First, thanks for the comments guys. Forgive my lack of answering, but my post camp energy only goes so far
. Glad you are enjoying the posts; I'm trying to put out the information that I myself would want & it seems to be working.
Day 4 dawned clear and cold. At 6:30 I checked the temperature before jumping into the shower and it was 0F. OK, not ideal, but I can live with that. 30 minutes later, I happened to look again and it was -2. Uh oh... Fortunately, my wife caught me on my way out and suggested I take toe warmers, hand warmers, and her full face baclava. As it turned out, this was the first of many valuable lessons learned today: how to maintain sufficient warmth in extreme cold. When I left the house I was wearing my heavy weight long underwear bottoms with a pair of the heaviest hot chiles over the top. My underwear top was Patagonia expedition weight. Then my Marmot shell bibs. On top of that I had a 300 weight North Face fleece jacket, a Marmot down vest, and my Rab shell. Then a heavy fleece neck gaiter, full face baclava, helmet and goggles. Hands had Marmot expedition weight mittens with handwarmers. Toe warmers on the feet (on top of the toes). With all that I managed to stay comfortable during the day. Though it was -2 when I left, the temperature continued to drop during the 15 minute drive to the mountain. At one point it was -10, but when I got to the parking lot, the temperature had risen to a balmy -8. Fortunately, there was sun and no wind, but at least on paper, today was the coldest I've ever skied. I wasn't alone on this; there were some very worried faces in the lodge as we were wondering whether we could survive a full day of instruction given the temps. And don't worry, I expect no sympathy whatsoever from you ice coast skiers. I can't help it if I'm a wimp.
Today the instructors rotated and we got to ski with Harald. While we were all very excited about this, I couldn't help thinking about how much Harald hates bad skiing and wondering if perhaps my skiing had triggered a 911 emergency call
. Anyway, as it turned out, courtesy of Harald, today marked a giant breakthrough in my skiing and a giant breakthrough in my technical understanding of skiing. More on both later.
So the day started with my group hanging in the lodge waiting to see what was what. Soon Harald comes by and tells me to get my group in gear & that we would be skiing together. The outside air temp is ungodly cold, they aren't even loading lifts yet, but when Harald tells you to have skis on in five minutes, you get your act together and march outside to face the elements. While we are waiting for the lifties to let us on (and I'm wondering if I'm even going to make it to the first run before I freeze) Harald asks about our initial camp goals and whether they have changed over the three days of camp. Hell yes my goals have changed: I want the same BPST that Jay owns. I'm not the only one with that answer. Harald responds by letting us know that he can make that happen. I mentally review my skiing over the past three days and conclude that either he hasn't seen it, or he truly is a god. By this time the lifties finally start loading and up we go.
The top is showing a sliver of sun so we head up Lenawee for a warmup run down Dercum Gulch. The snow is aggressive and my medium wax (I couldn't bring myself to put the hard wax on because that would have been admitting that it really was going to be this cold) isn't helping my skis. I'm feeling stiff with cold and ski somewhat mindlessly, but Harald lets us warm up with no comments. In the lower flats, Harald has us do some railroad track turns to confirm that we can tip. This makes me happy because RR tracks are something I do all the time so I know I can start off the day without looking completely incompetent. I lay down some clean tracks without difficulty, but as a whole my group has some issues with counter balancing. Harald takes some time to discuss this and he introduces the pole drag drill as a remedy. He also demonstrates the proper width and position to hold the poles as well as points out that you need some functional tension so that both arms work together as a unit and tie in to the torso and hips. He demonstrates how raising the inside hand should cause the outside hand to lower and pull the torso into CB. He also recounts watching Karl Schranz run downhill and make minor arm adjustments that translated to changes in his edging. After the exploration of poles and CB is completed, we pole drag our way back down to Lenawee for a trip back up to the top.
We ski about halfway down the first pitch of Dercum Gulch and Harald has us stop. We are all tipping like crap--which is to say we are not doing it nearly enough. So we stop and Harald introduces a traversing tipping drill. The drill involves traversing the slope, tipping to max, reducing tipping, tipping to max, and then tipping to flat (to sideslip). Not hard, but you'd think we'd never heard of PMTS by the weak sauce we deliver in lieu of tipping. So Harald parks us and makes us do the static tipping drill. You know the one--just stand there, tip your inside foot over as far as you can and then match with the stance foot. I've done this drill a million times on my own and I proudly demonstrate large angles. And then Harald asks a question that absolutely floors me. "Why can't you do that when you are moving?" And then he answers his own question. "You can't tip when you are moving because your lower body is tense and you are locking up your hips and blocking your tipping. RELAX!" With that one word, my skiing is changed forever and I achieve a GIANT breakthrough in my skiing. We do the traverse drill again, and I latch onto the word RELAX like it is the last life preserver on the Titanic. HOLY $#!+! My tipping goes through the roof!
So we try a little skiing. It occurs to me that perhaps the one run I had yesterday where my short turns were working might have been the one run that I actually relaxed on. So I decide to test this and I make a conscious effort to eliminate all tension in my lower body. HOLY $#!+! I've now got a ripping short turn! As it turns out, this is but part of the story, but more on that later. In any event, I'm absolutely ecstatic. I'm suddenly in the ballpark of the turns I want to own and everything I've been working on is now coming together. Not only that, but extension starts working automagically for me. When I relax, I get short and I get long and this happens exactly when it is supposed to. I CAN SKI AGAIN!!!!
We stop in the flats and Harald tweaks the pole drag drill. We now need to push the inside pole in an arc so that we end the turn with that pole at 90 degrees off the tip of the ski. Harald is trying to get us to counter act properly and if you actually get your hands where they are supposed to be, this will happen. I come up short on this for several tries as it takes me a bit to work out the full range. I still don't have it by the time we hit Lenawee for another trip to the top. This time, on upper Dercum Gulch, Harald makes a couple of turns and asks us to look at his tracks. It turns out that the interesting track is the one that he made with his inside pole while he pushed it forward to get full CA. This track is surprisingly long and is a good visual for me that I need to greatly exaggerate this motion. In the flats, I start to get it and cranking in the CA combined with my newly acquired short turn starts to become fairly reliable. I'm definitely getting it.
We ski down to Black Mountain lodge and do some robo-tipping in the flats there. Even at pole push speeds, RELAX works like a champ and without any turn forces to balance against, I am still able to seriously tip my feet and generate some nice tracks.
Onward to Sundance, we switch to two footed releases and linked two footed releases. This was to occupy the rest of the morning and we took several runs working on TFR. I've spent a bunch of my own time doing TFRs, but I still learned some key things here. First, flatten the downhill ski first (while still hanging on to the little toe edge of the uphill ski). Don't flatten the uphill ski until the down hill ski starts to slide. The visual cue is to see a slight V at the beginning of the release. The other thing I got from Harald is a new perspective on flexing. Jay had drilled in the importance of flexing to enable the release itself and control the rate of the slip. However, it is also important to continue to flex as you tip. My transition from the sliding portion of the turn to the tipping portion wasn't very smooth and that was why.
At some point during all of this, I lost my pole planting privileges. Oddly enough, my pole plant in isolation is fine. The problem is that the very concept of a pole plant is inextricably linked to my bad old skiing self. In the deep recesses of my subconscious, pole planting is what I do to trigger an up extension. Apparently, this was creeping into my skiing when I was planting my pole. As Harald said, he can't fix that association, but what he can do is take away the movement that causes the problem. Hence, no pole planting privileges. With luck and good behavior, maybe I'll get them back tomorrow.
Incidentally, we discussed what the pole plant should look like and it was very interesting. If you push your inside pole forward to CA and finish with it at 90 degrees off the inside ski tip, that should have caused your outside hand to reside at about a 45 degree angle. At that point, if you just cock your wrist you should achieve a pole touch automatically as you flex to release the turn. Other than the wrist flick, the actual pole touch is a side effect of your release. Cool huh?
Unbelievably, it was already 12:30 so Harald suggested we hit the Black Mountain Lodge for lunch. I proceeded to demolish half a chicken while Harald entertained us with stories of his racing days.
After lunch, we headed back up Lenawee and spent more time working on linking TFRs down Dercum Gulch. After some laps, we all got them working to Harald's satisfaction and we headed over to West Wall. The run down Cornice Run to get there was interesting. My new cranked short turn was up to the task and even on some firmer spots I had no problems holding. I had edge and pressure, but it felt so not forced. It was there, but it was a completely secondary effect of my movements.
Pulling up to West Wall, we were faced with a fairly steep pitch of firm, but edgable snow that had been groomed but was slightly bumping up a bit. We did a couple of test TFRs and then followed Harald down the heart of the pitch. For my part, I wasn't patient enough and rushed through neutral which caused me to over-edge and resulted in less than optimal edge hold and not super pretty turns.
Fortunately, Harald granted us another crack at it. But first, he challenged me to follow his tracks down Cornice. Yesterday, Jay crushed me in this game, but today was another day and I made a very good run at staying in Harald's tracks. I got in my rythm and just cranked. I was right with him until I got launched by a terrain feature and landed opposite of his turn. However, I was able to figure eight him for the last few turns down. This was major progress. I didn't win the game, but today I was at least in it!
My second try at West Wall was better and worse. I got too far right and hit a bump which caused me to extend in a couple of turns, but then I settled down and made some good turns in the middle. Then I botched a turn, bailed to the fall line and then gave up and made a couple of non-speed controlled turns to finish the bottom. By then Lenawee lift had closed so we didn't get any more chances. That said, the two trips down West Wall were a very graphic demonstration on why you need to do your learning on non-threatening terrain. Other than Harald, I think all of us regressed a bit on the steeper terrain.
For the last few runs of the day, we worked on brushed carving on Ramrod. For whatever reason, I struggled with the relaxing part and never could approach the kind of angles I was getting with my carved turns. But that's OK, I can work on this tomorrow. We shot some video on the last section of the run. Most folks did brushed carves, but I wanted to see my cranked carves so that's what I did.
Video review was interesting. Overall, I was pleased with what I was seeing; the turns looked like they felt. However, in a couple of turns to the left, Harald pointed out how I was dumping my hip. In a flash, I suddenly realized that I had never really been tipping because I didn't fully understand it! This despite reading every book there is on PMTS, reading every scrap of extra information on the forums, watching the DVDs, taking a private lesson, and actually doing many of the tipping drills. As embarassed as I am to admit that, its true.
See tipping begins with the feet, but for me that had been as far as it went. I'd religously start every turn with my feet, but then I stopped thinking about them. What I wasn't getting was that tipping not only starts with the feet, it *ends* there. Every degree of angle that you get has to come from the feet. I could get angles in my skiing and I thought that because I had angles and because I started the turn by tipping my feet, that I must be tipping. Wrong. When you tip, the knees have to lead the hips into the turn. As long as this is happening, it means you are tipping from the feet and the higher joint movements are occuring purely from the kinetic chain. In that case, the hip will lag behind the knees moving into the new turn and you will be able to continue to increase tipping. Conversely, if you try to get angles by driving the hip into the turn, you will end up rotating your femur inward and blocking further tipping. This is park and ride. Angles start with the tibia.
To go with my new world view, here's my new hypothesis on why I ski the way I do. My squattiness went away with relaxation and Harald thinks my forward lean is fine. So why couldn't I buy a short turn until today? Because I was parking on my hip. Once I tipped my feet and got some edge, I'd drive my hip in. So getting the angles required for true short turns was impossible for me when I did this. I could on occassion generate short turns, but when they happened, it was because I was accidentally doing the right thing. I had no understanding as to why it worked. Now that I think about it, I'm kind of amazed that I've even been able to train slalom the few times I've tried.
As to the hip dumping in the video, it is unclear as to whether this is caused by a residual movement or alignment. My right boot is a bit strong, so it is possible that alignment is the culprit. While a strong alignment helps you tip to LTE, if you are aligned too strong, it prevents you from getting to big toe edge. So on left turns, if my alignment were too strong, then I would be unable to tip to BTE and I would be forced to compensate by dumping my hips. I think we're going to try a shim tomorrow and see what happens. Either way, the lightbulb is now firmly on.
Maybe I'm less smart than the average bear, but I'd say the above is a pretty strong testimonial on the benefits of getting personal instruction if you are serious about getting the absolute maximum improvement out of PMTS. The books and DVDs, etc. will unquestionably improve your skiing, but there are at least nuances (and at most important concepts) that need to be explained in person.
I thought I was the only one who felt that way! 
