MA for ibmed

MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:08 am

All,
Yesterday, I linked up with HelluvaSkier and Patprof at Greek Peak for a PMTS skiing day.

Greg, as always, had his video camera and captured the video link below. Thanks Greg, your just a great skier and a real source of PMTS knowledge. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

In the video, I'm just trying to make some rounded turns and document how I ski. Not working on any specific movement.

If you don't know where you're going, any ski turn will get you there!
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby leopold_bloom » Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:39 pm

Hello ibmed,

Congratulations! You are the first person who has succeeded in skiing in the future and returning with video to prove it! How was the skiing tomorrow, March 10th, anyway?

You have two things working against you. The lack of counter (actually active rotation) at the end of the turn and a push off transition. These two movements are best friends and virtually inseparable. To break up this cosy relationship I would recommend working on holding counter in the garland exercise.

Do garlands with the strong inside hand movements and turn them right up into the hill while maintaining counter. At the same time experiment with your fore-and-aft weight distribution. Try to find a place on your skis where you feel the skis hook up and pull your feet through the turn.

When you have your skis hooking up and you can hold onto your counter, try releasing out of your counter with a little flex or relaxation of the stance leg.

Think: flex the leg you're standing on.

It doesn't take much flex, just enough to allow you to tip off the old edges. Even giving in just a little to the pressure at the end of the garland will open up a whole new world for your skiing.

Good luck and all the best in the future... wherever that is.

Leo
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:23 pm

Leopold,
Thank you for your thoughts. "Skiing in the Future" is a phrase I've heard quite often and it describes always looking ahead for the spot where you want to make your next turn. Not a PMTS phrase, but, it does work.

Counter acting is an area where HH told me to work in the past and continues as an essential that is lacking in my skiing. I commit to working on garlands tomorrow. Your thoughts about working through the fore aft position to establish a point where the skis pull me through a turn are of great interest. I really don't spend enough time on skis and there is a lot of relearning balance following a week of not skiing. I spent most of today working on tipping by active foot rotation and getting into a more forward position.

Helluva and I were working a little later in the day about how to let the skis hook-up without the push-off you referred to in your MA. His thinking was to take more time in establishing a edge lock position and not rush it. I am not a clean carver and it has been very frustrating. I like the shape of my turns, but, dislike the brushing. Greg did some video of my tracks and promises a very through analysis is coming. I can't transfer that video at this time but I'm looking forward to his comments, blunt though they will be.

Flex more, more counteracting, better balance. All basics that need continued development.

Again, thanks. Tomorrow is another opportunity!

Mike
If you don't know where you're going, any ski turn will get you there!
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby HeluvaSkier » Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:39 pm

Right on Leo. Having been with ibMED all day I can vouch for your MA being very accurate. The rotation causes the need for the up move and push off.

Mike,
Two drills that I would work on are the Hip-O-Meter, and making a C [forward sweeping arc) with the inside pole (forgot the name for this one - it is a PMTS drill right?). Do these with a friend observing. This ties into our short lift discussion about patience and allowing the skis to engage and is why RR-track turns are your nemesis. By twisting into the hill away from the ski you rob the ski of any engagement that it would otherwise have - making RR track turns impossible. As it stands now, you twist into the hill before you allow the edge to engage.

As Leo said, practice garlands. Go back to square one (like in the essentials video) where Harald put his skis on edge [tipping] and pushed off with his poles pointed only slightly down the hill. This should make the skis carve back up the hill and you should get an arc that was made using only tipping - a RR track. If you follow that progression into full arc-to-arc turns you will have eliminated to rotation from your skiing because the ONLY movement in that initial progression is tipping for engagement and release. If you're using other movements and getting non arc-to-arc turns you're doing it incorrectly.

ibMED wrote:Helluva and I were working a little later in the day about how to let the skis hook-up without the push-off you referred to in your MA. His thinking was to take more time in establishing a edge lock position and not rush it. I am not a clean carver and it has been very frustrating. I like the shape of my turns, but, dislike the brushing. Greg did some video of my tracks and promises a very through analysis is coming. I can't transfer that video at this time but I'm looking forward to his comments, blunt though they will be.


Don't worry about the tracks video - my comments weren't so much on your tracks, but merely an entertaining narrative about the wedge and pivot slips... :P If you'd like a track analysis I can do one though.

BTW - what did you mean above by "active foot rotation"? I don't usually include that combined set of terms in my PMTS dictionary...
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby MonsterMan » Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:43 pm

Thanks for sharing tomorrows turns.

In my humble opinion, it is your pole plant that is creating the rotation at the end of each arc. So when you work on those garlands as Master Bloom has suggested, try dragging the outside basket on the snow and behind the toe piece of the binding. (90 degree imaginary line like in the book). A slight lift and tap for timing if you want, but no more reaching forward and you will stop the rotation in no time.

Looking forward to more video.

Geoff
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:10 am

HeluvaSkier wrote:Right on Leo. Having been with ibMED all day I can vouch for your MA being very accurate. The rotation causes the need for the up move and push off.

Mike,


BTW - what did you mean above by "active foot rotation"? I don't usually include that combined set of terms in my PMTS dictionary...


Greg and Monsterman,
Your thoughts really help clarify areas where I need to work.

Greg - "active foot rotation" is a very poor choice of words. Active foot tipping is much more correct.

Off to another day of Practice, practice, practice! And some fun too!

Mike
If you don't know where you're going, any ski turn will get you there!
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:03 am

The futuristic skiing of March 10 was in intended to be read as March '10 or March of 2010. I am very happy tell that last evening, on March 10, 2010, my new granddaughter arrived. She and her mom are doing very well, my son also did ok. So today will be the final skiing of this little trip to Killington.

Yesterday, I started by doing the garlands with concentration on counteracted hips. My first bit of feedback from the tracks was how sloppy they were and that my body had become unfamiliar to the positions needed to produce simple RR tracks. During the day I'd return to this drill and practice simple releases and resetting edges on the same traverse.

In simple rounded turns, I worked the pole dragging drills for a run, then concentrate on more active counter. Also worked the counter drill of reaching out with the inside arm throughout the turn.

I've also been guilty of not working enough on flexing to release. In the afternoon, I mostly free skied with a concentration on flexing and extending. Master Bloom had picked up that I was not flexing and I can confirm that my mind had been elsewhere with respect to this essential and the result is a very static position. The feedback from my turns is that flexing/extending permits development of the body angles needed to carve. PMTS is all about putting together a handful of positions, but, my thinking after yesterday is flexing/extending is my biggest single improvement.

Finally, Master Bloom also introduced a concept of finding a fore aft position where one can be pulled through a turn. After 3 days on skis my balance is much better and more forward.

So, small improvements and one more day to make it better. This is a great forum to learn about your skiing. Among the many strengths is that we speak from a common dictionary enabling a clear understanding of what needs to be done. My next skiing purchase needs to be a dedicated video camera. I can further justify it by taking pics of my new, yet unnamed, granddaughter.

Have a great day! I sure will!
If you don't know where you're going, any ski turn will get you there!
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby leopold_bloom » Fri Mar 12, 2010 12:54 am

Hello ibmed,

Congratulations on the birth of your grandchild! My son and your granddaughter share the same birthday. That is why I picked up on the seemingly anomalous date on your video in the first place--any other date and I probably wouldn't have noticed.

On such an occasion considerations of ski technique matter not at all. That said, here is one more thought for when you return to the hill. Be careful about thinking in terms of positions. Rather think about continuous movements.

In my first post I used the phrase "hold on to your counter". This may be a bit misleading and imply a position. I probably should have said "build your counter". A garland finished up into the hill is a bit of a special case as well. I recommend garlands because they isolate some elements of the turn for refinement. Our natural inclination is to "prepare" ourselves for the next turn by letting go of counter. By finishing up into the hill you can break this negative pattern.

In a regular turn think: build, build, build counter--release. As for tipping, think about tipping to the highest angle possible and then releasing. Even fore-and-aft balance is continuous movement. Once again the garland is a special (artificial) case. In the context of this exercise you can find the optimal hip/feet relationship that will make your skis hook up. In a real turn the challenge is to pass through this "position" at the right time.

Good luck grandpa!

Leo
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby h.harb » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:22 pm

Leopold, Yes, this is a good point about the release, "How about, don't release your hard earned counter until the skis are flat".

Remember my comments about, "A bad pole action or swing can ruin a good turn". Faster then anything else, Monsterman is right.

My advice is, don't use a pole swing until you have your upper body rotation under control. Push the inside pole and hand forward as you develop your turns. Keep both pole tips on the snow, and keep the pole tips forward of your ski boots =equals= + instant success.
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby Ken » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:50 pm

h.harb wrote: Push the inside pole and hand forward as you develop your turns. Keep both pole tips on the snow, and keep the pole tips forward of your ski boots =equals= + instant success.


ibmed,
I worked long and hard on this movement. I started with both pole tips hard on the snow and held in the "home" position. After I got this working for me, I added the counteracting motion where the inside pole/hand/arm/shoulder/hip get pushed forward, still dragging the pole tip hard on the snow, until my inside hand was over the ski tip by the end of the turn (an exaggeration for the drill). Simultaneously the outside pole/hand/arm/shoulder/hip rotates back until the hard-dragging pole tip is just forward of the boot. As a separate exercise, do the hip-o-meter where you push the inside hip forward while you pull the inside foot back and you can see if you're holding the counter as long as Harald describes until the skis get flat in the transition. Both of these exercises gave me the feeling of correct counteracting. My instant success took more than an instant... :wink: ...but my improvement in the right direction did begin instantly.

Note how you swing your outside hand forward to position your pole plant?...STOP THAT! :twisted:
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:04 am

h.harb wrote:Leopold, Yes, this is a good point about the release, "How about, don't release your hard earned counter until the skis are flat".

Remember my comments about, "A bad pole action or swing can ruin a good turn". Faster then anything else, Monsterman is right.

My advice is, don't use a pole swing until you have your upper body rotation under control. Push the inside pole and hand forward as you develop your turns. Keep both pole tips on the snow, and keep the pole tips forward of your ski boots =equals= + instant success.


Harald,
Thank you for the analysis, I appreciate your time and thoughts. Monster Man gets elevated as a PMTS coach. :D
I performed many runs over my 4 day trip where I did the pole drag exercise. Poor hand position is a recurring theme in my skiing. I had never thought of the relationship between poor upper body position and poor hands, so, enlightenment is a start to fixing the various issues. I can't claim instant success, but, I know I skied much better by weeks end. The improvement is a direct result of the coaching from my fellow board members, so thanks all.

It's surprising how a simple drill like garlands can provide the feedback that body position and fore aft balance is off. Returning to basics is a good thing and the PMTS exercises are both simple to perform and effective at correction. My greatest learning was that I had been neglecting the essential of flexing then extending. Over the last 2 days, I worked that constantly, along with getting my body forward and down the hill much sooner. The resulting turns are much more powerful.

The weather has not been kind to eastern skiing this weekend, and, I'm not sure how much more skiing or video is in the near future. It's frustrating to have such a short season.

A final shout out to HelluvaSkier. Should you ever have a chance to get to NY and ski with (read behind) him, do it!
If you don't know where you're going, any ski turn will get you there!
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby HeluvaSkier » Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:00 pm

ibMED wrote:A final shout out to HelluvaSkier. Should you ever have a chance to get to NY and ski with (read behind) him, do it!


Thanks! Don't hype too much... I don't want to find myself not living up to expectations... As always you're welcome to come ski with us anytime. It's been a pleasure to share the mountain with skiers from this forum [and others] this season. I'm still learning, but I try my best to practice what I preach on the hill. If we have snow later in the season and you don't - perhaps a Holimont day?
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby ibMED » Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:18 pm

HeluvaSkier wrote:
ibMED wrote:A final shout out to HelluvaSkier. Should you ever have a chance to get to NY and ski with (read behind) him, do it!


Thanks! Don't hype too much... I don't want to find myself not living up to expectations... As always you're welcome to come ski with us anytime. It's been a pleasure to share the mountain with skiers from this forum [and others] this season. I'm still learning, but I try my best to practice what I preach on the hill. If we have snow later in the season and you don't - perhaps a Holimont day?


Funny you should bring this up. HelluvaSkier and I had a quick conversation about grief he has taken about the name he posts under. Gotta live up to that name each time you get on skis. And he does!

While walking into lunch on our day at Greek, a woman approached us and commented about the high speed carving we doing. Ski with Greg gets instant recognition. She was very interested in how this was done. Helluva gave her a quick PMTS lesson showing basic tipping movements and explaining the "stance leg / free leg" concept. We told her about PMTS and encouraged her to google "Harb skiing".
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby jclayton » Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:22 pm

What about Helluva posting some new video . In the avatar he looks like his rear end is scraping the snow .
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Re: MA for ibmed

Postby HeluvaSkier » Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:53 pm

jclayton wrote:What about Helluva posting some new video . In the avatar he looks like his rear end is scraping the snow .


It's coming... I need a few more clips still. I don't want to look like a one-trick pony... you know.
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