Case Study from SkierSynergy -- help my friend.

[Guest]

Bluey--thanks for your concern. I must say that I'm not terribly offended or upset about this "phantom BB" (sorry!). It is a breach of etiquette, for sure, and I will be angry if it happens again, but it does not appear to be an attempt to misrepresent me, other than being a bit out of context. Until there's evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that it was not done out of spite or ill will.

No harm, as they say, no foul!

Best regards,
Bob Barnes

[Thor]

I told you yesterday and I repeat it today: this forum is headed in a negative direction. 10-20 more users and we will be at EpicPMTS... Sad.

[Thor]

The new PSIA manuals are not very good, and that is just to be nice and talk politely.

They tell you to use a stepping stones approach, but then the single components are not there. Even if you wanted to use a wedge you would still have to buy their old Volume 1, 2, and 3 although they are now only reference materials, if you have to figure out of to do a wedge or teach it.

Stepping stones is a step forward as far as the concept goes, their manual is just pretty much a waste of paper and, ultimately, trees.. Even more so the Snow Sports Concepts thing. What are those guys thinking?

[Bluey]

Bob B.....its great that you haven't taken offence...very gracious.

My long time held position in respect to rogue/inappropriate postings like we have just experienced has been to completely ignore them and this has been my advice often-stated on this forum.....

My belief is that any response only feeds the childish nature of the rogue poster.......

In respect to the rogue posting above, we have a case of the reputation of the regular posters of this forum being brought into disrepute and potentially someone outside this forum could then easily lay charge that PMTSers have sunk to a new personal low............when IMHO the opposite viewpoint should be the case.

My position is that all are welcome here, and to state the obvious, all viewpoints are welcome here provided they are expressed honestly, sincerely and are respectful.......... and speaking from my personal experience, this forum has been a great place for a relative newcomer like myself to ask advice etc and then find it given freely and openly.....this forum, isn't as large as Epic etc , and to some extent that's one of its strenghts........

Thor makes a good observation that our forum lacks structure and the threads can get easily hijacked......I agree with Thor that the regular posters to this forum should exercise a bit more discipline over their posting but at the same time its nice to see some light-hearted bantering.........I don't take myself too seriously when it comes to skiing and if we can have a bit of fun along the way whilst we are learning and sharing then that seems OK to me.....

As a last point, IMHO, its nice to see some new posters to this forum.....it was in danger of becoming inbred/repetitive in respect to its views/topics .........

Bluey.....

[jclayton]

Bluey,
there will always be rogue posts and in all cases on this forum they have been always pretty easy to tear apart from the logical or language point of view . There will always be some chaos creeping in , we all have our dark side . A lot of ink has been spilt over whether this forum will go the way of Epic , I don't think so , the majority of us are considered in our posts and consistent in our use of language . As you say also it's sane to have a bit of a laugh and a dig .

The Athenian greeks said that the health of a state was in direct proportion to the amount of political satire existant within it .

A perfect example , In Stalins Russia the people completely lost the habit even of asking questions , even mundane day to day ones . Described very well by the Polish writer Richard Kapuscinski travelling after the Iron Curtain finally fell .

Oops, off at a tangent again .

[Coach]

I told you yesterday and I repeat it today: this forum is headed in a negative direction. 10-20 more users and we will be at EpicPMTS... Sad.

Are you saying that the Epic folks and their perspectives are not welcome here? My take is that as long as it stays positive there's nothing wrong with differing perspectives. If everyones goal is fun and improved skiing, what's the harm?

[John Mason]

Thor would have to answer, but I believe he was refering to threads getting huge and off topic.

I welcome the give and take. Most posters here, have backgrounds from both perspectives. Not me so much, as except for one lesson I started with PMTS.

People posting in favor of a blended approach with active leg steering, guiding the skis, etc. while they may think they are arguing or contrasting with most of the posters here are not actually arguing points at all. These posters are simply expressing ways to ski and teach that most here used to do themselves. The people responding to these rotary focused positions have chosen a PMTS approach consciously, with knowledge, as a better way after being where these people have been. No one has to be defensive here, just describe the whys of PMTS as contrasted with their own former ways for teaching and or skiing from their own personal experience.

When I hear a phrase like "guide your skis at the top of the turn" which is anathama to a PMTS approach or "tip and point your inside foot into the new turn" which is also anathama, I'd love to see video of same on the steeps and on a normal blue to see how these instructions are actually implemented in the skiing of the person. Are they really doing these things, or are they misdescribing what they actually do. The part of the turn I would want to see is the last third/transition/and first third of their turns. I often wonder if good skiers are not actually aware of how they are actually making their own turns. I could see how that could happen to a skier that skis on instinct themselves - skied for years - and skis 200 plus days a year. Need to wire up a skier like that and get a electronic readout of muscle activation and joint position (or the next best thing - v1 analysis software) and see if the verbal matches the hill.

Oooopppps. I'll have to check the original premise of this thread. I have no idea how off course I have now taking this. Converstations in real life often segway.

[John Mason]

Just another thought. I received two PM's from people from Epic that were diametrically oppisite from each other. Both of these were from well know posters on Epic (one has returned to the shadows). The one post was from a person with instructor background and he lamented the fact that WC skiers teach skiing. He felt, honestly, that these skiers can't relate to beginners and intermediates and were doing a disservice entering the instruction field.

The other PM was from the mystery poster at Epic who encouraged me to keep taking lessons from people with WC background. His reasoning I now realize points to my prior thread I believe. A WC skier with the pressures of competition, the hours/years of work, are actually highly aware of what movements produce what results. They are not going to be in verbal/reality contradiction.

An expert skiing ski instructor, on the other hand, that verbally still seems wedded to rotary movements as an input that may not actually do this in their own skiing, does not have this level of movement awareness that a top WC skier has and has much more danger of mis-expressing themselves.

But, as I say, a video would tell the tale.

Harald has personal examples of top skiers that ski with expert movements that could not begin to accurately express what they were doing to ski that way.

All I know as a beginning skier, which just means I'm going to share my on perceptions at this stage of my skiing, is that if I started "guiding my skis" or "pointing and tipping" my parallel turns would end up in the wastebasket immediately. So I'm either not understanding what is meant by these admonitions from the non-PMTS side of the fence, or the person giving this advice doesn's ski parallel themselves, or the person skis well but doesn't have actual awareness of what they are doing.

[Thor]

The more people write the better. More experiences to share. What I do not like about EpicSki is the confusion that permeates almost every thread with too many self-professed experts, albeit mostly with their mouths. It would be sad if this forum were to head that way as well.
If The Coach would like to answer a question of mine ( I am PSIA too)... why don't we have such nice materials like PMTS? Our manuals are crap. During my exam last Winter, one examiner was stemming while showing us parallel turns! Then they may fail a guy/ga'l for they are not perfect.. That ain't fare.
I think that PSIA should use PMTS to do some serious critics about the fact that despite being the big organization they are, they cannot put together some good standards, teaching materials and more consistent examinations methods.
I heard also that now to qualify with PSIA they need to show some basic proficiency on terrain park! I hope those are just rumors or else we are really heading down a bad road. What kid wants to get lesson on how to handle a half-pipe from an old fart of an instructor? And what old instructor
will show aerials to kids? It is going to be funny, believe me, we are going to have a lot of laughter this Winter if things are that way.

[Coach]

Thor

I can't answer your question, but obviously it's a valid concern based on the fact that many PSIA people share the same views regarding the PSIA writings.

I agree with your assertion regarding the terrain parks. IMO it should be a seperate concentration all together,