Dealing with breaking wedge

[ydnar]

How does PMTS deal with a first time student who, despite the coaching they recieive, discover the braking wedge and become somewhat or very dependent on it to control their forward momentum?

yd

[John Mason]

A first time student - i've had 3 of those - the situation never came up because we worked in gentle traverse drills so that by the time they were going more down the fall line and actually doing a turn, they were already very comfortable with turning uphill to stop.

For an existing student that is using a braking or gliding wedge here is a link that may help:

http://www.harbskisystems.com/olg2.htm

Some people also call this drill the Phantom Drag

However, if they still don't have the basic basics of stepping or turning uphill to stop, they'll still might revert to that braking wedge to stop.

I'm not a cert anything, but just my thoughts on this for what it's worth.

I also work with people on sideslips (the PMTS way which is a bit different) so that they can create and control speed in a narrow situation without using the wedge.

Catwalks with a slight slope to the side are great for working on this with people and catwalks are another situation where students often will opt for a breaking wedge instead of the partial side slip alternative.

[Rusty Guy]

Yd,

I have never seen a breaking wedge. Braking wedges are a different animal!

[*SCSA]

Rusty,
Epic milk day at Vail today.

We had a huge posse, we were killin it. Laps all day, 8:30 to 4. Milk all day. Top to bottom skiing, all day.

It's why I moved up here. Unbelievable turns today.

[Eddy E]

RG, Thought you were gone for good, too bad. Another completely useless post. but when that's the standard you set, you have to live up to it, I guess.

[Jim Ratliff]

Geez, Eddy. Give him a break (not brake).

There is so much sloppy and incorrect use of English everywhere, a minor correction is never a waste of time.

Besides, I just saw another post from "ydnar" over on Epic and the word was spelled correctly, so there was gain from the post.

[*SCSA]

Eddy,
Lay off of Rusty. He's with me. No, he's with us!

[Rusty Guy]

Eddy,

Ydnar is a long time friend. I think he understands it's a little play on words. By the way, unless you simply don't get it, the war is over.

SCSA, I'm working a little at WP/MJ with a few clients as well as giving them a little extra help on busy days and they got a foot tuesday. It's nice to see a little snow coming down. I'm anxious to get together and ski with you.

[Harald]

I start over when I see skiers with a breaking wedge. What happens to most skiers is they take a lesson and then think they can go up the mountain. The only thing they have in their repertoire is a wedge, maybe a wedge turn. If you are up on a mountain and that?s all you know, what are you going to do to get down? You are going to spread the skis and break or try to control speed with the wedge.

In PMTS we take a skier with a breaking wedge and teach them a straight run. Have them do a number of straight runs and shallow traverses on an easy slope. Once they are comfortable moving with the feet together or parallel, have them do some straight runs with lifting one ski, then the other. Now add some tipping to the lifting ski. The skier will turn in the direction of the tipping. Do this in both directions. Static tipping exercises are always helpful for these skiers.

Once this skier can make turns in both directions with a lift and tilt, built the turn starting slightly across and into the falline, but very shallow. Allow them to pick up a little speed before they perform the lift and tilt. In no time the skier will realize that all turns begin with a lift and tilt. Once they see how easy this is compared to the wedge, they will begin to use it automatically for every direction change.