Flexing alone doesn't create edge angles . Flexing does start the body moving to transtion for new edge angles to develop.
This started as a short answer but turned in to a book, sorry.
There is a strange thing in sports or athletic activities whether it be a formal sport or an activity like rock climbing. It comes from body coiling or muscle coiling and then letting go, relaxing and letting the body uncoil on its own. Many people who participate in these activities never get the sense or feeling of body reactions that are not premeditated, or controlled, I mean not created through concisions thought.
The actions I?m talking about are responses to proper preparation. These types of actions are responses to energy maintained and or developed through proper movement. When you release or let go, you don't necessarily have total control of the response, so you don't make that movement, you let one part of the body relax or let it go and the forces stored by proper preparation make the reaction and the body?s response happens.
Here is an example that might explain why PMTS and PSIA are so different. In PMTS, I selected movements that make many reactions happen without making the movements. This is based in energetic rebound or coiled muscles in combination with natural forces of the mountain. .
If you are trying to push your body from a previous arc to the next arc, you will never feel the sport of skiing as it is intended. If you tip to balance, increase edge angles, ride the arc, then simply let the legs relax, you will be projected into the next arc, with the body going across the skis toward the falline. This is exciting, as you don't really know where, how much or how far the force response will take you. If you have lots of experience with that response, you are more likely to use it confidently.
This can be a very scary idea for skiers who have never felt it. Most skiers and instructors never feel this because they are preparing to release by pushing themselves out of a turn. This movement kills stored energy. If you ski this way and in addition use steering of the legs , no energy in the skis or in the leg is every created or stored through the arc, by the resistance to gravity and shortening of the arc.
Another example, if you steer your legs or turn your feet you are taking the energy out of the skis that should be building. This is controlled skiing and very passive. That?s why ski instructors look so controlled and boring.
With PMTS you try to rid yourself of these movements, we don?t use these movements, as by tipping, engaging, and flexing the inside leg and extending the outside leg, we build coiled muscle energy. This energy doesn?t go away, it gets used to help the transition. When we flex to release, the body is released to move across the skis. If you help the skis and feet transition, by tipping the skis to the downhill side. This is done during the transition in a very relaxed way, no rushing or panicking. As the crossing takes place we control the body that moves above the skis, downhill, by counter balancing the upper torso . Think of the transition as foot tipping and sensing the hips leading downhill through transition. Don?t push the hips, let them move with the energy created with the flexing. The legs should be relaxed almost floating, because they are light on the snow from the flexing used to begin the release.
The upper body, everything above the hips, makes a lateral move the other way, back toward up hill side as the hips go downhill. The uphill tipping of the torso, counter acts the downhill tipping of the skis, boots, legs. Once the skis are on edge, they will carve into the High C part of the arc. Remember you are still moving forward across not down, as all this is happening. If you stay balanced and don?t do anything to disrupt the skis, like steering the legs or feet, you will be fine. You will feel that you have time and you are in total control of the next arc. You don?t want to steer at this point, just increase tipping slightly to adjust grip and radius.
If you developed proper counter for the end of the turn before release you have the added benefit of stronger transition, especially on icy hard snow, in steep terrain.
On flat terrain you don?t need as much counter as on steeps, because the forces are not as great and you don?t have to create the G?s to survive, unless you want to really ski with deep angles.
What counter acting movements do, once angles are established, is align the skeleton so the whole body can support the forces created by the angles of the skis and supporting body tilt. You have to do this on steeps and ice or you won?t hold, carve or bend the skis. What counter acting movements do through the turn is coil the lower body to teh hips, so at release the skis pop out of the old edges (legs unwinding) and release the body?s prior angulation from the up hill side, to over the skis. The body moves to the new turn, creating new downhill side angles with energy. You don?t have to push the body toward the new turn if you are skiing correctly.
Spatial reference interlude here: many skiers may think I?m talking about the skis in the new turn, pointed downhill when I refer to creating new downhill angles with the torso. What I?m discussing here, so we don?t get the wrong understanding; this transition happens while the skis are still pointed toward the side of the trail, not pointed downhill.
You see, extensions of the new outside leg (a PSIA staple) kills energy, this is just a way to push the body. Steering has to be used if you killed energy in the last turn, to start the skis into the new turn. Steering is used in the turn to kill energy for frightened skiers. Energy can only be created if you don?t steer, and it is dependant on your ability to create angles and hold the ski bent through the turn.
Don't confuse PMTS extending with PSIA extending, they are totally different. PSIA extending happens at the end of turns to push the body into the next turn or out of the turn, and at the beginning to push the body into the next turn, at or after the High C.
PMTS extending is used to maintain snow contact as angles for the new turn are developed in the High C.
When I was director of training at Winter Park, I had a whole fleet of PSIA trainers and examiners on my staff. They were constantly skidding and pushing the skis in the upper part of the turn. I told them to stop pushing the feet out to the side. They told me that they were instructed to get angles by getting the feet out away from the body as far as they could. I responded by telling them that you don?t get angles by pushing the feet away, you develop angles by tipping the feet and dropping the body into the arc. This was a huge deal. After some further coaching they began to understand and realized PSIA had been telling them everything backwards.
I had a minor rebellion at Winter Park within the training team, as I was phasing out the old trainers, who didn?t want to change and were stuck in PSIA thinking. I trained and recruited new smart, young trainers and began using them. There was a big transition about to happen my last year there as I had achieved my goals, phasing out the old, get in the new. The old trainers rebelled, but had no way of getting back in, until I left. Now they are back in place, same old story, the old boys took over and Winter Park lost the initiative and lead they had and were about to be recognized for Nationally for ski teaching. When I left they fell back into their old habits because none of the new trainers could stand up to the old guard. Some just gave up rather then losing their positions and acquiesced coming back into the PSIA fold.
Why is it that Witherall said, ?PSIA instructors are like golf carts, they all go slow and they all look the same.? It ?s because they use the same mechanics, they steer and push with extension.
OK, some don?t skid and try to lay down a carve, but they can?t do it, why? They use different mechanics, with the attempt to stay true to PSIA dogma. I see it all the time. At transition there is an up move, to get out of the old turn, then there is a sinking move to get in position to extend. This is still done in the High C. Then they steer the legs to turn the skis. Once the outside leg extension is completed they are in trouble, they do have the ski on edge and the skis are holding, but the extension caused the problem. They get over extended so the ski is railing on the edges, rather then staying balanced and pressuring the outside ski, their skis are railing and runnnig away.
Balance is not over the stance ski, it is inside the turn on the inside ski, which is aggravated by the wide stance they so love. They use the wide stance because they have to have it. I agree with a wide stance if you ski like a PSIA guy trying to carve, because you need it to hold yourself up. So in fact, with these shenanigans the outside ski is in effect a run away ski. When you know you have a run away ski you have to do something, so you bail out of the turn in hopes the next turn will be more purposeful in controlling speed. No way, the same thing happens again. After four attempts of this in a row, you can imagine speed is excessive and control is just a word.
So they have to bail out, throw them sideways or traverse.
This is why the PSIA instructor is so into steering in steeps and especially in steep bumps. They can?t control speed by their attempts at carving movements or brushing carved movements. That is why they talk about different techniques for different situations, they can?t ski PMTS turns which work everywhere, so they have to change to defensive PSIA tactics.
With PMTS you can ski steep ice, steep bumps, and crud with the same tactics, mechanics and you can ski slowly and in control. I just happen to like to challenge the slopes, so I ski them aggressively, but I like that feeling of not knowing how the release is going to project me to the next bump on my new edges, until I?m there. That?s the fun of skiing, the thrill of letting go and letting the forces put you in place. If you do it right, it is effortless and you glide from bump to bump or arc to arc.