How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coach

PMTS Forum

How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coach

Postby h.harb » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:08 am

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.
User avatar
h.harb
 
Posts: 7047
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:08 pm
Location: Dumont, Colorado

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby blackthorn » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:36 am

Truely great teachers in any subject are a rarity. What a privilege it must be to attend a PMTS camp.
blackthorn
 
Posts: 224
Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2013 1:33 pm
Location: South Island, New Zealand

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby milesb » Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:04 pm

Harold, that was fascinating, thanks for posting it.
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH78E6wIKnq3Fg0eUf2MFng
User avatar
milesb
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:17 am
Location: Los Angeles

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby h.harb » Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:24 pm

Thanks Miles but it's actually HarAld
User avatar
h.harb
 
Posts: 7047
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:08 pm
Location: Dumont, Colorado

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby milesb » Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:51 pm

Damn, I'm usually more careful about that!
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH78E6wIKnq3Fg0eUf2MFng
User avatar
milesb
 
Posts: 981
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:17 am
Location: Los Angeles

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby jbotti » Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:12 pm

I got numerous emails from Max last year detailing how he was working on slow 2FRs and how great he felt they were for his skiing. I spent a good part of last season working these and have included it in my drill work this season. Yes, hard to find a drill that requires all the essentials to be in place every time or failure will occur. I do think because it requires all the essentials to be in place to achieve success is the reason it's called a high level drill.

Having seen Harald teaching on the hill may times (and usually its me and my skiing that is causing him to reach for new approaches) he is the master at finding something (often quite the opposite of what you might expect) that will propel the student to the next level.
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
User avatar
jbotti
 
Posts: 2184
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2003 10:05 am

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby Doghouse » Sat Jan 17, 2015 6:40 pm

Great post! I'm continually impressed with the amount of effort and quality that is put into this site and all PMTS materials! Thank you for giving us the coaches perspective. Attending any of your camps must be an amazing experience. One that I hope to enjoy some day soon.
Doghouse
 
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 7:15 pm

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby geoffda » Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:10 pm

I hope people understand how absolutely rare Harald is as a coach. What he just described isn't just good coaching, it is completely unique. To start with, nobody is working from the level of knowledge and experience that he possesses. When you combine that with his unparalleled instincts, you get a level of coaching that can't be duplicated. This is best in the world coaching. The best skiers in the world don't have access to this level of coaching, but we do. Take advantage of it!
Last edited by geoffda on Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
geoffda
 
Posts: 862
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:42 am
Location: Copper Mountain, CO

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby speedcontrol » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:41 pm

After reading this post twice , I have absolutely no doubt that this forum is an extraordinary place to learn about skiing and skiers development.
speedcontrol
 
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:01 pm
Location: Canada

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby semnoz » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:12 am

Thanks for the great post, very helpful and informative.
semnoz
 
Posts: 58
Joined: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:25 am

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby skijim13 » Thu Feb 19, 2015 4:46 am

Having a PSIA background and attending many training sessions with PSIA Coachs including their week long Pro Jam. My wife and I attended the Superblue camp in January. I can tell you that there is no comparasion, their coaching and knowledge of teaching is a class by itself. Don't waste your money on any other type of lesson but a PMTS lesson. Even if you can't afford a camp, purchase all the videos and books and work with a partner and video each doing the drills to validate you are doing them correctly.
skijim13
 
Posts: 528
Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 9:17 am
Location: Nazareth PA USA

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby Bolter » Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:38 am

I could not agree more. In my thirty plus years of attending every type of clinic you can imagine (PSIA or USSA) nothing comes close to the four days I spent at this seasons Tech Camp. I attended the camp with a fellow Timberline coach (John A) who also has 25 plus years of full time teaching/clinic experience. He was equally impressed with the camp. With no exaggeration, he and I completely changed our view of coaching. The importance of drills, focused skiing (no free runs), the balanced turn and not moving on until the drill is owned/integrated are the biggest changes in our coaching approach. Our athletes and parents say this seasons training is the best yet- and the reason for it is the training approach we learned at the camp.
User avatar
Bolter
 
Posts: 393
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2006 8:33 am
Location: Copper CO.

Re: How it happens or another day in the life of a PMTS coac

Postby h.harb » Thu Feb 19, 2015 1:26 pm

"You mean this PMTS shit actually works????" Sorry, had to respond to the Epic forums of the world.
User avatar
h.harb
 
Posts: 7047
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:08 pm
Location: Dumont, Colorado


Return to Primary Movements Teaching System

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 44 guests