
1. I want to ski on the mountain with my friends.(M1)
2. I’d like to learn better technique. (M2)
3. I need better control when I ski - I go too fast and crash. (M3)

Relating the activity to the motivations…
M1. "To ski with your friends on the mountain, you need to be able to change direction, control your speed, and stop. Stepping your skis to a stop in each direction combines all of those in one task."
M2. "Good ski technique requires that we are able to transfer balance from one foot to the other to make turns. That’s exactly what we’re practicing here."
M3. "If you want better control when you ski, then you need to know what to do to slow down and stop. That’s what we’re learning in this exercise. When you practice this, see how far you have to step your skis until you actually stop sliding."

Now, it’s your turn!

Diana Rogers is a PMTS trainer

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2000-2001 Schedule of Events

The following events are on the pmts.org schedule. New events have been added!! Please contact the listed trainer to confirm dates and to enroll. More details about each event are available on the web site, or from the office. More training events will be added as demand requires.

Have you wanted to spend time practicing teaching with PMTS Direct Parallel, and receive feedback on your implementation of Student Directed Ski Instruction, but without attending an accreditation? If we get at least 6 participants, we will offer that clinic at Loveland, the Monday and Tuesday prior to accreditation (April 16 & 17). Interested? Have questions? Want to sign up? E-mail Diana at dr@pmts.org.

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Report from Fall Instructor Camp, by Diana Rogers

The PMTS Fall Instructor Camp, held from November 30 through December 3, 2000, at Copper Mountain, Colorado, was a tremendous success. Over 30 instructors attended, mostly from the Midwest, with a few Coloradans for good measure. The weather was great, and the snow conditions good for early season - we were skiing top to bottom on the Super Bee, Excelerator, and American Eagle lifts.

In addition to skiing improvement and running gates, several participants took advantage of the pre-camp alignment day to assess their alignment on snow and have their skis shimmed if needed.

Craig McNeil (accredited instructor as well as photographer) has the group camp photo available for purchase, from his website. Go to http://www.howtoski.net/pic_sell.html ; this is Photo No. 1. (His order form and purchasing directions are there.)

Next year’s camp is already scheduled, from Nov. 29 through Dec. 2, 2001 (Thursday - Sunday) with an alignment day on Wednesday, Nov. 28. For more information or to reserve a place, contact us by e-mail (info@pmts.org) or phone (303)567-4663.

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