by John Mason » Wed Dec 29, 2004 10:38 pm
the core of PMTS has been around a long time. HH coached Tommy Moe in the alaska program. You watch Tommy Moe in Warren Miller's films and you see movements that are totally PMTS style movements.
Ways that diverge from PMTS that I have heard people say they do to carve are:
1. two footed skiing
2. wider stance
3. point with the knees to initiate edging
This seems to be the "in vogue" thing in a lot of places.
The PMTS movement pattern while it certainly can be two footed is most often:
1. one footed skiing
2. functional narrow stance (not right together)
3. lateral tipping of the inside foot while flexing that leg (whether leaving weight on it or removing weight from it) while similtaneously simply standing and extending the other leg.
As in HH's post biowolf is asking about, the outer leg, the stance leg, will align itself all by itself with what the inside foot is doing before the muscles finish contrating to allow the skeletal joints to support the pressure the turn generates.
This method of shifting the bodies balance laterally while creating parallel edging is the key move in PMTS.
Guest has a point as all teaching systems tweak and tune. The core move will always be there as long as skis are lateral tipping and linear edging devices.
PMTS has been focusing more on specific movement patterns of the rest of the body to, in a skeletally strong fashion, create counter and thus increased edging and a "more over the skis" center of gravity that combined together really help carve the top of the turn and hold in difficult conditions. The way it is being taught now at the carver and skiing camps is very fun and I don't recall seeing this aspect of edging presented in the current PMTS videos and books.
However, HH certainly has skied this way and is skiing this way in his videos. Just, the analysis and presentation of this additional help for edging seems to be evolving in the PMTS world making this very high level dop of turn carving easier to understand for us beginners.
In that regard I see PMTS as getting better. Or it could just be I'm at the point where some of this material is useful to me. I'll have to re-read the books and see. Just my recollection is that this is better presented now in person than it was in the books/videos as far as the movement of the hips back and forth like a penduleum as the turns are made.
But the basic 3 points that define what a PMTS skier looks like on the hill vs the "golf cart" style that I see more and more, those points seem pretty static and long term.