Best tips

PMTS Forum

Postby tommy » Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:16 am

I'm not sure whether this bit of (des?)-information qualifies as a "best tip", but since I noticed it's helpful for my carving...

In order to get as much edges as I can, but avoiding leaning into the turn with my upper body, I've found it helpful to tip/tilt/lean my head towards the outside of the turn. In combination with the strong arm this seems to help keeping the body both from rotating with the turn, while allowing the hip to drop quite far down on the inside, without blowing out the outside ski.

Cheers,
Tommy
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Postby hh » Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:33 am

Tommy you are helping keep the body from rotating faster than the skis, by keeping the strong arm. The head lead helps to keep the upper body from leaning into the turn but all the strength for the edge angle you are trying to acheive is in the slight turn of the hip away from the direction and dropping that hip into the arc. relax the inside lleg and let it flex up, let the hip drop and extend the outside leg.

The strong arm and head are helpers and indicators, real power is in the hip angles, body lean and the counter.
hh
 

Postby tommy » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:39 am

Thanks Harald.

I was skiing today, and experimented with something I might call "explicit diagonal movement of CM". Basically, before each run, I was repeating my usual "matras" about which type of release to use, strong arm, tip and pull back free ski etc. But in addition, I focused on moving my CM by pushing the hips in early transition as follows (describing going from a left turn to a right turn):

Using the clock arm model, with 12 o clock in the direction of the skis, just before the release, to finish the turn, I tried to have my CM a little bit back (in addition to it's lateral displacement to the inside), somewhere between 8 and 9 o'clock. Just after releasing, I explicitly forced my CM diagonally right and forwards, towards 2 o'clock.

This seemed to help in getting the skis to engage early, and better edge angles in the high-C part, plus I didn't have to do as much work nor brushing in the lower part of the turn to control speed and turn shape.

Now, the slopes today were quite easy, soft snow and non-crowded, so I'd like to try this "diagonal movement" in more difficult conditions to see if it is helpful to my skiing in general.

Cheers,
Tommy
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Postby milesb » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:56 am

Just after releasing, I explicitly forced my CM diagonally right and forwards, towards 2 o'clock.


Tommy, what specifically did you do to achieve this?
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Postby Guest » Wed Mar 17, 2004 11:18 am

milesb wrote:Just after releasing, I explicitly forced my CM diagonally right and forwards, towards 2 o'clock.


Isn't this what an agressive pole touch is supposed to encourage? That's what I do.
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Postby Guest » Wed Mar 17, 2004 11:18 am

Milesb,

I tried a lot of things. The reason I wanted to experiment with this was that last few times skiing, I've been deliberately trying to add some brushing to my short turns, at the end of the turn, to control speed. In doing that, I've noticed that I often end up a little bit in the back seat at the end of the turn. That "position" seems to be helpful in finishing the turn, but it's a problem when starting a new turn. So today I wanted to experiment with ways to keep the slight back seat position at the end of the turn, but in transition to move CM not only laterally, but also somewhat forwards.

First, I tried to very explicitly "push" the hip forwards, but this tended to interrupt the flow of turns, and to result in a stem. Then I tried concentrating on the flow in transition, and using the strong arm. That helped a bit. But what I found most helpful towards the end of the day, was to use weighted release, together with the strong arm, and in transition, *pulling my toes upwards to the top of the boot*. That seems to pull the body slightly forwards.

My assumption is that the weighted release makes the lateral move happening, and for some reason, pulling the toes upwards seems to add a forward move component, which both taken together moves the hips diagonally cross the skis.

I'm sorry I can't describe this any better than this - like I said in my earlier post, I'd preferred been skiing on hardpack or ice experimenting with this, but today the snow was soft.

Cheers,
Tommy
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Best Tip for me recently has been....

Postby John Mason » Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:07 pm

My own self taught PMTS work, before I went to a camp in December, was not as effective as it should have been because of a lack of upper body stability.

PMTS, with it's focus on foot movements, can leave your upper body undisciplined making the foot movements not as effective. Though pole planting is covered in both the books and the videos, I had largely ignored it.

I felt I was doing pretty well till I saw my own videos. I was still throwing my shoulder into the new turn which caused rotation of my lower body instead of relying on the Phantom Move.

After this camp, I found I sometimes had my weight back. I was not pole planting on large radius turns. Really you don't have to, but what does it hurt. Just move the pole plant closer to your ski tips, which is still "down the hill" on a large radius turn. For me, always doing a pole plant, addresses both keeping my body more or less facing down the hill, and keeping my weight from moving to my heels.

In my PMTS progression, my recent "best tip" for me has been, always pole plant.
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Stand corrected! or correctly

Postby Harald » Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:14 pm

I am glad to see that my efforts to educate skiers are having influence on instructors and that my demonstrations of how skiing really works are taking hold even by PSIA and PSIA followers.

In the most recent Ski Racing Magazine, Ron LeMaster does a section on balance, with photos. He talks about vertical separation of the feet rather than horizontal separation. This supports the PMTS understanding and theory of narrow stance skiing that we have been promoting for ever. In fact it does more than support what I have written and presented it is what I wrote in my Book 2.

He demonstrated Hermann and others skiing with a narrow stance with vertical separation in the turn for better balance. . He does not advocate, as he did previously a wide stance. Now according to Ron at least, the top skiers on the world cup are holding their boots close. I did not get a chance to read the article in depth but I will and will report back as to the accuracy of the article.

I first introduced this very concept of how world cup skiers ski in a presentation at the International Congress of Skiing and Science in 2000, in St Christoph, Tirol. Then I followed up on this idea in my ?Anyone can be an Expert Skier 2? book. In the book and Congress presentation we wanted to educate what a functional stance width means, because so many ski instructors and coaches were promoting the wide stance incorrectly at that time and still are.

I hope Ron?s article has additional influence and starts to bring the issue of wide stance under control.
I knew it would take some time for most PSIA instructors and many coaches to realize that the wide stance approach wasn't functional and that it would disappear after they had enough time to figure out it didn?t get results. Now Ron presents my concepts and ideas in ski racing, hopefully skiers can get back to a functional stance.

Fortunately for PMTS skiers they never had to go through these awful aberrations in skiing understanding. Don't relax too much, there are still plenty of bad skiing concepts being taught. We will eventually turn them around as well and when that happens ski teaching will be PMTS.
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Postby hh » Wed Mar 17, 2004 6:36 pm

How about-always hand tune your skis after they have been on a machine or they will never feel like new again.
hh
 

Postby Jeff Markham » Wed Mar 17, 2004 6:48 pm

At the last camp, Diana pointed out that I was sort of flipping out the pole nonchalantly. I was gripping with the index/middle/thumb, but was letting the pole escape from my ring/little fingers. Diana had me GRIP the pole firmly (but not choking it :) ). This caused me to cock my wrist, which caused me to lower my shoulder, which improved my upper/lower angulation, which improved my edging.

So, "Grip the pole".
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Postby BigE » Thu Mar 25, 2004 9:13 am

Don't detune the tips/tails of your skis. This enables the ski work as designed.
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