OK - now that I have everyone's attention a couple of thoughts after my PSIA tech team for NW ran camp at Mt Hood.
Yes we did pivot slip drills. Yes we even did an drill that had a wedge. Stem entry to turns, etc.
Here is my observations:
1st - this is a very fun and well run camp. It's focus is racing. As people who follow my posts you know that I believe much of what HH has brought to the table is bring racing type skiing into a beginner to expert progression and thus there are far more similarities than differences.
2nd - one of my roommates had the gorrila turn proponent from out east on DVD - while not all bad, his ideal for skiing was not what the coaches at this camp were striving for. Interesting thought fodder however.
Ok - now for the drills that are not ever on PMTS's radar screen and what they were for:
1. Pivot Slips. We did these breifly on the first day. This was done mainly to help teach people to unlock the upper body from the lower body since in short radius turns you must do this to minimize upper body movement.
2. Stepping Wedge entry - wierdly enough, though a dangerous drill, it attemps to accomplish the same effect as the Super Phantom in that many people in the camp were pivoting and skidding the top of their turns. By taking an agreesive step with the old inside ski and placing it in a wedge at the very top of the turn you then, to avoid falling must lift the old down hill ski and bring it parallel. This extreme step causes people to ski the very top of the turn. It's an ugly drill. Not as effective as the Super Phantom. You must get off the old outside leg instantly or fall.
Other than these two drills the other things we worked on were right out of PMTS or PMTS is right out of best racing instruction.
We worked a lot on one ski balance.
We worked a lot on raising the tail of the inside ski and tipping it to initiate turns.
We heard constant shouts down the mountain by the head coach that went:
1. No pivot - just tipping
2. Don't point with your knees, just use your ankles
3. Pull that inside leg back (interesting this is the key thing taught just like PMTS to keep that weight forward as the turn develops)
4. No A frame (no stem entries)
In all discussions there was a similar focus on foot actions on the LTE. Even the sideslip drill we worked on the first day we were told to stop tip the top foot towards its LTE.
Back to the subject of gorilla turns. This type of skiing for carving was discussed quite a bit because one of the guys had the DVD and the comments were the same as a PMTS person would make. Stance too wide (on the DVD it's interesting to see the instructor show statically the drill with a extremely wide stance then watch this same instructor have 1/2 the width of that stance in the actual drill) - and don't lead with the inside leg, but keep the ankles more closely together (pull the free and keep pulling the free foot back). I just thought that was interesting since that "how to best attain fore to aft balance" was the same as HH says to do.
Anyway - lafayette ski club wed night where they will be discussing the first ski trips of the season whilst I just get back from one. (albeit I'm really looking forward to some non-race skiing again)
Oh, personally, for me, what I was focused on in the camp was fore to aft balance. The camp was very helpful for me on this and I have more awareness how to keep that in place as the turn progresses. I had been relying on the pole plant reaching down the hill but in GS you don't pole plant so I had to learn better ways (pull that inside foot back and keep doing it).