by John Mason » Fri Apr 30, 2004 10:26 pm
You are properly pointing out the differences of the normal advanced tip to turn view most espoused in much of the skiing community as it differs from the focus of PMTS.
As far as carving the bumps as opposed to using rotary movements much has been said here in other posts already. I am a beginner bump skier, so I'll let others comment.
You do bring up a key point of difference, the idea that even in racing a racer will use active pivoting actions to shape the turn rather than modulating the tipping to do the same thing. Since there are WC skiers here that can respond to you I'll let them do that.
I've skied just over 1 year. I started March 2003. From then till now I have about 70 days in. Most of these days have been out west and include Breck, Copper, Beaver Creek, A-basin, Winterpark, Mammoth Lakes, Mt Hood, and Big Sky. In that time I had a very traditional 1st lesson, a PMTS lesson, a one week PSIA taught race camp, a one week PMTS blue/dark blue camp, a tad of a PMTS all mountain camp, and the very tail end of a private lesson with HH. I have bought all of the most popular ski instruction books and many of the not as popular.
This whole concept of the role of "active steering" (I clarify that as opposed to steering being an output or result of tipping) is indeed a big difference between what I read. For instance, in Ron LeMasters book he repeatedly brings up steering as an input and documents in his pictures racing using active steering inputs to shape the turns. But, when I look at these same picture sequences I see the racers modulating tipping to shape the turn. So there is definately controversy here on the role of active steering movements.
An interesting point echoed by Witherall in his book the Athletic Skier, and Lito Tejada-Flores in his book Breakthru on the New Skis and Bob Barnes over on Epic is that when your weight is primarily on one ski and that one ski is carving, you can't effectively add rotary movement or pivoting actions into your turn. Not that those three authors agree on the neaunces of skiing because they do not. So the question becomes, if you are in a pure carve, how can you control the shape of the turn. Or, what is the best way to control the shape of this carved turn? Must one rely on rotary input? All the prominent authors agree in a one ski carved state that ski is going to resist turning.
On page 90 in Lito Tejada-Flores book he presents the simplist answer in pictures and text that also just happens to agree 100% with what PMTS teaches that simply changing the amount of phantom edging with the free foot does the trick. Now this may seem too simple, but it also matches my experience on the slopes.
The biggest obstacle to experiencing this effect on a carved turn a person will have is if they are wedded to a wide stance. A wide stance breaks all this.
The ankle flexion question you brought up is obvious to anyone that has gone through PMTS training, but it's easy to illustrate. A corralary to your question I've heard people bring up is how can you tip the foot with the boot on. Interestingly the top racers use a foot bed that is not rigid but allows for pressuring the inside of the bottom of the boot. Anyway, if you stand in a doorway with legs straight, pick a foot and tip it. See how far you can do it. Now, let yourself drop 6 inches then try it again. Drop like you would when you ski, that is not to the back seat but with ankle flexion staying balanced. You will find you can tip much more. The difference is clear.
Not only that, when you are doing fast, linked short radius turns, this slightly lowered stance, not only allows for more tipping, but your upper body will stay more still since you are "shorter" when in transition and straighten out as the turn develops. Your upper body stays more still this way. A wide and more upright stance breaks all of this.
I would suggest popping up to A-basin tomorrow and introduce yourself to Erik the WC racer or Harold the former WC racer and discuss this with them or discuss your pivot slip bump ski technique with them and see what they say or what they can demonstrate. I wish I could be there, but I can't.
The diverging tips or pointing the inside foot into the next turn is an extraneous movement. Not a killer movement, but certainly not needed. As soon as a student is told to do that most students will be mixing some inside leg steering into their turns and create a skidded entry. Since it adds nothing and detracts from carving and using the skis optimally as designed, why do it?
When you tip the inside foot, the knee does move into the next turn, but the skis stay parallel. So you do see this inside knee pointing in a turn of a slalom racer. But this results from inside foot tipping, not from pointing the inside foot at a greater angle and diverging angle to the other foot. (well, unless the racer wants to catch an edge and have the skis go their own directions)
But not all racers ski turns the same way. There are different thoughts on these subjects. But, like I said, up at A-basin on Saturday you can discuss these different racing philosophies with Erik Schlopy and Harold.
My own experience has been to focus on exercises like the Super Phantom to help unlearn the active steering I was doing as I entered my turns. I have not found active steering or inside leg steering to be of any benefit to my skiing but as a negative movement that works against carving. In other words it's an early bad habit that one must work against in ones skiing.
Might one have to do a hip turn, or a pivot turn with gross steering inputs? Sure. Better that then coliding with that errant skier. But as my carving gets better and better, I have totally surprised myself on how versitile pure carving can be. But, that's a good question. In a PMTS skiing world what are the specific instances where one must pivot a turn? Like a hop turn? A right angle turn to avoid a collision? Is there a PMTS way to do these types of turns? Are these turns valid? Should a PMTS beginner be taught these types of moves? I still have these questions.
But, for every other normal type of going down the mountain turn, I find I don't need rotary input of any kind to shape and modulate the size of the carved turn. The phantom move or as Lito calls it phantom edging is flexible and powerful enough to do it all within the context of a carved turn.
What is your feeling of using phantom edging or the phantom move to control the shape of a carved turn? Would you do this, or "blend in" some sort of rotary input, even though all major authors agree you can't do this when you are carving on one ski. Would you say, widen the stance, carve on both skis, because then you can still do rotary inputs? Fine, that works, but why do it as it's much more work. If expert skiing is to be defined at all, (and many reading may not realize this, but many people do not want to even create a defined goal of what expert skiing is), expert skiing to me is that way of skiing that gets one down the hill in control utilizing the least effort. For me that meant adopting a narrow stance, learning to turn with subtle foot movements by focusing on tipping the inside foot whether weighted or unweighted, adding a proper pole plant to stabalize my upper body, being patient and letting the skis turn me, and dropping all maner of rotary input.
It's been a very fun 1st 70 days.
Oh, the reason in racing to not use both edges to turn is that the ski has much less bite if you split that weight on both skis. As most race courses can be icy (at Hood they work hard to get it hard and icy) A ski will bite much better by alternating your weight. But, ask Erik and Harold their view at A-basin. I know at the race camp I went to that was taught by PSIA people that just about all we worked on was one ski technique and holding that edge with one edge. It may look like a racer is skiing on both, but probably 90 plus percent is on the outside ski.
But I'm not a racer, so I'd ask Erik at A-basin tomorrow how he does his turns since he is one of the best in the world.