I was deck training at Ski Doctors today. John Clendenon is Black PMTS certified and takes his own approach to teaching primary movements.
Tommorrow is a full day of bump training with him on Ajax here at Aspen.
Two of my Lafayette Ski Club friends are also doing this with me and for them it's there very first exposure to PMTS. The deck training was for them a real eye opener.
John went through preliminary explanations for them that covered why knee pointing was bad, why foot steering was bad, and related them all to connecting the CM to your feet. Then proceeded to re-program my two friends on the deck. On the deck non-primary movements disrupted balance. While primary movements enhanced balance. This was obvious. My two friends with decades of skiing experience were amazed and are estactic about their coming bump ski day tomorrow with John Clendenon.
It just interesting to see the results of PMTS instruction on a deck show the realities of some of the silly discussions of late. That's where the theory meets the road so to speak. The differences of approaches were obvious.
Of other interesting note, we saw a video of all of John's coaches which includes one of the newest National Demo team members. John said kidding around that they almost got him skiing where they want him.
At least in Aspen a primary movements approach is making real headway in a number of different directions. The PMTS mene is hard to stop since it's so effective.
John was telling me how the use of the deck was how this style of instruction was able to be "proven" to some of the diehards and he is working with the ski school now. You can feel and test different movement patterns instantly on the deck. This is also why carvers work so well. You "die" if you stem a carver. Black snow is hard (SCSA's term for pavement).
So, I'm off to get further brainwashed tomorrow and will love every minute of it.
Oh, and the saliant point was reitereated, you don't steer either with the foot or the hip rotators to ski bumps. You generate all the rotary you need with inside foot tipping. As was demonstrated to my two friends on the deck, to do otherwise disrupts balance.
At the party tonight PMTS style movement patterns was the topic of discussion as my friends (not me) were telling their friends how the way they had skied for years was not very effective on the deck and the other way worked great with finer control and better balance. They couldn't wait to try it on the slopes tomorrow. (coming from people that skied a lot over 30 years for one and 20 years for the other and are two of the better skiers in the club, this was fun to see)
Sorry rambling - good night