PSIA Turn Videos

[SkierSynergy]

Here are a couple that illustrate this turn pretty well:
http://www.websurd.com/epic2004/video/esa1.wmv (rob sogard)

http://www.websurd.com/epic2004/video/esa02.wmv (weems)

Note that not all the turns are the "perfect turns", see if you can tell which ones fit Barnes' definition.

In the topic about teaching the wedge. These two videos were offered. Some of the discussion seemed to imply that these were seperated from PMTS turn standards by degree. That is that were just less edged, etc. However, I would say that this is not an issue of degree. They are qualitatively different. In fact so qualitatively different that I don't think they would pass any level of PMTS standards for certification.

First, I'll offer up a few questions to ask in analyzing the movements of the turns.

1. Did the skier release with the old stance ski. If not how did he change from one set of edges to the other?

2. Did the skier transfer weight from one ski to the other? If so, what movements did he use to do so/ how and when did it happen?

3. Did the skier engage the skis edges to use the carving design of the ski to initiate and continue the turn? If not, how did the skier turn the skis?


There are more that I could ask, but these are enough for now. They are standard PMTS questions that are asked about any skier's turns. In certification, the answers are compared to the skiing standards for the different PMTS certification levels.

The lowest level skiing standards are:

1. Release consistently using the old stance leg and foot as initiators.

2. Both skis maintain the same edge angles and rate change of edge angle, and the shins remain parallel during the transition to engagement

3. Both skis continue to increase angle to surface as turn progresses, using ski design to determine turn size and direction.

4. All direction changes begin with a movement toward the little toe edge.

5. The stance ski remains passive in transition and changes direction through reaction to free foot actions.

These are the green level skiing standards. However, just because they are the lowest level standards does not mean that they are easy. During certification days, skiers must do 1-5 without fail within all of their skiing and under special scrutiny while doing demonstrations. If this is not done, they are not passed no matter how many years of skiing or teaching they have behind them.

On these standards, the turns in the videos would not pass the green level skiing tests for PMTS.

Now, I hope I am not misunderstood. I am not saying anything about the skiers. They are definitely talented and athletic skiers. I am not in any way implying that they could not pass the green PMTS test. Further, they are obviously not trying to emulate those standards. I am simply making the point that the turns are so qualitatively different than PMTS standards that they are not even on the same page with a PMTS model.

[jclayton]

I tried to be generous but all I could see in these videos was

1. lurching , i.e. late weight transfer

2. "A" frame

3. pushing heels out

4. wedge entry

General awkwardness , are they demonstrating how not to do it ?
As for perfect , perfectly awful . Also lots of up-uweighting ( to my untrained eye )

[Harald]

Our season has started at Harb Ski Systems, and I have been busy enough not to have time to keep up with the forum.


Diana and I are unloading boxes of boots, skis and frantically shipping out Harb Carvers. The list of new joiners is great. The following programs are using Harb Carvers: Chris Fellows (NASTC), Gavin Hunter, (Snowperformance) and Jay Peterson (skiersynergy). They are teaching skiers and holding camps on the Harb Carvers. The Sugar Bowl Ski Racing Academy coaches are now fully engaged in teaching and coaching racers on Harb Carvers. The carver camp in October has ten sign-ups from all over the US. We may try to get on snow at Loveland, (possibly Sunday) if the natural snow keeps building.


We are fully booked for all our ski camps except the March, A-Basin, All Mountain Camp and Europe, in May, but Europe already has two groups and two weeks of sessions. The waiting list for the camps is in some cases three groups deep.

I haven?t been able to keep up with the threads lately, there is so much happening and I don?t have much computer time. Absence from the forum does allow me to separate myself from the issues and evaluate discussions from a fresh perspective.

I did notice some video clips of skiing that many are energized about, I think it was John, who asked me to evaluate the skiing.

Before I comment, here is how I evaluate the skiing on these videos. If I evaluate the skiing in the clips based on how racers need to perform to be successful, there is definitely work to be done; the basic technique demonstrated in these clips are fundamentally and technically completely different from PMTS and racing technique.

I didn?t say it couldn?t be improved, but it would take some re-training of basic movements. There are numerous situations in these runs that would cause a ski racer extreme problems.

Here is the list technical incompatibilities demonstrated by the skiing:

? The source of turning energy comes from a combination of upper body leaning and rotation
? The pressure loading of the skis is late (after the falline)
? There is little or no release of the stance or outside ski, most of the initiations are stems or steps. This is accomplished by moving the uphill ski to the big toe edge, putting the skier on opposing edges at the beginning of the turns.
? The Cg in almost every case, in every turn is moving away from the new stance ski (downhill) at the initiation of the turn. Therefore rather than ski engagement supported by balance and body angles, the CG is disconnecting with the skis and edges.
? The skis are being pushed, rotated or steered to an edge rather than being tipped or tilted to an edge
? The tails of the skis are flat to the snow in the upper third of the turns.
? The back of the skis are off or weightless to the surface during the upper third of the turn, there is no engagement during the High C part of the turns.



If these runs were meant to show skiing at or for the level of the group or for an instructional theme, okay, that?s their business, but it is not PMTS skiing or movement. I didn?t say the skiers were skiing incorrectly or badly, they are just not skiing with PMTS movements or the way we aspire to ski. This is traditional PSIA skiing and the demonstrators may be trying to do exactly what they are showing. This skiing would not work for racing in any way or form. This is absolutely not technique that can be applied to racing or at least not clean racing technique and it is definitely not PMTS. I hope this helps to demonstrate to those who would continually like to argue that all good skiers ski the same, they do not!!! I do not ski or aspire to ski this way. Diana or other high ranking ski racers, PMTS instructors or instructor candidates training for PMTS accreditation do not ski with this approach. Please do not confuse the movements on these video tapes as anything even close to PMTS.

[SkierSynergy]

For anyone who has a hard time understanding why the skiing examples are incompatible with a PMTS model (maybe because the turns go by so fast), I have taken some still slices of a typical turn from each skier and answered the questions I posed in my last post:

1. Did the skier release with the old stance ski. If not how did he change from one set of edges to the other?

2. Did the skier transfer weight from one ski to the other? If so, what movements did he use to do so/ how and when did it happen?

3. Did the skier engage the skis edges to use the carving design of the ski to initiate and continue the turn? If not, how did the skier turn the skis?

It's posted in an MS-Word document at:

http://web.pdx.edu/~petersj/Temp/MovementAnalysis.doc

Again the focus should be on clarifying the difference in the skiing that the two approaches produce. It says nothing about the talent of the skiers involved. It's up to the individual skier to decide what kind of skiing they are trying to develop.

Also, Diana wrote a nice article in the Aug 2004 PMTS newsletter about movement analysis with video. She advised using slow motion and still slices to increase one's ability to do movement analysis. She offers a slightly different set of questions than I did. For PMTS the movements that you look for (and watch out for) are very clear cut. Once you see the tell-tale signs of these movements. It only takes practice to be able to see it on the slopes in real time.

I hope some of you find this informative and helpful.

[John Mason]

Jay - that is one super job at clarifying what movement patterns were different from a PMTS style or Racer Style of turn.

Would it be possible to include a like analysis of a PMTS style turn? That would be very helpful for people trying to understand why there is such a difference.

They may have seen Harald ski in real life or a video and not realize that the core movement patterns are totally different than what you illustrated here.

Again - (can I ever write a short comment?) - Bravo - thanks for the effort and time you took to back up your comments objectively.

p.s. I'm going to the carver camp. Anyone wanna look for some early snow the following Monday and Tuesday?

[piggyslayer]

Jay

Fantastic job, very clear. People with opinions classified as "1", "3", or "4" by John will have something to think about after seeing your word document.

I was very intrigued by Diana's article in the PMTS.org letter. To be able to train a "quick" eye and see in real time all little elements and movement patterns on the slope is probably an attribute of very experienced coaches. With the techology we have today this maybe learnable by many of us.

I have no interest in becoming a professional ski instructor, but this skill is something I would like to master. Am I alone on this?

Besides V1, what is the software people use to view frame-by-frame movements?
I found quicktime works well for me providing hand control and see the movement back and forth. Any advice?

[John Mason]

Harold once remarked to Lito Tejada Flores in his article:

http://www.breakthroughonskis.com/Pages ... ion05.html

"I?d say all you really have to do is get off your old stance foot. Everything else flows from that. That?s all you have to do! When I ski that?s all I really think about, getting off the old foot. I don?t need to think of engaging the new outside ski, because it just happens"

An example of what happens when you don't do this is clear in Jay's word Doc. Look at frame 3 of the close up segment from the 2nd video.

At this part of the transition (actually even earlier - before the fall line) a PMTS skier or someone with similar movement patterns has removed all pressure from the downhill ski. All pressure has been transferred to the uphill ski LTE. The tipping of the downhill ski moves the CM over the skis and engages the new stance ski.

In frame 3 the oppisite of this occurs. The old stance ski, the down hill, is still on the snow even past the fall line. The ski that should have all the weight on it, the uphill ski, is actually being lifted up so that it can be stepped to it's new direction.

In frame 5 we see the weight finally starting to shift to the outside ski. The strong pivot action while still unweighted (there is a strong unweighting move that's easier to see in the video) is used to steer the inside ski around.

It's easy to see all the extra motions required to ski, if you get off the old downhill ski late.

[piggyslayer]

It would be interesting and polite to invite skiers captured on this videos to comment on what they had tried to accomplish with these turns. These turns look to me like demonstration of some sort.

John, you posting on epic, could you post there to invite these people here?

I think (can be wrong on that) that the demonstration was on how to widen the stance, and as we have seen in excellent Jay?s analysis many essential elements of ski turn were destroyed in the process.

One thing I look at is any ski direction change between the moment skier goes off the edges and before he/she is back on the edges during turn transition. This is clearly a not based on esthetics and independent from PMTS measure of good ski turn (think of holding on ice without it).
There are other measures acknowledged on epic, I think, such as equal edges on both skis, skis being parallel all the time, etc. These aspects are missing as well in the video footage.

It is interesting what happened here,
-is the wide stance causing excessive rotation and lack of edge at the turn entry,
-is it the lack of learned PMTS patterns into muscle memory (as these are not PMTS skiers),
-it is the skier choice to make turns like that (that I cannot understand)
-or simply these skiers do not care about the above aspects of skiing?

[Ott Gangl]

Thanks, Piggyslayer for putting these videos in perspective. I don't know where milesb found them, they look to me like they were posted by someone who attended the Epic Academy. As a newspaper man all my life I'm really troubled by someone posting pictures to which they do not have the copyright, but is this case milesb just established a link to already existing videos, which is all right.

What is not OK is that there is no attribution, no caption, no nothing. Had these instructors demonstrated a wedge christie, with the lack of attribution and caption the begginers and even the intermediate skiers on this forum would conclude that all PSIA coaches ski like that and that is their best turn, an unfair assesment. Higher than intermediates would likely recognize that there is something else behind these maneuvers, so thanks again piggyslayer for recognizing it.

I don't know who it was in a previous post that remarked that these turns would not qualify them even for the lowest level of PMTS instructor...well duh...neither could HH pass the lowest level I PSIA doing his best or worst PMTS turn, they are just two different systems and if you don't do waht is asked for you fail...that is not a dig at ether HH or weem and Rob, that's just reality. You don't give a science dissertation in math class.

I think I owe John Mason an apology because I was pretty hard on him. I have tried, and I think I have understood most of his posts and have said so and supported him numerous times, I just got upset by belitteling anyone who does not turn the way he does...When he lays off the direct comments on a personality in skiing I'll back off completely, I just find it unfair of him casting daubt of the abilities of seasoned skiers when he hasn't skied with them or knows them otherwise for sure.

....Ott

[piggyslayer]

That is why it would be interesting to see what the skiers themselves can say to defend these turns.
I am sure that these folks can ski differently, so what makes them choose to ski like that?

I think, obviously this is a guess, that what we see here is an attempt to "look" like a WC racer with wider stance within the limit of relatively slow speed. I think forcing wide stance may be causing some of the ingrained habits of stem A-frame entry, BTE dominance, late edge engagement, rotation of flat skis, etc.

I am surprise by this, experienced ski instructors should not sacrifice important elements like this to achieve wide stance at all cost.
But this is only my interpretation of what we are seeing.
Whatever the drill was, I think the effect on the skier was more destructive than good.

I stand by what I said before, it pays to be educated customer when shopping for ski instruction. I would not want to be instructed like that.

Ott, do you have a link to "good" PSIA turns? If you do let's see them.

[John Mason]

Ott, MilesB should be able to answer your question. The Epic board was redone so some of the oldest links and things are gone. (Like MC Extreme's posts exist in the google cache from Epic but not on their board anymore)

My understanding is that these videos first appeared on Epic as an example of a desired skiing outcome. But I don't know for sure.

Ott, I just get testy when I see the descriptions of how to basically do ski turns and I recognize them as pretty fundementally different from PMTS. You combine this with people saying PMTS is just marketing hype and every high level skier skies the same way. Being new, I have a responsiblity to pick a path or way to ski. If they're all the same, no problem. You got rusty and bob arguing with snowdog on Epic and rusty making the rather extreme statement that the CM should never cross the inside ski and actually believing that. This wider stance non-dynamic (avoiding balance) "forced" style of skiing I don't want to emulate. Also, all the PSIA'ers on MT Hood I skied with, perhaps because of it's racing roots, didn't ski anythink like these videos. I don't look at it as a PMTS vs the world thing at all.

Then in this months ski magazine you have Stu Campbell talking about guiding the skis in a wider 2 ski arc. The pics don't show how the release and transistion are being made, so it's hard to comment on. It has specific comments about not doing an early weight shift. This style thing does indeed appear quite different. I have to pick an approach. I think there are logical reasons one can bring to prefer one style to the other.

I think the best way to approach this is to focus on not the last 2/3rds of a single turn, as shown in the ski magazine example, but the last 1/3 of the old turn and the first 1/3 of a new turn. That's where you can determine how the skier is conserving movement of the CM down the hill, how the release and transistion is being done, how much the ski design is being used to change directions. I much prefer to think of this difference as Harald was quoted in the Lito article I linked to as an issue of when is the old outside ski released. It is rather simple physics that if you don't start releasing it before you cross the fall line, how can your skis be flat at that point. It's not possible. Active gross steering movements will have to be employed to "catch up" with this error.

That's what these video's show. My fear is that they were not demonstrating anything unusual but the normal approach to skiing a late release will cause. (this is underscored by the audio comments on the movies)

I did post a cross link over there to epic (post 207). Weems is one of the skiers. Hopefully he can comment as he posts regullarly on Epic.

Ott, I respect you and enjoy your comments. Your last post almost sounded like you may be a 2. I'll be skiing with you soon! (also on that long Epic post I put 2 pics up from my 3rd day of skiing - see if you can pick what style I was using then )

[Ott Gangl]

Well, I just know that not all turns have to be carved, that an early edge is not always to be desired, that often a very gradual increase in the edge as the turn progresses is a great help to non-athletic beginning and intermediate skiers, and that PSIA instructors have to teach to the lowest denominator, the out of shape, often fat, non-motivated skiers on rental equipment that often doesn't fit well and who couldn't pick up one ski while skiing if their life depended on it. You gotta keep them safe...

....Ott

[SkierSynergy]

I don't know where milesb found them, they look to me like they were posted by someone who attended the Epic Academy. As a newspaper man all my life I'm really troubled by someone posting pictures to which they do not have the copyright, but is this case milesb just established a link to already existing videos, which is all right.

What is not OK is that there is no attribution, no caption, no nothing. Ott

Point taken Ott.

I will consider what you said and make appropriate changes if necessary. If they were copywrited images, I would do things differently -- maybe just giving the original link again, giving thick descrption along with directions on how to slow them down frame by frame and the counter info for each step. However, the movies are in a publicly accessible site containing photo albums of lots of ski stuff. There is nothing to reference except the site at which they appear and that was in the thread already. No owner info except a possible name (cedric) appearing several levels out. Nor is there any e-mail info. I have no captions about the purpose of the skiing because that is not available at the site either -- and I think my posts contain the appropriate disclaimers about the purpose of the analysis. In addition the link only appears in this topics messages. It is not referenced off my web pages generally. I had hoped that the topic would give it enough context. After your comments, I may put a link back to the thread in the document also. If the owner of the movies really has misgivings about them being analyzed in a seperate document (or even the skiers), I will gladly remove the document.

Now, I hope I am not misunderstood. I am not saying anything about the skiers. They are definitely talented and athletic skiers. I am not in any way implying that they could not pass the green PMTS test. Further, they are obviously not trying to emulate those standards. I am simply making the point that the turns are so qualitatively different than PMTS standards that they are not even on the same page with a PMTS model.

You obviously understood this, but the differences in the two systems and the skiing that results is not so clear for many people on this list. Hence, my post and guided analysis. It was in the spirit of helping to clarify exactly what movements draw a difference in the two systems and how really incompatible they are from a PMTS perspective. I am certainly not trying compare anyone's abilities or one up or anything. Increasing numbers of uncopywritted skiing and Harb Carver videos are freely available on my website and I will gladly post a video of me from several years ago doing upunweighted twisting turns that are no way near as effective as the one's videos. At that time, that's all I knew.

Thanks for the legitimate comments. I'll consider them.

[Ott Gangl]

>>>Ott, do you have a link to "good" PSIA turns? If you do let's see them.<<<

Piggy Slayer, good for whom? The rank beginner, the intermediate, the racer? I don't really.
Instructors on the hill basically are faced with a variety of students in the same class and since they only have an hour for the ten or so students there is not enough time to ski them off and have time left for a meaningfull lesson. So the instructor skis down a ways and asks the student to do their best to ski down to him, picks a maneuver at the higher end of abilities demonstrated and from there either advances or regresses to a maneuver in difficulty.

My motto alwas was to teach a skier what he doesn't know which really in such a short lesson means a few runs with introduction of one new item and lots of corrections and hope that he will practice that on his own. Unfortunately I find most of them reverting into their comfort zone and skiing just the same as they did before the lesson..I holler at them from the chair to remind them if I see them.

So there is really no sanctioned PSIA turn, PSIA examiners just look for a big bag of tricks with lots of exercizes that build on each other so that the guy who took a lesson in Sugarbush gets a continuity in Vail.

From my own experience a lot of times one can skip over two or three steps and take a gifted studnet into rapid advancement. The sad thing is that I would teach four days a week, three to four lessons each day for sixteen weeks and never see the same student twice in a class.

That either means that I was so good in teaching that they didn't need any more lessons, which I daubt, or that they had arrived at a satisfactory level of skiing (for them) to depend on mileage to get more competent.

80-90% of sudents I asked never read a ski magazine or a ski book or saw a ski film and weren't interested in them either. To them skiing is a social activity with friends, lots of drinks before, during and after skiing and bragging about their wipe outs. That's what the instructor sees most often.

Jay, as for copyright, any picture, video or drawing shot or drawn by any person is copyrighted in their name the moment the button is pressed, no registering is required. If a person puts a picture or video on the net and it is misused or misrepresented, the copyright owner can seek compensation or sue. This is one of HH's biggest peeves, that his proprietary stuff is used and/or incorporated without attribution to him.

So you can't just use HH's video from his web site and distort or criticize it or even use it without his permission, matter of fact is though, it's done all the time, people think because it is on the net it is public domain, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Miles was wrong for not stating where the video came from and what it represented, you are probably wrong in criticizing the SKIER who is demonstrating a turn without knowing what was demonstrated and to whom. If the skier is not identifiable you may be in the clear, but then you don't know from what camp the video came from, it may be in Spain for all you know.

It's a complicated matter and most people will let it slide if it isn't deragatory. It's too bad that such a division exists in the skiing world. For decades folks like Bill Kidd, the Mahre brothers, the DesLauriers and others ran camps that taught turns well out of the mainstream and there were absolutely no frictions, they came up when HH came on the scene and wasn't satisfied to just teach PMTS, which is out of the mainstream, but attack others who taught the mainstream skiing.

Well, it happens in politics all the time, doesn't it?

Back to my manhatten...

....Ott

[jclayton]

Hey Ott,
there are excelent skiers in Spain .