by h.harb » Fri Mar 05, 2004 11:06 am
You both have the right idea, you will have success if you always find a way to confirm you are doing the practice movements correctly. Read the descriptions of the movements in the books exactly. Be your own critic, don?t get sloppy and you?ll know when the movements are right, because your turns will be easier. You may find that the exercises are not easy, but when you ?get it? you will find the movements are in effect making your skiing easier.
Our exercises combine many elements and they are exercises never before used in ski teaching. These are not from a ?bag of ticks?, these exercises are well thought out and are designed specifically to improvement specific areas of your movement abilities. They often combine many of the basic elements of PMTS or good skiing, balance always being the priority.
I just had a client come in this week for ski boots and alignment. She bought the books and videos and immediacy started reading and studying. She had been taking PSIA group lessons all winter. Her comments are so typical: "PMTS is completely different from what they are trying to teach me. I like PMTS better, it?s so much easier and it makes sense. What I am learning is taking too long, I don?t see the improvement I want." We hear this day after day, year after year. I am not going to venture into the ?them vs. us? thing, but I will let our clients do the talking. Although at times, I will let people know what our customers are saying. This is for educational purposes. We have a good thing and I think more of the skiing population would like to know about PMTS.
PSIA folks have criticized me for being dogmatic and rigid about how I approach skiing. I take that as compliment, because if you are not demanding about the quality of movement, you develop garbage. The proof is on the slopes.
Jeff is a great example; he has developed into a strong skier with great fundamental movements, in a relatively short time. From here he can go anywhere with his skiing, bumps, powder, steeps, he has the right movements.
I can remember two seasons ago, Jeff was not able to make a parallel turn on green slopes. Even last season he had difficulty. I am very pleased with his progress and that of many others in our camps. We have a large and great group of skiers who started with us as intermediates and are now skiing all mountain and enjoying the experience. Have fun, we are off to the A-Basin All Mountain Camp this weekend. It just dumped ten inches last night.