Recently Diana and I went out and filmed an update version of the "Two Footed Release" for an instructional video piece. It will be on our Harb Company web page for downloading this spring at $8. In addition I did a piece on hip counter and hip CB, last spring. The skiing part is complete, now I'm filming the indoor training, hip awareness and movement part. This will hopefully generate more mid-body awareness, movement and flexibility.
The reason I bring this up is because of my experience in the last three days during our, Intense "carving camp". When you have a group of skiers, that shows little "tipping" ability, (edge angle development through the arc) it can be frustrating for both the coach and the student. Limited ability to move the lower body laterally or range of movements in students, may bring many coaches to a halt. And the more you try to force the legs to tip, and the ski to increase edge angle, the worst it gets. So the picture isn't mirky, you identify the problem and then you have to come up with ways to loosen up your students. The picture of skiing with limited tipping unfortunately shows large turns with extended skidding. The reason is obvious, with little ski angle there is no ski bending happening and therefore the transition to the next turn is very difficult. This next transition usually requires some form of extension, push and rotation because there is little grip or energy from the previous turn to generate a release.
Logically you would address tipping movements with tried and trusted exercises to create awareness and movements. However you maybe headed down the wrong path with this approach. Why? Tipping is a rather delicate function, predicated by one's confidence that balance won't be lost and muscles around the hip joints be relaxed. If the student's default movements are due to their skiing history, which has limited lower body tipping, they will be geared toward compensating for this lack of lower body tipping, by using extension and pushing. Reversing this set of movements with tipping exercises, is indeed a big ask.
Therefore; it may come to getting to the root of the improvements by a more circuitous route. And that route can begin with getting hold of destructive upper body involvement. Some will ask, are you teaching tipping by getting the upper body to stop rotating? The answer is Yes. Let's understand one thing first, you really can't go wrong by teaching or introducing movements that access or enhance any of the 5 Essentials of PMTS. Picking the movements that will be most effective and lead you to the improvement results you want often requires, feeling your way through a maze or minefield. As a coach, you have limited time and students have limited energy and attention. So you don't want to burn up the fuel or run down their energy battery with less then a well thought out end run.
Learning to correctly move and orient the upper body i.e.. "counter acting", will free up the legs to achieve increased tipping. It allows the student to achieve a better sense of balance and therefore confidence to let go or relax. I remember early on in the development phases of PMTS, way back in 1993 and 94, I always wanted to have the concept of "Relaxing" as part of every movement phase in the system. Relax the legs to release, and avoid all forceful twisting, instead of forcing and twisting, (steering) let gravity do most of the work to get the turns started, by balancing and relaxing. This theme serves us well and if a coach goes out with a group and keeps this word and function known as "Relax" at the forefront of any session, success is much more likely.
So back to the actual situation, which is, more tipping through less upper body disruption. After some CA exercises and practice, and some garland releasing and engaging exercises, you can be ready to address, turn size, and speed control. How does this come up, when all I've mentioned so far is tipping and upper body control? Well, it's fairly easy to understand that if you aren't tipping much, you have turn size problems and speed control problems.
The answer? The magic tool or magic bullet is, the slow, single, two footed release. This is the single best way to access your movements, it incorporates everything that you need to do and know; for all high levels of skiing.
Teaching the "2 Footed Release", isn't simple and it's definitely not easy. To teach this well you have to practice teaching it. You have to practice with live subjects at every level of skiing.
To this coach, the 2 footed release is the single most important, relevant and completely encompassing exercise ever invented in skiing. And it's not easy, in fact to do it right requires lots of practice and complete competence of movements.
I can take very accomplished racers and show them the 2FR and they will go home crying, because the old man can do it, but they can't come close. We, who understand and use PMTS know that a 2FR, isn't a version of Pivot Slips. Although to the uneducated; they can be confused. However the two are diametrically opposite in movement and concept.
Back to my skiers in the Carving Camp: After the preliminaries, we embarked on learning the 2FR. You have to keep in mind, not every skier wants to spend this amount of time and frustration on this one exercise. The light at the end of this tunnel when you first try the 2FR, unfortunately can look as daunting to the students, as trying to solve the issues and crisis around radical Islam in the Middle East, by western nations.
So what happened? Well we worked on the 2FR for about 2 hours. Low and behold, after much correction, wedging, twisting and edge catching; the gravity propelled release and little toe edge tipping with patience, won over the ability to resist balance and facilitated relaxing.
How great is it when you see skiers begin to relax, because they have stopped pushing "their own selves" out of balance by extending and rotating. It's hard to tell students sometimes they are creating their own balancing deficiencies, but they do.
The end result for skiers is they can release, stay in balance and don't have to work so hard to get turns to happen. They can for the first time realize what it is to relax, let gravity and the skis do most of the work. Amazingly, this effort translated almost immediately on to blue run connected turns, with lower body tipping confidence.
So does this conflict with determining the SMIM??? Not really, you still have to determine the SMIM, but you can get to it by a circuitous route.