Carver Update

[Harald]

Harb Carvers:

Now that we have had two summer seasons to see the results of training with the Harb Carvers, it is just a matter of time before serious skiers everywhere choose to use them for skiing improvement. Harb Carvers are legitimately the only true skiing substitute that develops your skiing skills without skiing. You improve because the Harb Carvers impose restrictions on the specific inefficient snow skiing movements, which hold back your skiing progress. Carvers actually reverse detrimental skiing movements engrained from traditional instruction, you can’t skid, you can’t use leg rotary movements to steer your Harb Carvers to an edge or a turn, so you have to commit with tipping and releasing. You now have the opportunity to redefine your skiing, adding new confidence, edge control and movement efficiency without travel, snow, or days off.

The dynamics and physics of Harb Carvers are special, as the configuration of the wheels and the way they interact with the surface, guide the skier to the correct movements. In short, the Harb Carver environment produces accurate skiing movements. Harb Carvers on pavement obviously can’t duplicate every skiing environment, but they produce a training environment that leads the skier to better skiing. Tennis players hit the same shot thousands of times. Gymnasts do the same move over and over in a safe controlled situation. Golfers hit thousands of practice balls on the range. Skiers don’t have this environment on snow. Harb Carvers are the first skiing simulator to allow you to practice the same movement, correct movements time and time again, allowing you to gain confidence in your ability. Not even the ski deck produces results we have seen from the Harb Carvers.

Harb Carvers have also captured the attention of Sports Scientists world wide, including Austrian, Italian and American researchers. Harb Carvers are being studied at the University of Innsbruck, with the athletes from the most successful ski-racing academy in the world, at Stams. They are being studied and analyzed by biomechanists in both Austria and the USA. Coaches from every USSA division including US Ski Team development are using Harb Carvers and encouraging their racers to substitute their dryland preparation with Harb Carver use.

This summer I had opportunity to work with the Harb Carvers at two Sugar Bowl summer camps and US Development Camps. Joining forces with Herman Gollner and Finn Christian Yagge (he won the gold in slalom at the Albertville, Olympics) for two camps. We trained with Harb Carvers after on snow sessions at Mt Hood. This training demonstrated that a number of technical improvements can be achieved for racers during the Harb Carver sessions that were not easily corrected on snow. When working with US Development coach Crawford Pierce, he commented frequently that the mistakes athletes demonstrated in their on snow technique were obvious on the Harb Carvers and that they could be addressed and changed during Harb Carver sessions.

Many of you have asked about Harb Carver lessons and instruction. We are offering a camp this fall, details are on the following web page. We are expecting a strong turn out, we already have sign-ups from two PSIA instructors and a number of PMTS accredited instructors. Should prove to produce some lively exchanges, as you can only use PMTS Direct Parallel to learn skiing on Harb Carvers. http://www.harbskisystems.com/detcarver.htm

[Guest]

Harb Carvers:

Should prove to produce some lively exchanges, as you can only use PMTS Direct Parallel to learn skiing on Harb Carvers. http://www.harbskisystems.com/detcarver.htm

Come on Harald, let's not get carried away. You can mix the kool-aid but don't drink it!

I do have one question while I'm here for my moening chuckle. What does it say that your biggest fan is in the process of changing his meds?

[jclayton]

Having used Harb Carvers for a while now I can testify that any other technique other than PMTS will land you on your nose or your ass . I have tried wedge christy type turns and a few others and the response from the Carvers is immediate and disastrous . You can survive with a close approximation to PMTS but when you get it right the response is also immediate and gratifyingly clear .

Guest ??? , SCSA might be Haralds most vocal fan but there are many , many others equally enthusiastic but I guess reactionary , knee jerk antics by those who can't see past their own nose will always exist . As always criticism most often comes from those who haven't even had the openmindedness to try out the new ideas .( It is interesting how many great books have been censored throughut history , including 20th century USA , without EVER having been read by the censors . )

J,Clayton from sunny Mallorca which happily has lots of wide rolling walkways .

[milesb]

My understanding is that Harb DESIGNED them to work only with PMTS technique.

[John Mason]

you can to linked straight lines and do the thousand steps with them

It's just for normal flowing use, they do not allow or react to rotational inputs like a ski can be made to do. For instance, pivot slips on them are a no no. However, PMTS, which is a method to help commit your body to the turn as the foot movements with weight shift create the release, works quite well with them. Your weighted stance leg aligned with the body in a tip makes them turn - just like skis.

A difference to skis - interestingly - railroad turns, just tipping the feet only to create a turn, do not work on carvers. They must be loaded with weight on them (better on one of them) for them to turn. Also, in this respect, they work best with pure PMTS style foot and body movements. Thus you have the irony of comitting to the turn in order for the turn to occur. This is true in skiing as well. It's just the carver environment doesn't allow "cheats" as much to get the committed turn going.

Foot steering does not work with them. (same is true of inline skates so it's not so much on purpose but a result of the medium used - soft high friction wheels on pavement don't like to skid or be skidded)

Also, any type of hockey stop whether the standard kind or the PMTS kind don't work on them either. If you wanna stop - you pretty much have to turn up hill and have the space to do it. At least I haven't figured out another way to do them yet.

You can turn into a lawn and stop pretty quick though! (running into parked cars works too)

[Speaking for the real HH]

How did you guess? I designed Harb Carvers so old school entrenched; disenchanted ski instructors couldn’t figure out how to turn them. They are designed for skiers who want to raise an edge, not twist a base. I’d like to see the old schoolers rotate, steer or guide a pair of Harb Carvers to a progressively steered turn. I’d pay to see some inside leg steering as well, now that would be a show. Just in case Guest and buddies do black market a set of Carvers and sneak to a dark alley we’ll know, there will be a run on butt protection and moleskin, so keep your eyes and ears on.
As most of you know smearing a turn on carvers is detrimental to your rump.


Just for the record, I am proud to have SCSA as a one of the many fans of PMTS. SCSA is an early adopter. He realized the benefits of PMTS long before the PSIA boys even noticed it was worth plagiarizing.

This poser is too gutless to even give a name. The post is the latest (probably the same person who posted other similar spineless dribble) example of low class, failed attempts to be cute. Maybe that kind of swill gets laughs in PSIA clinics?
Anyone want to take a lesson from this loser? Ya, I take the cool aid man, back in the seventies with you and your hip buddies.

So, I gather, Guest signing up for the Carver Camp is totally out of the question.

[NNN]

Contrary to the beliefs of many of the frequent posters here, PSIA instructors don't stand around and bash PMTS. I guess they are too busy skiing. I think most good instructors are open minded enough to realize that there are different ways of learning and different ways of doing things.

The first lessons I took were standard PSIA lessons. There were things
I just did not understand until I looked at HH's website and did some of the phantom foot exercises.

I read EpicSki often and really don't see much discussion about
what is wrong with PMTS. Why can't we all just get along?

[jclayton]

NNN - in an ideal world we would all get along . I date from the hippie days when idealistic communes were started up and all eventually degenerated into slugfests . I have personally seen a lot of slagging off of PMTS on Epic by selfconfessed PSIA instructors and followers , a small number of whom have come over here with the specific intention of rubbishing this system . These are the ones we defend ourselves against . I have also seen many on Epic who praise PMTS and who do have an open mind . There are also a number who don't want to give up their entrenched ideas and techniques , this is their choice and this kind of conservatism is endemic to the human race and part of our history .

Getting along sometimes happens but often great things come out of confrontations which can be stimulating . I find posts on epic interesting but for the most part they are fragmented and go off on tangents . Many are very wordy and intellectualised and very difficult to translate into concrete technical ideas which can be practically worked on .

Just from an objective logical point of view the PMTS posts have a common language which holds most of them together and their ideas can be put to the test practically . In my case they have given me an insight into ski technique which I otherwise would not have had . I have been reading ski books and magazines and watching videos for years and progress has been painfully slow ( I did always enjoy myself though )

All people posting here ,except for the lucky few who have started with this system , have finally started to have success with PMTS after years with other systems . Any way I have gone off on a tangent myself and I think you probably agree with a lot of what I have said .

A mistake a lot of criticisers of PMTS make is thinking it is a dictatorial system . To my mind it gives you a base which enables you to "forget" technique and become a balanced, all mountain skier .

Jclayton

[milesb]

You don't see those discussions on epicski anymore because the naysayers are welcome to make their views known here.

[John Mason]

It is odd. PMTS is actually the system taught by one of the 4 main head coaches at the Epic Ski Acadamy. There are lots of people on Epic that use or teach or are involved with PMTS. However, they have learned it's not worth pointing that out because there are the few PSIA normal ones that show their ignorance and obviously have some sort of history with HH. Too bad.

There is a recent post on Epic that points out how the crying need for PMTS to revitalize ski instruction and the missed oppourtunity. In this discussion a person is wondering how, this season, to try again to get his wife to like to even try skiing. The last go around didn't go so well apparently (echos on my wife's experience too). Anyway - the discussion of the possible importance of finding a direct to parallel method (which PSIA has a method for that apparently) might be for a beginner. The old wedge/no wedge discussion ensued. Interestingly, all of this was all outside the concept of PMTS. You can all guess who some of the know it all's were that were defending the wedge. ('cause they probably visit to bash here)

Just for fun I did a search on a number of search engines for any place in the US that has a ski school that does the direct parallel method - PSIA version. I know there are places that do it, but the only references I found were Solvista that, of course, uses PMTS. It has been my experience and of my friends that the wedge and it's progressions are still firmly the norm in the vast majority of ski schools.

There was also some excellent advice in this thread about don't worry so much about ski length but focus on boot fit and alignment. (the thread originators question started about ski length)

Also, on epic recently there was a link to a PSIA-E sites procedures and study guide for level I II and III cert. Here is the link:

http://www.psia-e.org/AlpineExamGuide.pdf

In this link you will see that there appears to be no movement toward any direct to parallel method of instruction whether PMTS or any other method.

As long as the PSIA stays on this type of course, the clarity and effectiveness of PMTS will keep its market niche. It is nice to see a major portion of the Epic folks, however, embrace the PMTS methodogy. It's too bad these people have to keep such a low profile.

It is interesting how things go back and forth on Epic. Recently on this forum the discussion on pulling the inside foot back was discussed with some useless pop-ins from PSIA types. Then on Epic, it gets brought up again and the consensus agrees with what HH teaches. So, there is not uniform disagreement on Epic at all, but a lot of commonality. Epic is not a monolith with only one way to ski or teach at all. All viewpoints are there. There are lots of disagreements there. Just watch out if you happen to bring up PMTS by name. (which is ironic as I said since one of the the main bear coaches is PMTS anyway) (maybe they don't realize this) (whoever they are - since "they" never reveal their names)

[NNN]

What bothers me most is the senseless bashing and name calling of others who don't agree with a particular point of view. It amazes me
to see all of the non-skiing related garbage that gets tossed around by people who think they know all.

I learned to ski three years ago and was instantly addicted. I passed my level 1 exam last year and am going to the epic academy this year.
I love to ski and am open to any technique that will help me ski the whole mountain. It really does not matter to me what it is called or who developed the program. I was lucky to have some great instructors as well as access to unlimited lessons plus I put in the mileage to practice.

I think there are many great instructors out there who can look at someone skiing and pick out the direction and exercises that will help that individual the most. It is a talent and skill that few have.

My comments are directed only to the few people who let their egos and narrow minds get in the way of their best skiing. What a shame.