PSIA wide stance dead end

[Ott Gangl]

John, you look trim and fit and I just get old and plump ...nice to see you active again...

....Ott

[dewdman42]

Arcmeister I vaguely recall being one of the guys on epic that seems to know what he's doing. I'd have to look through their archives to find the one or two others. I don't think I would ever attend an Epic event.

[Harald]

Arcmeister is a Blue Level accredited PMTS instructor. I go to his ski school every season to do clinics. He is well informed about PMTS and its methods. Maybe that's why he makes sense.

His instructors are all PSIA, they are hugely excited about PMTS because it changes their skiing in a quick, positive way. I'll give credit to those who are doing PMTS, they were already the enlightened in the PSIA, they saw a better opportunity with PMTS to further their teaching and skiing appraoches and take advantage of it rather then being defenive about acquiring knowledge.

[Ken]

Back to the LeMaster photos....

Some folks will look but not see. Yes the feet are wide apart. They'll prove that with a tape measure. They won't see that the legs are close together...can't get much closer. This is Oh So different from that awful wide-track skiing these folks insist on with feet and legs apart.

My question...is there a problem with narrow stance skiing and sloppy rental or other poorly fitted boots? Is wide stance skiing serving as training wheels for these folks? My boots fit right, but many, many folks think good boots are boots that are warm & comfy, period.


Ken

[John Mason]

I had this come up twice. In one case the local ski club was up at a ski store in Chicago where they had a PSIA III cert doing sessions for people and demonstrating on a ski treadmill. He had just gotten back from a PSIA national meeting and was all excited about the wide stance thing. He was demonstrating and getting people up on the ski deck and showing them how to get their skis shoulder width apart and develop their edging by pointing their knees.

Then I was with the ski club on a trip to Park City and I took the courtesy tour with a couple of nice ladies of which one was a retired ssd from there. The other gal was talking about how the latest thing was to put hold a basketball between their knees to develop a wider stance like the racers do but that she thought it actually made her skiing worse. She was sticking with the stuff she had learned at a lito camp - bascially a stance leg and inside foot phantom.

That was 2004 and 2005 for both incidents and I don't know where the current thinking is, but it seemed like a PSIA theme that year. I can tell you that in my many camps with the PMTS people and my 2 Atomic Race camps - not PMTS people but race background people and PSIA cert, no one recommended a wide stance like that.

Now in June 2005 at that PMTS race camp I did hear multiple times HH tell a certain Colorado based poster to get his feet wider. We are not talking anything like my 2 examples above, but if your feet are locked together you don't have room for your flexion extension to occur - your boots will literally be in each other's way. (I only repeat that to show that PMTS is about a functional stance not a locked together stance)

Thanks for you kind comment Ott. Isn't photoshop a miricle? Actually I'm down to 178 and doing a Marathon in 2 weeks. Then I will never run again because I'll be too busy skiing. (I can hope right?) (just kidding - running is not part of what I do along with the biking and skiing) For the record I was 228 when I started skiing 3 seasons ago.

I get the feeling PSIA goes through these 'fads' and that the wide stance thing was the biggie 2 seasons ago. I would not be surprised if some take off on 'waist steering' will be the next one. But I'm out of the loop now and don't even lurk on that other forum that shall not be named any more. To many other things to spend time on.

[Harald]

John, I think you're right, waist steering would be great for the skiers and instructors on Epic. They would be able to combine waist steering to improve their NASTAR handicaps to 25 and at the same time support steering as general underlining theme for PSIA. A perfect marriage.

The NASTAR racing experience would make them experts at analyzing World Cup photos and support their other wise horrid customer satisfaction and return rate. It would be a great way for them to consolidate their monopoly on ski instruction, while still giving the poor duped public the impression they were on the cutting edge; a marriage made in heaven.

[Harald]

Please forgive my vitriolic, acerbic, venomous attack and attitude toward the skiers on a web site not to be named, and a system that?s not validated, I am embarrassed, and so sorry that I pointed out such terrible things about ( the forum not to be named) as I am an alcoholic and I was molested by a member of the clergy (didn't want to pick on catholics) when I was 14 years old. So you see it?s not my fault, that I am, the way I am, I?m a product of my environment..I am in therapy now and hope to be running for the Senate again in the future.

Using the Mark Foley defense, slightly better then the "liar liar pants on fire defense".

Tom Cruise, A Few Good Men

[dewdman42]

Back to the LeMaster photos....

Some folks will look but not see. Yes the feet are wide apart. They'll prove that with a tape measure. They won't see that the legs are close together...can't get much closer.

Ken, you're right that a lot of people have a hard time seeing and understanding vertical seperation. However, I've also seen some photos from LeMaster or otherwise where the WC skiers are at the transition. Shown to me by Epic folks of course. In that part of the turn they are not in high edge angles, their skis are flat on the snow during transition, and at least in those photos they truly did have their thighs very wide apart like they were riding the back of a horse. It looked extremely uncomfortable and difficult and frankly I have no desire to ski that way.

But I am curious to hear about why they would keep such a wide stance during transition. to me it sorta seems like they were having their body conform to a wide ski track so that as they come out of a turn, they maintain the skiis having a consistently side ski track the entire time and obviously have to spread their legs to do it when they're at transition of the turn. (shrug)?? Or...they could just be some bad photographs because i've seen plenty of others where they do NOT have such a wide stance at transition.

[dewdman42]

I get the feeling PSIA goes through these 'fads' and that the wide stance thing was the biggie 2 seasons ago. I would not be surprised if some take off on 'waist steering' will be the next one. But I'm out of the loop now and don't even lurk on that other forum that shall not be named any more. To many other things to spend time on.

Last season I was skiing a few times with a couple guys that were going for their L3 PSIA cert at the end of the year. Neither of them passed. But they talked all day long about using rotation in the leg during the turn. Not just at the initiation or end, but all through the turn. And yes they ski with very wide stances. I didn't hear them talk about waist rotation but it would not at all surprise me to hear if something like that comes out of PSIA as just another mental visual model for trying to essentially do the same thing...turn the legs in their hip sockets.

This season I will be working for one of them (he owns a small ski school) so its going to be interesting to see what I learn about PSIA this winter and how much I may butt heads with my boss..we will see. I ski better than he does and he knows it...so if he's smart he'll listen to what I have to say. He also has a large ego so I'm not sure how that will play out. But I'm just going to be happy to be out on the snow teaching again this year.

Seems to me that PSIA thinks they have to reinvent the way people ski because we are now on shaped skiis or whatever. But my feeling is that although there are some differences, the way we should be skiing now is not much different then how we might have done it 20 years ago except that now it can be done with a lot less athleticism and super-human power. 20 years ago it may have made sense for PSIA to invent a special way for normal human beings without super powers to turn their old conventional skiis. The sad thing is, that when shaped skiis came along, PSIA should have just switched to teaching what Racers had already been doing for years. Instead they have been trying to make up their own way of handling shaped skiis through a long series of trial and error. And they're still trying and still erring as far as I'm concerned.

[Ken]

I am curious to hear about why they would keep such a wide stance during transition. to me it sorta seems like they were having their body conform to a wide ski track so that as they come out of a turn, they maintain the skiis having a consistently side ski track the entire time and obviously have to spread their legs to do it when they're at transition of the turn.

Look at a slalom run with one of the best skiers...Rocca is tops. They might not be in the position they wish they were in or are dealing with terrain issues, but they do what ever they have to do to get around each pole.
http://www.sport1.at/coremedia/generato ... 44652.html


Ken

[onyxjl]

Arcmeister is a Blue Level accredited PMTS instructor. I go to his ski school every season to do clinics. He is well informed about PMTS and its methods. Maybe that's why he makes sense.

His instructors are all PSIA, they are hugely excited about PMTS because it changes their skiing in a quick, positive way. I'll give credit to those who are doing PMTS, they were already the enlightened in the PSIA, they saw a better opportunity with PMTS to further their teaching and skiing appraoches and take advantage of it rather then being defenive about acquiring knowledge.

I take private lessons with Arc often during the season. I have been very impressed with the quality of skiing that all the instructors at Sunburst display. It is clear they are a dedicated group.

Harald, when you come to the midwest, would it be possible for some of the midwest members of the forum to attend any of the clinics you hold? I know they are usually geared towards instructor training.

[Harald]

I'd be glad to hold a session for PMTS skiers, I'll even present video and overview of the new book.

I'd like to acknowledge that the montages I used to demonstrate certain technics are all from Ron LeMasters web site. He should get credit for the photos, I just cropped and resized them so they would fit better on the pages.

Ron?s web site is: http://www.ronlemaster.com

[Harald]

If you look at the transitions in this montage the feet are very close together. The feet come together when your outside extended leg has time to bend while the ski is still on edge and tracking (carving). The ski is hooking while you are flexing. If you flex the leg and lift the ski off or almost off the snow, the ski stops tracking, so you end up going through transition with the space between the boots that is shown in vertical separation.

Look at the vertical separation in figure three, the stance gets narrower at the end of the arc, as the ski is still tracking before complete release occurs. The PSIA gang doesn't get any of this, so they will support their ridicules theories with incomplete information, as they don?t have racing experience or understanding. Oh sorry, I forgot they are reducing their NASTAR handicaps with waist steering.

That's the short answer, I'll address the physics discussion that Francois brought up later.

[Arkady]

It would be great to have some information on Midwest clinic, if anything will be open to PMTS students. Sunburst is an easy drive (5 hrs) from the Twin Cities, and I would be willing to do it any day.

I cannot get to a PMTS camp this year, thus I have to ski Midwest and learn from the books.

[Harald]

Kris Kruse trainer for Tyrol, has been organizing clinics that I presented for t e last three seasons at Tyrol as well. Since she moved to California I don't know if we will have one this year.