by Ott Gangl » Thu May 27, 2004 9:24 am
>>>Here is the problem with signing in as ?Guest?. There is another poster who signs in as ?Guest? and continually tires to provoke the skiers who believe in PMTS and how the system works.<<<
What exactly is the difference in signing in as 'Guest' compared to signing in as 'Visitor' with a 'Guest' as subtitle?
When I tried to look up either of your PROFILES, they are missing, so I really don't know who I'm dealing with.
What I'm seeing in this thread is old hat to me. In my 60 years of skiing and much of that as an instructor, I saw the same infighting among skiers about the 'systems' I taught.
I came in with the old Austrian technique, the revolutionary up-unweighting, comma postiton (angulations), very narrow stance and counter rotationas a turning force while unweighted. It worked great with the 210 cm stiff skis.
Along came the French technique with down-unweighting and swiveling of the skis and rising at the end of the turn (so one could down-unweight at the begining of the next turn) all that because Rossignol and Head came out with new technology of being able to make the shovel of the skis softer while still keeping torsional stiffness.
The fights were the same as now and here, the skiers who didn't have the skis with the new technology couldn't take advantage of the French way which actually involved only half of the movements of the Austrian technique because the shovels of the stiff skis would chatter out when engaged, and since down-unweighting affords only half the time to change edges, lead and weight, it took greater skill to execute. That being cited as detrimental to teaching beginners.
In the US various techniques were taught, depending wherefrom the ski school director hailed. The trouble with European techniques was that they were based on students that were athletic kids and teenagers, typically the time that Europeans learned to ski, some exceptions were young adults.
Along came PSIA and the great fight with USSA which didn't want to relinquish authority over ski instruction, the United States Ski Association felt they were the ones who knew best, being the authority over the Olympic teams, etc.
What PSIA did early on was to recognize that it wasn't only the athletic kids that needed instruction (they get it usually in racing programs ) but Mrs. Smith from Birmingham who is middle aged and a little overweight and hasn't done anything physical much in her life but who wants to partake of the glamour of skiing. She needed a whole new skiing progression. PSIA recognized that most adult beginners were very timid, mostly uncoordianted and not very daring when asked to do the unnatural movements required in skiing.
The result was "The Ten Final Forms", a non-ambiguos progression, teaching ACHIEVABLE skills in short one to one-and-a-half hour lessons BY THE AVERAGE AMERICAN STUDENT. The final forms were achived through many excercises designed to overcome the awkwardness of the stiff 210cm skis with ill fitting rental boots on icy beginner hills with rope tows. It was a one size fits all kind of teaching, much as PMTS is now and worked because student were not promoted to the next Final Form until they had the previous one down, a very slow progress.
PSIA, as all teaching systems, have grown, PSIA opened up from tight control to goal achievement to skill progression, realizing that fat short people and tall lanky ones, and timid ones and courageous ones should not be taught the same way and it was up to the individual instructor to fimd out and taylor the lesson accordingly and so came about guest centered' way of instructing.
PMTS is a great way to learn to ski for skiers who ski quite often, who own the new shaped skis and boots, but it is not all inclusive for people who show up in their uncles twenty year old boots and skis or even the average rental equipment. Ski area cannot deny a guest who bought a lesson no matter what he shows up with, so consequently the instructor has to taylor the guest centered lesson to the guest. I am not familiar enough with how that is handled in the PMTS ski schools.
So these fight will go on every time a new way of teaching evolves, promted by new developments in equipment and approaches.
....Ott