I am impressed by the depth of understanding and the commitment to accuracy in your discussions. If most ski instructors could hold this level of discussion, the understanding of skiing and application of efficient movements in skiing would increase over night. That said, I will attempt to answer some of the questions that ensued during my absence.
My participation lately in the forum has been limited, as I have been occupied with other business needs. I have so much to announce, but that must wait until after I catch up. Harb Ski Systems is having an enormous growth spurt. I have to attend to business at many different levels.
Back to skiing:
We must always remember to keep the PMTS movement progression in context with the level of skier and the movement needs at that level. This is where the instructor community has largely misinterpreted and misleads itself, regarding the PMTS system. They often state that the Phantom Move is the whole system or that PMTS is too, edge carve oriented. As you all know, this is only ignorance and this level of ignorance only serves to baffle and perpetuate misinformation to the greater instructor community. Skiers who read my books and try PMTS don?t seem to fall into this trap (maybe misinformation is self inflicted). PMTS is a complete system, and holistic system. Movement progression and the ability to achieve movements in PMTS require that you build on the previous movement. But PMTS movements can branch in many directions for specific refinement. All the PMTS movements increase skiing ease, and provide balance required to make efficient turns.
The Phantom Move or Phantom Turn, for example, recruits a series of movements that consolidates an early parallel turn. The Super Phantom refines and increases versatility with higher balance requirements. As balance with PMTS movements? increases, wider ranges of skiing are available to the skier. In the early stages of PMTS we clearly stand on one ski and transfer balance from one foot to the other. Tipping and tilting are the basic movements we teach in our many and varied progressions and exercises. Later as a skier refines balance through PMTS, versatility becomes more available. To gain higher levels of skiing quickly, demands you experiment with your balance. Supplemental balance activities can also shorten the learning curve.
I must comment here that the PSIA ski schools and the organization itself, have incorporated tipping and tilting into their programs. If you review PSIA literature before my first book there are no references to tipping in the movements describing how to make turns. They list ?Edging? as a skill, but they never were able to tie it to their movements. In other words the ?how? was not in their teaching. Their progression was so focused on the maneuvers rather than necessary movements, that skiing versatility was rarely achieved.
Although tipping now is acceptable in PSIA, they still refuse to discard the most detrimental element in their understanding, the rotary components. Students are still subjected to leg steering, foot turning. When you do this all benefits and effectiveness of tipping and tilting are lost. Therefore there is no net gain or advantage to adding tipping. Remember our all mountain camps especially, at Big Sky? What would have happened to your skiing, and your body, if had been trying rotary movements on some of those steep slopes or bumps? I can?t even conceive of rotary movements in those critical situations. I know one thing, you never would attempt advanced skiing if you had rotary movement as your focus. The response from the PSIA side will be, ?How come we have instructors who can ski that terrain.? My answer is the one that I hear from all the PSIA certification candidates. ?My examiner told me to ski with my feet apart and to use rotary movements, but when it came down to his skiing, when he needed performance, he closed his stance and tipped his skis.? The good PSIA trainers use tipping and pressure. I know that ?good to great skiers? use only tipping and pressure. Years and generations of national and world class racers have proved it. That?s just the way good skiers ski. The ones who are relegated to the groomers ski the wide stance and focus on the rotary leg approach. This is limiting technique.
But the question you asked was, do we twist or pivot in the PMTS System? Answer, NO!!! The reference in the ongoing thread was about bump skiing at the top of the bump or mogul.
When I designed PMTS, I worked through ever conceivable input and resultant of actions. After I narrowed the skiing movements down to only the efficient movements; I tested the movements with students of all levels below experts, including beginners (remember I had a life time of coaching expert skiers, so I didn?t need to research their movements). I found that you could teach skiing without referring to or teaching movements like pivoting, steering, or turning, parts of the body below the hips.
Now, as you all know, that doesn?t mean we only achieve locked carved turns when using the PMTS system. In fact, at the early levels, PMTS is a very skidded progression. Brushed carves or skidded turns are achieved in PMTS by changing the duration and intensity of tipping. If I have speed and momentum, I can choose to carve or brush my turn, by how quickly and how much I tip my skis. If I tilt my skis to only 25% of what is necessary to achieve lock carve and I don?t extend the legs to create pressure; I get skidded turns. I don?t have to add rotary movements to achieve a skidded or as TTS call them, ?guided turns?.
Rotary movements are actually limiting, and they impose lower skiing quality, turn standards, with reduced control. That method also increases balance disruption. Anyone who tells you different does not understand their (own) skiing and is spewing dogma.
I have yet to see a student appear at our door complaining that they are carving too much and can?t get out of a locked carved turn. I wish we could have that problem, as it is much easier to fix that situation, then the one where the student is steering as their primary movement function. We teach PMTS carving movements because that is what the client wants and needs to achieve higher levels of skiing.
Now back to ?the top of a bump?, you tip the skis with and from a bent or flexed leg situation. We do not spin our skis. They already do that too much on their own. We try to angle them to achieve a ?high C? turn gaining speed control. If you go down the other road you are lost in a quagmire of inefficiency, confusion, frustration and in some cases denial. We are trying to edge or grip on the down side, or front face of the bump before you land in the trough. John Clendenin teaches this in his bump camps. He uses the inside tipping of the free foot to control edge angles. Free foot tipping as in the Phantom Move contains and includes many of the secrets of advanced skiing.
The Super Phantom does not have a movement that lifts the Center of Gravity up to the little toe edge. The transfer of balance is made with the lower leg or old outside leg bending or collapsing and the body naturally transfers to the little toe edge. The inside leg takes over stance from a flexed position. The free foot either weighted or un-weighted tips downhill toward the falline.
Once-and-for-all, the actions of tipping and tilting pull the femurs into passive rotation, to follow the tipping action of the skis, boots and skis. This is not taught in PMTS, it is part of the kinetic chain in action. Teaching active steering disrupts tipping and balancing so important to PMTS efficiency. In many advanced situations tipping with body inclination and body counter can reduce leg rotation almost completely and in this case there is no passive or active rotation of the legs. It always continues to amaze me that otherwise intelligent people can tell me that you can?t make ski turns with out rotary leg movements. It is very easy to prove that turning can be achieved without leg steering of any kind. Skis can also be turned without active tipping or rotary movements, but this is a flat ski turn. These are discoveries available only to skiers who are able to get out of their paradigm comfort zone.