PSIA Turn Videos

[Ott Gangl]

>>>>Hey Ott,
there are excelent skiers in Spain .<<<

I know, I know, but are they making PMTS turns, and if not, how can they be excellent skiers????

....Ott

[John Mason]

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

Ott - you can be doing gentle turns with nearly even pressure on both feet with no hard edges. The basic main principle, start releasing before the fall line, is true no matter what. That phrase "start releasing" means removing pressure from that downhill leg so the CM continues down the hill and is not overly slowed at the bottom of the turn. Lito, in his soft release, describes a very easy gentle turn, but it still has this early release component to it even though it's not one ski balance at all. It's the late release and the leg steering to compenstate that seems to be the real difference in what makes these videos look problamatic to me. That addage of get off the downhill foot is like walking. We fall forward and catch ourselves with each step. If there is no release, it's like walking in old "trucking" style of the marx brothers. You can still walk that way but it's a lot more work.

This early release is a broad principle. The wide stanced active steering wedge tends to also ingrain the oppisite principle of a non-existant or late release so much so that people argue mindlessly and illogically that this early release is a negative move .

Lots of people talk about lift and tip. It's just some people distort this and say it happens after the fall line has been crossed. If it's after the fall line it's way to late for it's magic to work.

This principle of early release is applicable to many styles of turn, not just highly edged carved ones. It's simply the way you move your CM efficiently.

[John Mason]

Even in the weighted release, even though weight remains on the downhill ski, the CM is still moved into the next turn by the release (end of last turn) which occurs because of active tipping of that inside foot. Still, the release occurs before the fall line.

[milesb]

Hey, I just got back from vacation and look at the mess I've caused! For those curious, here is where I got those links: http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... ight=video

and

http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.ph ... ight=video

[piggyslayer]

I just looked over the posts linked by milesb. It is amazing that the epic posters watched the same clicks and had SO MUCH DIFFERENT opinion about it.
These people really aspire to skiing like that!

Ott wrote:

Piggy Slayer, good for whom? The rank beginner, the intermediate, the racer? I don't really.

Good to impress me as a customer looking for a lesson.

Ott wrote:

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.

I appreciate what you are trying to do, you are trying to start a peace process. But I do not think this is so easy and it is not Haralds ego that prevents that.
I am not trying to defend Harald, he can do that himself. Here is what I think about it after 4 or 5 seasons of trying to be not his worst student:

As the above videos have clearly demonstrated bad habits have a way to sneak into skiing of even esteemed experts. There are only two ways to fight these bad habits:
1) You have to name them as BAD.
2) You have to do something so people do not get (learn by ski instruction!) these BAD habits in the first place.

It is had to do 1 and 2 by saying that PSIA does a good job, we at PMTS do something bit different, would you be interested in learning it?

[Ott Gangl]

>>>Should he be quiet about it then? I think not if the skier is an instructor,<<<

Yes. Otherwise when he and his PMTS system is critiqued he wouldn't always have to be saying "But they just don't understand".

What comes around, goes around.

....Ott

[Ott Gangl]

Miles, that attribution would have helped a lot in the beginning so we could have read weems' feeling about that video.

....Ott

[milesb]

C'mon, Ott, it's not my fault that some people didn't understand or ignored the context of my posting those links. I made it very clear, they contained what I thought were examples of those "perfect turns" in response to John's question, and that they contained other kinds of turns.

[John Mason]

I'm impressed. Weems saw much of what Jay pointed out and asked for help with ideas on his late releases. This is discussed in the original thread.

I think I like Weems. I'm my own worse critic on the hill too.

[jclayton]

Aha , Ott ,
Good question . PMTS is unknown ind Spain , but,but but I had looked for the most upto date instructors here before finding HH and found some guys who had skied world cup . Basically they showed me how to ski with the feet and pull the free foot back to keep the hips alighned . They advocated a wider stance but admitted to skiing a narrower stance themselves when free skiing as it was more comfortable . I skied with one girl Ainhoa Ibarra who has finished in the top ten in GS only a couple of years ago . Very " High C " turns when free skiing .

General quality of skiing in the Spanish resort of Baqueira I find is better than St Anton or Les Trois Vale?s for example. I have seen superb skiiers in these resorts of course , members of national teams etc but there is a huge gap between these and recreational skiiers . The schools at these resorts did not really care much for modern technique , still teaching up- unweighting "hop - hop " turns .

The Spanish schools are over hauling there teaching methods with these ex-world cuppers running re-training schemes . Unfortunately with loads of talent the National Ski Association just wastes it with corrupt policies and wasting of funds so results are not forthcoming in world cup , especially among the men . Some of the girls have had some podiums last year .

An interesting thing here is that Spaniards love to look good and so love to have the lastest gear and the latest technique to go with it . I've seen more Spider gear here than I ever saw in Colorado !!

[Ott Gangl]

Miles, it never hurts to put the Why When Where What Who that is known with any offering. I know you didn't mean to put these videos up for ridicule, but that is what happened and as John said, the link to the thread would have put the whole thing in context.

Well, better late than never.

jclayton, point well taken..thanks.

....Ott

[milesb]

Ott, if you want to get picky, note that those videos were originally posted by dchan as "reference videos" for analysis (what you might call ridicule here) with NO mention of where who and why.

[piggyslayer]

The guy had a bad run, we should not be spending 2 pages of this thread talking about it.

I have a comment on the first video though (rob sogard).
I have looked at in slow motion and I think I can explain some of what is happening.
On the steeper run (at the end) turns look like wedged entry. Here is what I think it happening:

In PMTS classic phantom move you release by lightening or lifting the old stance foot. The lifting is the up movement. 5 seasons ago I went with my wife to first PMTS camp. I came with a bad habit which (I need to thank my wife for the input in naming it, was called: Robert).
Let me describe it: In more aggressive turns when the stance foot is anweighted the foot instead of moving up moves sideways in the lateral direction away of the other foot.
This bad habit has still been with me a bit 2 years ago, I hope I have finally weeded it out last year.

My wife simply looked at the 1st video footage and said: he does a Robert, and I think he does. (by the way he is lifting the stance foot to release slightly in the steeper part of the run -- I thought this is a no-no on epic).

Here is why this movement happens: it is natural for the body to balance this way. If you want to propel your CM into next turn lifting the foot sideways moves your CM forward faster.
Here is why ?Robert? it is a bad habit: The lateral movement happens in the most vulnerable moment of the turn when the skis are flat or close to flat on the ground. The Newton?s 3rd makes it bad. Whether you like it or not you impacting the new stance ski when is flat. This is NOT GOOD.
Here is what to do about it: If you need more energy to move into next turn flex your legs more. (I do not see the skier on this footage flexing to release).

The point of this is that we all have bad habits in us. The bad habits are result of inconsistent learning and lack of clearly defined movement patterns which yield correct skiing. PMTS defines these patterns consistently and names typical patterns that are wrong. This is essential for undoing what is wrong and learning what is good.
You cannot produce good skiers if your approach is that all methods and skiing patterns are good.

Also, please note how much the skier changed from the first run which was not steep to the last which was steeper. This is exactly what should define good teaching system, the system which can produce experts or advanced skiers who will DO proper movements irregardless of the steepness, ice, etc. This is the true benefit, you do the same movement patterns and they work in all conditions.

And finally, the run was commented on epic for estblishing edges fast even on the steep (last) part. We have commented the same video footage as late with edges. Looks like we have different standards or different lingo.

ADDED LATER: I looked at the footage again and my "Robert" move of lifting and moving the leg sideways was misdiagnosed. The dowhill foot is not being lifted. This is not what is happening here; I guess I need glasses or download V1 software or both.

[SkierSynergy]

I'm waiting to get on the lift at Timberline righht now. They are doing extra de-icing because of the new snow. So, kicking back in the sun and checking the forum. Two corrections.

1. I did not criticize anyone. Others may have, but I just described (using some standard PMTS questions) and compared against PMTS cert ski test standards.

2. They do not have a late release (what is that?) They have NO release.

Oh lift is running. Bye.

[Ott Gangl]

Jay, why do you need a release, it's just extra work.

Miles, I've talked to dchan about that long ago, right after he put a video of nolo on without saying who it was and what it was. There is this war going on that isn't needed, skiers should ski the way they want and systems should teach what they think is best for the student without getting in each others hair.

Labeling skiing done by skier who could ski the pants off the posters doing their 'bad' turns doesn't help either. Everyone has one side better than the other, just look a HH doing a left turn, right turn good, left turn not so good.

So what, all these skiers can ski anything, some go for the jerky racer turns, some go for smoothies, some ski slow some ski fast. Just let everyone be.

I thought just relegious zealots wanted everyone to be like them, but I see that in skiing it is not much different. And that goes for Epic as much as here. Try to ski with some of the 'bad' turners you criticized and then make up your mind, SCSA did. Where is he BTW?

....Ott