Phantom Move / Phantom Edging

[John Mason]

Lito calls it Phantom Edging. HH, Eric and Rob, and Craig McNeil call it the Phantom Move.

Why can some people not feel this? What is this all about?

You may be reading here and think the phantom move is like a ghost - a figment of someone's marketing imagination. You may actually be justified in these conclusions after conducting their personal tests of this on the hill. So, how can these important authors all be wrong when many skiers still hold to active steering as the way to go and have never felt any effect of the phantom move.

I now understand the little piece that is missing. Someone that actively steers and is used to guiding and following the skis with active steering in their legs will almost by definition NOT be able to feel anything at all when they try Phantom Edging (lito's version) or Phantom Move (Eski, HH, Craig McNeil version).

Ok, read slow:

In people's nervous system there is the normal voluntary muscle system. You can illustrate this to yourself by simply bending your arm at the elbow. Your bicep pulls your arm up. Muscles cannot "push" but only contract, so to make your arm go the other way, your opposing muscle, your tricep contracts.

That's the voluntary system.

The voluntary system is weak. The voluntary system is slow. (this comes in later when you see that to create torque for rotation you can use the voluntary system (what HH calls bad rotation) or you can use a much stronger system that I'll introduce here in such a way so everyone reading this can actually experience the phantom move for themselves. (even if they never have before)

You'll need a friend for this one. To inllustrate how the voluntary system is slow, hold your hand out with the finger and thumb ready to grasp a falling object. Have your friend hold a dollar bill with the very bottom of the bill just between your thumb and forefinger. Have your friend drop the dollar bill when you don't know they are going to do it and try to catch the dollar bill. You'll not be able to do it unless you read and anticipate something from your friend. There is just no way the slow voluntary system can do it. This is becuase the voluntary system relies on direct control from your brain and there is a time delay along your nerves.

Thankfully, the muscles have a 2nd way of being activated that is much faster and happens to be much stronger - measurably.

This also requires your friend, but you can also do it yourself. Lock your arm in a 90 degree bend. By locking I mean do whatever comes naturally when you want to make your arm be a certain angle and not allow it to be bent. Now have your friend hit your arm from top to bottom. Then do it from bottom to top. You will notice that your bicep and tricep will fire, without any conscious effort on your part to keep that joint at the same angle. It's almost as if you arm is "locked" by friction in the joint, but it's not. Your joint is just a free as ever. But our involentary nervous system is smarter than we are and can maintain this active counter to force instantly. This proves your brain is not involved in directing this activity other than the initial command to hold your joint lock in place.

The other fascinating thing about this phenomenom whoose technical name is co-contraction is that it's very strong. Lets say you can normally bicep curl 80 pounds with one arm. You can easly have a 140 pound person grab on your co-contracted elbow and hold them in place. You can't raise them, but you can keep your joint in that position. Negative reps in weight training is this same effect to some degree but not quite the same.

Ok, now that you've digested the above here is another weird phenomenum. When you did your first bicep curl above - the voluntary kind, medical science has discovered that your tricep - the nerves to it, will not react and pass on external electrical stimulation. This is called pre-synaptic inhibition. This is evolutions way of having us move efficiently. When you contract one muscle the pathways to the opposing muscle are mostly shut down. It's like the old radio buttons on a car. Only one button can be pressed at a time.

Now for the kicker. When a muscle is co-contracted as in locking a joint, until your brain calls this off, both muscles are inhibited from external stimulation. This is weird stuff and is late 90's research. You can easily feel this yourself. Just lock your elbow and while keeping it in a locked state, do a bicep curl. It's real hard. It's not hard because your actually doing any work, because you're not, you're just experiencing the lockout your own body does on co-contracted joints.

Ok, what does this mean for the phantom move and the people visiting this board trying to understand it.

In doing the phantom move, you start with your skis parallel. You tip the inside foot. If your hips are relaxed and not in a co-contracted state you will feel absolutly nothing happen on your other leg. However, if you apply a little, and just a little of that co-contracted feeling to your hip-rotators so that you have told your hips and rotators maintain position, when you tip that inside foot you'll almost feel strong pressure on the other foot to match the tipping angles of the inside foot.

My theory is that the people that don't know what the phantom move is all about, don't ski by co-contracting their hips rotators but leave them loose and actively direct there skis with these same hip rotator muscles. A skier that does this is creating their rotation with the weak voluntary system. A skier using the phantom move controls both rotational torque and tipping angles with that one simple movement. And the rotational control is finer yet stronger than the direct way. (try it in a doorway and see - but don't injure your outside foot)

Further - you'll note in your arm and it's also true in your leg - when you co-contract your elbow joint, you'll find rotation of your forearm becomes harder, yet even with the most co-contraction you can muster, you have complete freedom of movement of your hand. Medical science has discovered the same thing happens in the legs. When you are co-contracted in both your hip rotators and your weight bearing knee joints, you are limiting the upper thigh and lower leg steering ability as compared to a relaxed leg due to pre-synaptic inhibition. But, your foot is free to tip even in a co-contracted state.

This may be why the proponents of a wider stance and active steering and even weighting have adapted their skiing that way because it would be a natural result to a person that skis using only the voluntary system and who is not using co-contraction to their advantage.

Also, since the feet are not affected by co-contraction even the weighted release in PMTS where all the weight is left on the downhill about to be inside ski works. The active tipping of that foot initiates the turn no matter what the weight distribution is.

So, if you've never felt the effect of the phantom move have your friend hold your foot in place while you co-contract your hip rotators. Then have your friend (like the elbow exercise) distrupt your foot. (sit in a chair - raise a foot). Once you're sure what it feels like to apply co-contraction to your hip-rotators, stand in a doorway. Support yourself in a comfortable stance (legs dangling straight out of your hip sockets), then tip your right foot while leaving your hip rotators relaxed. (this will point the knee out but is totally different then pointing the knee out) Then do it again with your hip rotators co-contracted. You will feel a strong action on your outside foot.

Then go read Eskis, HH's, Lito's, Craig McNeil's books again and realize the only reason you thought the phantom move was bunk was because you never had anyone bother to tell you the hips need a tad of tension (co-contraction of the hip rotators) for any of this to work. Once you discover this, play with it on the slopes. Just stand on your outside ski, apply a little hip rotator lock, tip your inside ski.

Oh, back to knee pointing for one moment. I've heard people say that tipping the inside foot which results in the knee pointing is the same bio-mechanically as simply pointing the knee. This is not true. If you don't consciously tip the foot that then results in that legs knee pointing into the turn, then you may be actually pointing the knee into the new turn with your hip-rotators. If your doing that, you're not co-contracted in your hip-rotators and your skiing the hard way. There is a big difference.

[Patprof65]

John,
I had to read this three times before I fully understood it! The experiments helped too. I think that you are really on to something here. Can't wait to try it on the slopes. In the past, sometimes the Phantom Move would result in a "Wow" experience for me --other times I was underwhelmed. Now I see why. Thanks for the post.

[NoCleverName]

I think you're on to something, John. (I am not replying to the Epic thread to avoid the ridicule...).
Thinking back over the times I thought I had really "pinpoint control", I remember having a "tension" midbody. I didn't realize till now that I should try to recapture that feeling because it's means something really useful is happening! Sort of brings to mind the idea of "increasing the spring rate" of the kinetic chain. Now if I only knew exactly where those hip rotators were ...

By the way, don't give those that harp on your youth and inexperience any thought. My own background in science and computers reminds me that most of the truely useful and innovative work comes from young people new to the field.

[John Mason]

NoCleverName - I like that youth part (since I'm almost 50). Certainly I'm an inexperienced skier.

I've always been intrigued by how major authors like HH, Lito, Eric and Rob, and Craig McNeil all focus on the phantom move as the key move in skiing.

Yet, at the same time, there is a large group of skiers that feel active pivoting of the skis using mainly the hip rotators is the key move.

Si's post about what is the most fundemental move in skiing on Epic showed the different viewpoints. As a PMTS skier for most of my skiing I learned the phantom move. I find the idea of active pivoting at the hips totally foreign. Likewise, I believe, some one that has come up in a TTS system would feel the phantom move had no effect at all. But, since you can't co-contract a set of opposing muscles and use them at the same time, this really defines the core difference that radiates style wise all the way back to what you see on the slopes between a PMTS style skier and a TTS style skier.

As a PMTS skier we leave some tension in your hips and control tipping and rotation with the phantom move and let the rotation happen by itself. We don't have to worry about it. A TTS skier takes what we get automatically and mimics it with active movements of the hip rotators.

The rage in wider stance and more even weighting is in my view an accomodation to not using co-contraction in skiing. If your going to actively steer, it's easier to do if you have your weight spread out and leave your joints un-cocontracted so they are still flexible. To me this is like removing your strong foundation.

Since, from my point of view, the phantom move is a vastly easier way to ski as well as much more controllable I've been perplexed at the rejection of this by lots of the instructor community. I believe its boils down to the instructor community perhaps have never even experienced it and don't understand it. I know from history, say "stance leg" and many get mad as they reject the concept totally of a "stance leg". Yet, a PMTS skier knows that a strong co-contracted knee and hip gives you the base for skiing with balance. The free foot gives you the control. A TTS skier has to "make" their balance. From people that came up from a TTS background and gone to a PMTS style, they all say it's superior. (and I'm referring to even PSIA demo team members I've met other than HH). I don't have that background so can't comment as well, but I met lots of instructors at the November camp that have that dual background.

I really don't have a problem if my post on Epic gets ridiculed. There is a post there that says why would I ever want to lock my hips or any muscle. They want all muscles dynamically involved in the skiing. Sounds nice, but in practice it's a much weaker way to ski especially in performance skiing.

I just see this as more confirmation that there are real structural core differences between how most people are learning to ski and the material you find in PMTS or in Lito or in Eric and Rob's books. People try to dismiss PMTS as marketing but when you look at how the properly timed release and the phantom move are rejected by perhaps the majority on Epic, then I personally begin to understand why HH was not able to work within the PSIA organization and had to set up work outside.

I thought and still think that a careful reading of the bio-mechanical block a steerer would have in experiencing the phantom move, might get such a steerer a chance to begin to understand how the phantom move works.

Certainly for the student trying to pick a direction to efficiently spend their money and time to become an efficient skier, this can be useful information in understanding the 2 different approaches.

[piggyslayer]

John, This is very interesting a good post, but...
I think the story is a bit more complicated. I think very roughly speaking the story is that the hip joint goes through what Harald called ?loose adoption? phase in the turn transition and the co-contracted phase during the turn. And maybe, in some turns hip can go though several loose-adoption phases.

My current understanding of kinesiology is not nearly good enough to be sure of some of the variables. I think that what you have described is related to counter balancing and counter acting movement/position in which the hip joint is counter rotated and stretched on the free leg side.
This position probably forces co-contraction in the hip joint so your argument is one more reason why counter is so important!

I would like to put what you have described in the context of my favorite drill, which is a slow motion movement easy to analyze. My favor drill on a flat slope (I really love it) is the slow speed phantom carving exercise from the ACES II book and video (referred to as Straight run ULBC Exercises). In this drill free foot tipping is used to create carved arcs.

In this drill, I strongly feel a tipping action of the foot causes movement in my hip joint resulting in counter balance and counter rotation. I am striving to get the same ?cause and effect? in all of my skiing.

The hip movement is very clearly visible in this drill and is NOT a result of explicit flexing of the hip muscles. Rather, hip adapts to a new position forced by the LTE tipping of the foot. This I believe is what Harald called ?loose adoption?. Once in the carve, however, I feel the hip joint stretched and pointing a little upward on the LTE side (this keeps the pressure off the free foot) as well as counter balanced.

If I figure out how I will post a clip with this movement.

I could not do that well last season, I could slow-carve but when forcing passive BTE and active LTE I would have no luck. This year - after doing it countless times on Carvers - I can do it, I think, well. It feels so much better than the BTE active carves.

This drill will not result in carving if knee pointing or explicit hip movements are used, so it is all about upper body adopting to movements initiated by the free foot. I do not believe the muscles are co-contracted all the time, I believe they go through short periods of relaxing essential to the phantom move.
However, the co-contraction does happen as well and quite possibly is essential.

I am not arguing that tensing the hip joint is not the missing link which creates ?PHANTOM NON-RESPONDERS?, maybe it is, I am not experienced enough to decide that.

Robert

[Hobbit]

John,

With all due respect I disagree with your arguments (if as I hope I understand them correctly). I believe that you are explaining the way to create a torque by tipping a free foot. I believe that the goal of the phantom move is not to rotate the ski, but put the ski on the edge. Tipping as a part of a phantom move and counter movement helps to bring the hip over the new stance ski to the inside of the turn and put the ski on the edge. I believe that this is the main goal for both brushed carved turn and pure carved turn. The phantom move should work the same way for ?scarved? and carved turns. I want to control only lateral movements of the feet and this is what my current skiing sensations are. I think about the ski turn mechanics only in this way (of course I am not an expert) and a good example would be a snowboarder or a person on a monoski. Sure you can for example rotate your body to cause a turn, but I am looking at the most natural way of turning which would be putting the snowboard or a ski on the edge and applying additional force to bend it even more for an even shorter turn radius. Somehow an idea of applying a torque to the edged (and hopefully carving ski) does not sound convincing to me.

Hobbit

[*SCSA]

Good morning all,

Let's not go sideways on the phantom move. It is a move that is designed to help a skier learn tipping movements. It is a move that is part of a progression to get us to flexing and releasing. It is not, the "...key move in skiing"; it is only designed to get us to the key move, which as I say is flexing/releasing.

This comes directly from HH.

[Guest]

Since this seems to be the thread for off-the-wall theories of skiing ( ), I might as well hide mine under your banner, John, so you get the blame!

Consider a bent, edged ski moving thru snow (no skier aboard, just for a moment). First, I contend that the geometry of the bent, edged ski will take it thru a curved path by itself. In other words, I need you to accept that a ski will turn inherently without the need for human intervention. OK?

Now, let's study for a second the force needed to keep that ski moving in that turn. Suppose you tied a rope between tip and tail and drew it up like a bow to give the ski a fixed arc. Now let's set this thing down in the snow and explore how it reacts to force. Edge it and plant it good! Now push along the length. Hmmm, moves right along in its track. What if we push it from one side or the other? Either we meet snow resistance (one way) or we push it out of its track. Either way, it doesn't seem to improve on the curving action. The final force force vector, directly on top of the ski, seems to serve the purpose of increasing or decreasing the ski's bending.

OK. We've discovered that force delivered only along the length actually moves a ski forward, side-to-side is counterproductive, and up or down changes the geometry. Pretty obvious so far.

But wait. Since the ski is moving in a curved path, the two important force vectors must also be rotating, and they have to rotate perfectly so as not to give any residual force to that useless side-to-side vector. Put the skier aboard, now. His/her/(and, as a nod to *SCSA, "its") job is to maintain a smooth power transfer along the length of a ski moving in a curved path.

Of course, since the center of gravity of the skier (the source of force) is largely moving straight down the hill, the skier must translate linear motion to curvilinear motion in order to create the rotating force vector to power the ski. This is much like the piston of an old steam engine (linear) powering the drive wheels of a locomotive (circular).

What's the bottom line? YES THERE IS ROTATION, but it's an outcome not a cause. In other words, for a skier to power a turning ski (which it will do by shear geometry), a skier must (1) place the ski in the right attitude, (2) apply power only along the length, and (3) conform to the curving path of the ski as it moves below his straight-moving body.

So, in my mind, you can demonstrate that a ski doesn't need the will of man to turn, and all the body gymnastics are nothing more than conforming to the needs of a turning object while maintaining the required geometry in order for it to turn in the first place.

I might also observe this implies a ski or more or less dragged behind you rather than pushed ahead of you.

Now, maybe this is oversimplification, but for me, it put a stake in the heart of TTS and provided a physical understanding of why PMTS works.

[NoCleverName]

Above post by yours truly who cannot seem to stay logged on to make a post.

[Joseph]

MIT huh? Wicked cool. How'd the Beavahs do this year, no BCS bowl bid? Bettah luck next yeaah. Anyway, if you folks can find the publication from this year's international congress on skiing and science, there is further evidence substanciating the claim that skiing need not have rotary movements whatsoever. Presentation #12 was a demonstration of a computerized model based on a skiing robot (U. Glitsch presented). It is based on an article by Zehetmayer in a ski magazine. If you read German you should check it out, Fahrversuche mit Skimodellen In: Sportverletzung Sportschaden 4, 140-145. It might be interesting to you guys. The congress' publication is a little ridiculous to me (Even in English, it might as well be in robot). I'm lucky if I can calculate the tax at the shop. Most of it is rubbish that has a lot of math and a little to do with skiing in real life. Get out your graphing calculators boys! But hey, whatever bakes your cookies guys.

[*SCSA]

NoClever,
HH has always maintained that you setup the turn (patience!) so the skis turn themselves. So I guess that means you're one of...."us"?

As far as you participating in off the wall theories, hey man. I've had nothing but off the wall...Aw, I better not go there.

[Guest]

MIT huh? Wicked cool. How'd the Beavahs do this year, no BCS bowl bid? .

Well, I did see MIT play once this year against the Endicott Gulls (nice, ocean-view campus). Although outmanned, they played with enthusiasm and pride 'till the end. The roster didn't represent every state in the union only because there weren't enough players to represent every state.

As to being a PMTS'er, I can relate that when I was pressed into service helping out a ski school last year and mentioned all I knew was PMTS the director replied, "Well, that doesn't make you a bad person". But I really need to get back into the job market so I can desparately get to a camp or find someone who can show me the real ropes.

The above by "NoCleverName"; I think this system loves me being a guest.

[Joseph]

Check out the Alignment section on the Harb Ski Systems web site. It will give you a link to the alignment center in the east. Glen can show you the "real ropes" I'll be back east in a few weeks too, perhaps we can ski together.

[John Mason]

I agree totally with what you said SCSA about flexing and high performance to of the turn carving. Even then, though you have to actively tip the inside foot or the tendency will be for that foot to be lazy and not tip enough. The Phantom Move never goes away, just how it is used.

The rotation component of the phantom move is useful for non-carved skiing like hocky stops, doing a ninety degree rotation while tetering at the top of the bump. But to engage the "passive following" (HH's term in an earlier post) there has to be slight tension in the hips. One can easily disable this pasive following by just letting the hips relax. You can stand on top of a bump, do the phantom move, and if your hips are not tensed (slight co-contraction of the hip rotator muscles), no rotation component will occur and you'll have your two skis go in two directions.

In my own playing around, if you do the phantom move you can either allow the tipping to match or leave your stance foot flat to the snow. Here is how you activate the two different reponses. If you leave the stance foot flat by just keeping that stance foot relaxed, that is the specific case where strong rotation is felt. If you tip the inside foot while simply standing on the stance foot this is where the tipping matches and no rotation if felt. It just depends on if you stand on the stance foot tensing the ankle in the process or if you leave the stance foot ankle relaxed which response you get.

Normal use of the phantom move is for carving and matched tipping. In all cases, any rotation created is passive which is totally different then the way most skiers are taught to ski.

[*SCSA]

That's right, the phantom never goes away.

If there's one thing that I've noticed we all (PMTSians) have trouble with, it's the flexing/release move. With me, I've had trouble with the flex move. I wasn't flexing, or my flex was upside down sometimes.

Hmm. I think HH should devote some time to the flex move. Most of us have it wrong, or we're not flexing at all.