Hi BigE! This answers some points you brought up in another thread that were off topic to that thread. I'll stick it here where it's easier for people to add their thoughts and comments to.
In going over the various PMTS material, one can get the impression that you must be able to balance on one ski to do the drills since lots of them are one ski drills. Since this can be a scary or impossible prospect for a beginners first movements on the skis due to inexperience and or alignment, I did not see clearly how one would proceed with a true beginner.
I watched HH do a lesson with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago that was still a pretty novice skier who was not athletic nor had many balancing skills and who had pretty bad alignment. He had had some traditional lessons of the "mash the grape under the big toe" pizza type (his exact expression of what he was taught) and was a heavy wedger.
I was wondering how HH would proceed since I had made many statements that without some sort of initial alignment I didn't see how PMTS could work for the beginning skier. HH had him do some one ski drills just to be able to see his alignment and it was really bad. So, how to proceed?
I then watched HH teach him the two footed release as a garland. This keeps both feet on the ground yet still results in parallel turning right off the bat without having to cross the fall line. Then HH progressed him to full two footed release turns. He was skiing parallel almost immediatly. He found he was able to turn with no effort, a totally new experience for him. I believe my friends transition would have been even easier had he not been fighting his "initiate with leg steering and wedging" muscle memory.
I skied with my friend the next day. For the first couple of seconds he wedged like old times. I said stop to him (or yelled it in a friendly manner guarenteed to get his attention). I asked him why he was doing that. He said he didn't know. The rest of the day he never wedged and did parallel turns all day. His wife, who is a much more experienced skier than he, was amazed that he could be parallel after one lesson.
Now, for my friend to progress to the next levels, he will have to get aligned and bootfitted, but who doesn't. I did not realize how much progress could be made with a beginner with a bad setup like he had.