Learning PMTS with a Coach: A Video Diary

[Max_501]

I am a newbie to the fine points of skiing and no expert in biomechanics but here goes. I have been working on my fore/aft balance this year. My focus has been dorsiflexion of foot/ankle to facilitate forward movement of my CM (initiating the kinetic chain at the foot). Dorsiflexion draws the lower leg forward into the boot tongue, bringing the knee and femur, and pelvis/body forward. By your CM moving forward, your weight pressures the tip with the CM over the ball of the foot. Dorsiflexion lifts the instep and toes against the top of the boot, leveraging the heel downward, pivoting at the ankle joint. In contrast, plantar flexion to pressure the tip, raises the heel, pushing the calf posteriorly against the top of the boot cuff, pushing the leg posteriorly along with aft movement of the CM. This is a skating type movement.

Dorsiflexion is a relatively weak movement, especially in a stiff pair of boots. Much more is needed for a good foot pull back.

Max, you ducked my question. What did you suggest to Rob that he work on to avoid back sliding into old habits until he can get to HSS or other Harb trained boot fitter? Rob in his last post said he will not get there until next season. What does he work on for the rest of this season?

I most certainly did not duck your question. As I already stated above:

Next thing Rob needs to do is head out to HSS and get the boot issues addressed. Focusing on fore/aft in his current setup is unlikely to work (as we found out already).

BTW, Rob's season is over. But even if it wasn't my suggestion would still stand.

[idahorob]

I've got the originals of Max's videos, the complete, unedited set, that I've already gone over frame-by-frame several times. From this and from my memories of the coaching days, I've written a plan for what I need to do next season. Max has critiqued that list and added to it. Those things on skis will have to wait.

Meanwhile, I'm hitting the road on my bicycle, as I've got a race to run at the end of August. It's from town to ski area and that mountain seems to be the focus of most of my recreational pursuits.

Before next season, though, I'm going to design a learning program for acquiring and solidifying the Essential movements I need to improve. Some of this is exercise and strengthening and some of it will be customized work with the Feldenkrais Method, which is my main occupation. I'm going to video myself with the outcomes of this work to make it as good as I can make it before the snow flies. And shortly before the season starts I have these great videos and all your helpful feedback to review and some images of good skiing to visualize. With any luck, Harald's free-skiing video will be available this summer, too.

[Max_501]

Before next season, though, I'm going to design a learning program for acquiring and solidifying the Essential movements I need to improve. Some of this is exercise and strengthening and some of it will be customized work with the Feldenkrais Method, which is my main occupation.

If you could design 3 lessons that did the following it would be a big help for many of us!

1) Exploration of CA
2) Exploration of CB (in particular moving the pelvis for CB)
3) Coordination of the CA/CB

[jbotti]

Yeah, that would be great. Many of us have done a variety of different things away from the snow to help our skiing. At my first HSS camp in 2004 I asked Diana what it was going to take for me to become a high level skier and she was very honest when she said that until I addressed my felxibility issues (having none!!) I was never going to be able to ski properly at a high level. It took me sevral months in 2005 of working with a flexibility trainer to substantially improve my flexibility.

Another area that I and others have to work on is hip flexibility. Without adequate hip flexibility, edge angles that come close to dropping one's rear on the snow will not happen. I worked especially hard this year on imrpoving my hip flexibility and it has made a noticable difference.

Anything that you can post Rob will be of great interest to me and many others. Especially in the area of hip flexibility!!

Everthing that we can do to improve our movements on snow is of great value.

[ibMED]

The Essentials to me were (are) like a handful of beads - labelled tipping, fore/aft, CB, CA, home base, flex to release, flex & tip - you all know the list. The task is to string them all together into a single necklace. By Day 4 I had some of them chunked together, but moving any one of them to the foreground pushed the others into the background and sometimes completely off the table. We spent a lot of time focusing on CB, really working on crunching the waist as shown in the Essentials video. I'd focus on this bead and the bead called hand postition would disappear and I'd find I was bringing the wrong hand forward, which messes up my CA. Chunk those two together and I'd forget about tipping. Add tipping and I'd forget to flex enough.

But you know what? I was having a ball that day.

Rob,
I really like your mental image of stringing the individual beads together. I, and I'm sure many of our peers, share the same thoughts and frustrations with respect to bringing the whole package together. As it's golf season in Philly, I'm experiencing a similar situation getting my swing back in that concentration in one area produces unintended consequences in other areas.

It's been enlightening watching the extended video series that you and Max chained together. Your skiing has improved so much. We don't get to see much before and after skiing video following extended training sessions. For sure, there is no one magic answer. Harald uses the great term "complementary" to describe how each of the essentials aids each of the other essentials and one can see, very clearly, how improving each piece helped your skiing.

When I first tried using Max's checksheet on your initial technique, my sense was the answer involves improving each area. Turned out to be correct even if some observations were less than accurate.

I, too, would be interested in your thoughts about conditioning. I know that asking my body to get into PMTS positions is demanding on dryland and compounded by being on skis. I did some Googling and there is a Feldenkrais Method program near where I live so I need to check it out.

Again, thanks for sharing.

[idahorob]

If you could design 3 lessons that did the following it would be a big help for many of us!

1) Exploration of CA
2) Exploration of CB (in particular moving the pelvis for CB)
3) Coordination of the CA/CB

I'm on it! In the Feldenkrais Method there are thousands of lessons, which we call Awareness Through Movement, available. I'll go through all the ones I can access to find out if there are any of them that have immediate application for us. If not, then I'll invent my own. This may take me some time and I have to match the lessons to what I've just learned about the essential movements. I have a much clearer understanding of those than I did two weeks ago, but I'll need to do some testing. There are a couple of ways of sharing what I come up with. Written transcripts or MP3 audio files. I prefer the audio, as it takes a long time to get familiar enough with the process to work directly from written material. It's not going to be a secret, and I'll get to work on it, although I know the warm weather and cycling wlll be a distraction for me. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we have plenty of time before next season.

[Max_501]

I was surprised to learn that some folks are still doing MA behind the scenes on Rob's skiing. To make it a bit easier here is the full progression of the videos.

The first two are background videos shot prior to the Day 1 through Day 4 training footage.

From Feb 2009:



From Mar 2010:



Day 1:



Day 2:



Day 3 - Part 1:



Day 3 - Part 2:



Day 4:

[h.harb]

Meput:

I have been working on my fore/aft balance this year. My focus has been dorsiflexion of foot/ankle to facilitate forward movement of my CM (initiating the kinetic chain at the foot). Dorsiflexion draws the lower leg forward into the boot tongue, bringing the knee and femur, and pelvis/body forward.

I've heard this approach before, it pops up every few years and I have never found that using doriflexion in the boot, to be an effective way to think about centering. I have heard it used in the PSIA jargon. I cringe every time I hear it and I never see results when it's used. Every top skier I've talked to tells me they never use that idea, including Diana and various other PMTS instructors and racers.

To begin with, it doesn't activate much in the kinetic chain, as that movement has little or no leverage over the top of the boot or to the hip. It doesn't help in pull back efforts for the kinetic chain to operate, because you have to be close to balance or in balance regardless of method. Even a lateral ankle movements are worthless for kinetic chain, edge engagement if you are standing or leaning on your inside ski. Therefore being caught in the back seat, and if you are out of balance in a rearward position, the idea that dorisflexion has enough leverage or movement capability to bring your hips back to center is far fetched at best.

[h.harb]

Another point, for the kinetic chain to work you have to be in balance. If you are in balance, lateral ankle movements stimulate the balancing mechanism and automatically the body calls up other muscles to help maintain balance. The same applies to fore/aft. Pulling the feet back is an effective way to manage fore/aft balance in regular skiing; however if you are caught out of fore/aft balance and in the back seat, it requires a major effort to get back to center.

[cheesehead]

Dorsiflexion -- you mean pulling your toes up, using those same muscles that give you shin splints? Those muscles are designed to lift about 2 lbs. Wouldn't it be easier to use the rest of your leg which is designed to support all 200 lbs. of you? (give or take).

[meput]

Harald, thank you for you thoughts regarding dorsiflexion of the foot/ankle and possible role in fore/aft balance.

Potentially when I focus on dorsiflexing my feet, it is acting more as a focus cue rather than a movement that stimulates additional movement reactions in a kinetic chain. I agree it is a weak movement that if you are in the back seat will not significantly help recenter your fore/aft balance. I do find when I think about dorsiflexing my feet, feeling the tibialis anterior m. contract, I sense I am pressuring my tips better. This may only be fine tuning some of my fore/aft balance but I find it helps me, especially in SRTs. Can't prove, no video.

This brings up an additional problem for us PMTS students working on our own. If my focus on dorsiflexion is detrimental either as a cue or as a movement, I realize it needs to go to help my skiing. For this reason, I do look forward to attending a camp - hopefully next winter.

[h.harb]

The biomechanics and my experience (as well as others) with such movements demonstrates that there are more effective ways to hold and create re-centering.

[meput]

I do look forward to attending a PMTS camp.

Thank you again, Max, Rob, and Harald

[Max_501]

If you are new to PMTS its worth starting from the beginning of this thread.

[Matt]

If you could design 3 lessons that did the following it would be a big help for many of us!

1) Exploration of CA
2) Exploration of CB (in particular moving the pelvis for CB)
3) Coordination of the CA/CB

I'm on it! In the Feldenkrais Method there are thousands of lessons, which we call Awareness Through Movement, available. I'll go through all the ones I can access to find out if there are any of them that have immediate application for us. If not, then I'll invent my own. This may take me some time and I have to match the lessons to what I've just learned about the essential movements. I have a much clearer understanding of those than I did two weeks ago, but I'll need to do some testing. There are a couple of ways of sharing what I come up with. Written transcripts or MP3 audio files. I prefer the audio, as it takes a long time to get familiar enough with the process to work directly from written material. It's not going to be a secret, and I'll get to work on it, although I know the warm weather and cycling wlll be a distraction for me. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we have plenty of time before next season.

This was a great thread from the past. Did you ever get around to designing any Feldenkrais lessons suitable for PMTS?