I am blown away by what increased Counteracting is doing for my skiing. Much of the way that I continue to work on this is through the NSPP (no swing pole plant) and the NET (no energy turn, brushed carved turns done at slow speeds on flat terrain), and in the midst of this I have really amped up my drill work, choosing ones that really support what I am working on.
I don't know if Harald will completely agree with this, but at least for me the natural progression of essentials has been tipping, flexing, fore aft balance and then CB and lastly CA. I think every PMTS student starts with tipping and you tip and tip some more until you feel like you can't tip anymore and then you are told to tip some more!! Once tipping was in place I was told to flex and to learn how to flex and tip in transitions. Once this is in place I had to learn how to pull back the feet in transition, and how to stay on top of the ski and the tips through the arc (another long and difficult lesson that Max and Harald I'm sure remember). CB is something that I had to learn and play with awhile back because you can't carve well or hold on hard man made snow or ice without it. But I had gotten a long ways without an insufficient level of CA and it was really limiting my off piste skiing.
This has also not been an easy fix. I am putting 70% of my focus everyday on making sure that my CA is in place all the time and I am skiing at least 50% of my days doing slow brushed carved turns or drills that are designed to improve CA. Since my few days with Harald last March, I have skied close to 30 days with this focus and I would say that my CA is in place and where it needs to be about 80% of the time.
I keep noticing places where I ski in conditions that might have tripped me up in the past where I flex and the skis snap into the next turn all from proper tipping, foot pullback and an appropriate level of CA. These turns in steeper choppy or bumped terrain feel effortless and I am still getting used to it as I am surprised when they happen because I am used to the way it used to be.
The bottom line is simple you can't be an excellent off piste skier without solid CA all over the mountain in all conditions and in all terrain.
I am also not sure if the progression is and or should be different for different skiers. Maybe Max and others can chime in. But if you can tip well, flex well and manage your fore aft balance and drive the front of the ski, amping up the CA work will make you into a different skier. Harald told me that he has to work for several days every year just to get back his NSPP. This stuff doesn't happen naturally and it requires huge work to get there and continued work every season to get it back and keep it where it needs to be.
Lastly, not to be a broken record, the drill work is where the big gains come from. Yes you can and will improve just skiing with a focus on your movements. But adding in an hour or two a day of drills will produce progress at an exponential rate.
In this limited snow year (hopefully about to change) there really is nothing better to do while skiing than re-dedicating to a thorough program of drills. Hey, it's not like your missing some Epic powder days, because other than few spots in the US, they haven't
happened. I see my friends on my home mountain all the time going in after 2 hours n the morning saying they are bored by skiing groomers. I had my best day of progress ever on a day with really difficult snow (soft granular on top of man made hard pack) and by the end of the day I was cranking fast brushed carved turns on steeps over man made snow and I was getting no chatter. This was after a full day of drill work.
Do the drills!!