Teaching Children

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Teaching Children

Postby Basil j » Wed Feb 05, 2014 7:41 am

h.harb wrote:Yesterday we filmed 7 to 9 year old kids learning PMTS. Getting them to understand tipping and balancing on one foot most of the day. Narrowing the stance is the answer. Amazing to everyone who watched the kids improving with PMTS movements, that a wedge is still being taught anywhere because it's such a huge detriment to progress and learning.

In the current Sports Illustrated Magazine there is a huge article about Mikaela Shiffrin, in it, her mother says, "we never taught Mikaeka a wedge and we by-passed USSA development programs and criteria. Good advice for all.
The wedge is PSIA and the USSA Development program is run by the US Ski Team. Which as anyone can see is not at all a development program, it's an elimination program.

In the last ten years it has not developed one women except Vonn. So what are they spending money on????? Right now only one women on the whole US ski team can qualify in the top 30 in Slalom and GS, and she didn't go through US development. And Mancuso who is a former world junior champion is barely making the top 10. The system is broken from the top down. Keep doing the same thing over and over and get the same results.

The resources that the US Ski Team has and spends is amazing, a huge building in Park City, the CEO was making over $600,000, and producing what?


HH will you be posting videos of the Children learning PMTS? I would love to see it! I still battle with my kids teachings every weekend. They are in a race prep program and they continue to be taught wider stance & 2footed skiing, hip dumping etc... It has been a big challenge getting them to sit and watch PMTS videos, mainly because they see adults in the videos and don't relate to who they are watching. Both of their coaches are former "racers" so in their minds they have instant credibility over dad. I just started doing a masters program on Saturday mornings rotating between slalom and GS training every other weekend and those coaches are much more open minded and are quite familiar with your system. Although they don't teach PMTS, they readily embrace a narrow stance and one footed skiing. I hope by my kids seeing me run gates that, they will be more open minded to some of my advice.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Max_501 » Wed Feb 05, 2014 7:59 am

Basil j wrote:HH will you be posting videos of the Children learning PMTS? I would love to see it! I still battle with my kids teachings every weekend. They are in a race prep program and they continue to be taught wider stance & 2footed skiing, hip dumping etc... It has been a big challenge getting them to sit and watch PMTS videos, mainly because they see adults in the videos and don't relate to who they are watching. Both of their coaches are former "racers" so in their minds they have instant credibility over dad.


Why not take them out of the program and teach them yourself until they have mastered the fundamentals? Once that step is done put them back in to get gate time. If you want your kids to learn PMTS movements you will likely have to take responsibility for their coaching. That is what I did with my kids and why I became a PMTS accredited coach.

For race models use Hirscher and Schild, or grab one of Shiffrin's better runs if you want a teen.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Basil j » Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:34 am

My intent is to became a PMTS green/Blue coach as well, but for now, I have already spent the money on their current program and don't feel like I possess the necessary skills to teach them effectively yet. I get them after class and by that time all they want to do is free ski. When I have spent some mornings with them, they have effectively performed the phantom move, yet don't do it on a consistent basis. I see an Immediate improvement when they do it, which is even more frustrating. Any ideas you can share that worked with your kids would be great. I try to pick one thing to work on a day, but they get bored easily and I feel like I have long way to go before I can effectively coach my own kids.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Max_501 » Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:56 pm

Basil j wrote:I have already spent the money on their current program


Are you happy with the results of the current program? If not, then keeping them in is doing more harm than good because what they are learning is becoming the default movement pattern.

Basil j wrote:and don't feel like I possess the necessary skills to teach them effectively yet.


The question you have to ask yourself is if you can do a better job than the program. All you have to do is follow the steps HH has written in the instructor's manual. It's so easy even a gaper can do it. I know because I was a gaper when I taught my kids! :mrgreen:
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby jbotti » Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:00 pm

Maybe we can get Max to talk about his incentive based PMTS learning program that he designed for his 2 children. Max has great kids that really wanted to ski well and race well and they even listened to their father (which we all know is very rare). But even with great kids that were eager to learn Max created an incentive program that rewarded practice and drill work.

The only thing I have ever heard from my daughter on the mountain when I try to work with her on her skiing is "You are not and will never be my ski instructor!!"

The truth is that at times she has let me work with her and usually with some great progress but I hear the above comment around 70% of the time.

The challenges of teaching skiing to our children are abundant. Not that it can't be done but if I have had my choice I would have someone other than me giving the instruction (and I realize in advance that for many that is not an option).

PMTS camps and privates help a ton and Max's kids have been to camps and my daughter has worked with Harald and Diana with awesome results.
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Basil j » Wed Feb 05, 2014 5:04 pm

jbotti wrote:Maybe we can get Max to talk about his incentive based PMTS learning program that he designed for his 2 children. Max has great kids that really wanted to ski well and race well and they even listened to their father (which we all know is very rare). But even with great kids that were eager to learn Max created an incentive program that rewarded practice and drill work.

The only thing I have ever heard from my daughter on the mountain when I try to work with her on her skiing is "You are not and will never be my ski instructor!!"
I get the same thing!
The truth is that at times she has let me work with her and usually with some great progress but I hear the above comment around 70% of the time.

The challenges of teaching skiing to our children are abundant. Not that it can't be done but if I have had my choice I would have someone other than me giving the instruction (and I realize in advance that for many that is not an option).
I agree on this as well. My wife at times can be worse than the kids.

PMTS camps and privates help a ton and Max's kids have been to camps and my daughter has worked with Harald and Diana with awesome results.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby CRM.OZ » Thu Feb 06, 2014 2:16 am

To learn about Max's incentive based program would be great. I have always respected and appreciated Max's wisdom, knowledge and experience that he has shared on this forum about all types of subjects and technicalities.

If I may add a point also - is that I strongly feel that it is very important "how" you delivery the message, "the teaching" to the kids, it has to be simple, clear and positively orientated. Meaning that I feel at times as parents it is so easy to say to our kids - Don't do that! or Not like that, etc - instead of perhaps - good try, but what if you try it this way, or - you might find it easier if you do this or try it this way etc. When something is really off and not working I say to my son - OK this is not working for you - lets try a different exercise.

One final point if kids or anyone for that matter is not ready or willing to learn - no matter what you do, you won't be able to teach them. The psychology always comes first.

I first taught my son Hudson the wedge at age 5, and then the stem Christy etc - he has always loved the hockey stop! Then around the ages of 8 & 9 he didn't want to learn anymore from me and I didn't want to send him to an Australian Ski School. So I waited until he was 10 and our first family trip to CO and to HH's camp in 2012, the excitement of our first family trip to the US was incentive enough and my son went to the ski school at Solvista venue of the (green blue camp) where the ski school is a PMTS school. He thinks it is really cool that he knows Harald, Dianna, Chris, Rich and Bob (PMTS instructors). He won a commendation at school last year on his iMovie project which was all about Harald as his favourite ski coach. - Hopefully the incentive and his motivation will last long enough for me to save enough money to return to Colorado soon and to keep the dream alive!

Good luck Basil - stay committed.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Basil j » Thu Feb 06, 2014 9:05 am

Delivering the message is where I struggle. teaching your own kids anything can be a challenge. Helluva gave me a great idea yesterday. There is a 17 year old who is training to coach that is a fantastic skier, who does a lot of PMTS movements instinctively who I am going to ask if she would do some runs with my kids in the afternoons and have them focus on one movement at a time. It may be "cooler" to learn from one of the racers than from dad.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Max_501 » Thu Feb 06, 2014 9:47 am

Start by re-reading ACBAES Book 1 Chapter 11. And then consider reading the instructor's manual (seriously read it 3x because it is jam packed with detail that can help you become an expert instructor).

Max_501 wrote:Double post but figured this should be in this thread too:

Prior to discovering PMTS about 10 years ago, I spent a weekend teaching the kids a wedge and I noticed that every so often one of them would make a nearly parallel turn. This clued me in that something was different about the shaped skis and after a bit of research I found the PMTS books/videos.

I asked my kids if they would like to learn how to ski like an expert. They said yes, so I showed them the PMTS videos and asked if they would like to ski like Harald. Again, they said yes and I pointed out that Harald was teaching us how to ski on the video and if we did the things he said we'd learn to ski just like him. They were ages 5 and 8 when we started. Many of their friends skied blue and black runs. So they wanted to ski those runs too. This was great because they were motivated to learn to ski so they could ski those runs like their friends were allowed to do. I explained that once they learned ABC and did it well on a green run then they could move to the blue run. And then once they learned XYZ on a blue run they could move to a black run. I think it was roughly 40 days on the snow before they skied their first black run. By the time they skied their first black run they looked amazing. The next year they started racing. I didn't do anything special, I simply followed the steps from the Expert Skier 1 and 2 books.

Note: it took a couple of years for my 5 year old to get rid of the wedge entry move. That big toe to big toe movement pattern can be hard to shake.


In addition I used a reward based system to boost their motivation. Things like increasing TV and video game time allotment or taking them to a movie in exchange for a positive attitude and working hard at the drills. I would point out the best skiers and get all excited about how awesome it was that we would be able to ski like that! And we watched the first 2 videos so many times I lost count. Again, reward them for watching with you. Point out the things that HH is doing that they are doing too and also the things they are working towards. "See how Harald lifts the tail of his ski, do you think you can do it like that?"

There are more ideas in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3057
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby RRT » Thu Feb 06, 2014 10:44 am

Can't help saying THANKS Max for your response to this question including the listing of the suggested thread.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Max_501 » Tue Feb 11, 2014 6:31 pm

Excerpts from the Jan 12, 2014 NY Times Article about Mikaela Shiffrin, titled "No Plan, Just World Domination".

Not surprisingly, any predetermined strategy was remarkably elemental and always focused on process, not results. Jeff and Eileen, former college-level racers, believed in basic tenets, like keeping a light race schedule for their children as they loaded up on practice days filled with deliberate, skills-based drills and exercises.

And, they said, it was imperative to keep family close by.

Yet, these were controversial theories in the ski racing community - both when Mikaela was starting out and when she advanced to the World Cup.

Youth coaches were livid when Mikaela, faster than skiers several years older, chose to stay close to home to practice with her family instead of representing the local mountain and chasing the prestige of distant championships. Several years later, Eileen said, the United States ski team was adamantly against her accompaniment of Mikaela on the World Cup circuit in Europe. Eileen went anyway, and the Shiffrins paid for it for three years.

"Our plan produced the first 17-year-old World Cup champion the U.S. has ever had," Eileen said. "They should thank us for our $ 500,000 donation to the U.S. ski team."

The message, the Shiffrins insist, is that their approach, which stressed skill development and shunned goal setting, and always involved the family, has been the secret. If there was a secret.




When Taylor did not make a travel soccer team with all his new friends, the reaction of the Shiffrins was emblematic of their approach to almost everything.

"My mom went on Amazon and bought about 10 different World Cup soccer DVDs," Mikaela said. "And she bought 12-foot-high rebound nets and bungee cords and all these contraptions so we could set up our own soccer complex in the backyard. Every day that summer, we had our own soccer camp for six or eight hours."

Mikaela recalled that they bought a unicycle because Eileen had read that it was good for balance, which she considered a pivotal athletic skill. The Shiffrin children also learned to juggle to improve their coordination.

"We then started going around our block, which was two miles long, riding the unicycle and juggling at the same time,"Mikaela said. "And if I was doing that, then Taylor would be behind me dribbling a soccer ball as he ran around the block."

Eileen was confident it would pay off, even as she worried what people were saying about her children.

"You would see the neighbors coming out to watch the Shiffrins going around the block juggling on a unicycle," Eileen said. "I'm sure they thought we were completely nuts."

But the next summer, Taylor and Mikaela made their travel soccer teams.

As Eileen recalled: "The coach said to me: "What did you do? They're great now." And I said, "You don't really want to know."

Jeff said: "Some people might call our approach intense. But it's not, because the motivation is not to be better than other people at something. The motivation comes from a belief that almost anything can be mastered if you're willing to put in the hours to master it. If you're going to do something, do it as best as you can."


Image
Mikaela age 9 at Mt Bachelor

Mikaela and Taylor, who races for the University of Denver, insist they were never pushed in athletics.

"I'd say it was the opposite," Mikaela said. "I remember as a little girl in Vail, it would be a powder day and my parents would say, 'Let's go free ski in the back bowls.' And I'd say: 'No, I want to stay on the racecourse and train. I'm working on my pole plants.' I wanted to get better at something every day."
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby h.harb » Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:20 pm

She looks just like the kids I teach and coach PMTS racing to out in California. She definitely got PMTS type coaching and it wasn't from USSA. This is excellent skiing.
Here in this photo we see CB, CA, Inside hand forward, not reaching for the block, tipping the inside foot and flexing the inside leg. Looks like the check points or reference points.

Where have you heard this before? Ahhaa maybe the HH Blog, this forum, the Essentials book and DVD, PMTS camps, You Tube, my Facebook page? You pick it, we got it. And while USSA is still "[url]Questing[/url] for Skills . PMTS has already established "Skills Acquisition" 16 years ago.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby h.harb » Tue Feb 11, 2014 8:01 pm

Although she doesn't have the "no swing pole tap", but that was 9 years ago.
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby Icanski » Sat Feb 15, 2014 6:55 pm

Hi,
I saw the blog notes about Harald teaching kids at Welch Village, (I think it was). Is there any video posted, or could you give us an idea how you progressed with them? Did you do the slantboard work inside before you went out, then start on the hill with the walking and foot movements? I'd like to see video and find the progression you used. It would be great to try it here with our kids.
They are telling the kids to roll their legs over like on hockey skates, but it doesn't speak to balance or starting the movements with the foot.
I also like the ridge. Been trying to get them to make one here, but they don't get how it works (because they think a wedge wouldn't work with it...)
:roll:
Looked like there were great results there.

If this discussion is on a different thread, please pass on the link.
regards,
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Re: Teaching Children

Postby h.harb » Sat Feb 15, 2014 7:13 pm

Check out the Welch Village blog and my Facebook and the Welch Village VP blog. It's all there. At least the short intro version. The rest is still "in house" and production begins this summer.

I particularly like the inside hand arm and shoulder lift, in the Schiffrin photo, this isn't natural, it was coached and it is really obvious someone put some effort there. The irony, she should use more of it now, obviously not getting the same quality of coaching from US Ski Team.
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