MA for young Tommi

[Ancient]

Dear Harald and forumists,

only recently I got to know about PMTS Tecnique and suddenly got fascinated.
I am from Italy and with my family we use to ski during the whole winter season.

Here is the video of my young son Tommi that I woul like to submit to your evaluation in terms of actual adherency or not to PMTS Tecnique: in the video He is 5 1/2 years old:

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Ancient

[jbotti]

Tommi is a little ripper!! He's doing a lot right (especially for a 5 year old). The one improvement that he can make instantly that will set him aprt from others his age and older is moving his feet and skis closer together. Youngsters tend to rely more on a wide stance for balance. He clearly has the ability to ski with a tighter stance. This allows and promotes PMTS movements better. I am going to guess that his coaches may disagree with this.

[geoffda]

Tommi is a little ripper!! He's doing a lot right (especially for a 5 year old). The one improvement that he can make instantly that will set him aprt from others his age and older is moving his feet and skis closer together. Youngsters tend to rely more on a wide stance for balance. He clearly has the ability to ski with a tighter stance. This allows and promotes PMTS movements better. I am going to guess that his coaches may disagree with this.

x2. Plus he needs to learn to tip his old stance (outside at transition) foot to little-toe-edge. I have the same problem with my son. Part of the trouble is that they just don't have the hip width and all kids skis are relatively wide, so even small amounts of space between the skis translates to big stance issues. The issue that Tommi has with his stance is that he is skiing with his feet wider than his hips. This means that he can't really tip his feet effectively which causes problems both with trying to release the ski as well as trying to engage the new edges. Right now, he is pushing against the big toe edge of the downhill ski to give himself a platform to extend the old free (inside at transition) leg in order to move his hips into the turn. His angles come from this extension, but at times his balance is off and he pushes himself onto his inside ski (which he has to steer to catch himself). As long as he is pushing off and extending in transition, he will be blocked from tipping his feet. Also, when you push off at transition, it causes the ski to break away in firm conditions. These are really classic problems and are the opposite of PMTS movements.

This is almost identical to how my son was skiing at that age. Unfortunately, if you don't get his stance narrowed and get him off the big-toe edge at transition soon, it may be hard to change his skiing. As good as this skiing looks (and this is a very talented kid), this is not PMTS skiing. In PMTS skiing the movements of release, transfer and engagement all start with the feet. Specifically, we always focus on tipping the old stance (outside at transition) foot from big-toe-edge to little-toe-edge (and continuing the tipping throughout the turn). We flex our knees to release the ski and we tip onto new edges while the ski is light. When we release, the energy from the previous turn helps move us into the new turn. We never try to push ourselves into the new turn; instead we balance at the top of the arc and use that time to get ourselves organized to handle the pressure when it comes to us.

Try to get him to narrow his stance and teach him the Phantom Move. If you have him touch his stance boot with the edge of the ski that he is lifting and tipping, it will give him a good external cue for managing his stance. Have him finish the turn on the little-toe-edge of his old free (inside at transition) foot so that when he lifts and tips the old stance (outside at transition) foot, it will trigger a release of the old turn. The tipping actions of the Phantom Move at this point, combined with the forces of the released turn, will allow his center of mass to move naturally into the new turn.

[Ancient]

x2. Plus he needs to learn to tip his old stance (outside at transition) foot to little-toe-edge. I have the same problem with my son. Part of the trouble is that they just don't have the hip width and all kids skis are relatively wide, so even small amounts of space between the skis translates to big stance issues. The issue that Tommi has with his stance is that he is skiing with his feet wider than his hips. This means that he can't really tip his feet effectively which causes problems both with trying to release the ski as well as trying to engage the new edges. Right now, he is pushing against the big toe edge of the downhill ski to give himself a platform to extend the old free (inside at transition) leg in order to move his hips into the turn. His angles come from this extension, but at times his balance is off and he pushes himself onto his inside ski (which he has to steer to catch himself). As long as he is pushing off and extending in transition, he will be blocked from tipping his feet. Also, when you push off at transition, it causes the ski to break away in firm conditions. These are really classic problems and are the opposite of PMTS movements.

This is almost identical to how my son was skiing at that age. Unfortunately, if you don't get his stance narrowed and get him off the big-toe edge at transition soon, it may be hard to change his skiing. As good as this skiing looks (and this is a very talented kid), this is not PMTS skiing. In PMTS skiing the movements of release, transfer and engagement all start with the feet. Specifically, we always focus on tipping the old stance (outside at transition) foot from big-toe-edge to little-toe-edge (and continuing the tipping throughout the turn). We flex our knees to release the ski and we tip onto new edges while the ski is light. When we release, the energy from the previous turn helps move us into the new turn. We never try to push ourselves into the new turn; instead we balance at the top of the arc and use that time to get ourselves organized to handle the pressure when it comes to us.

Try to get him to narrow his stance and teach him the Phantom Move. If you have him touch his stance boot with the edge of the ski that he is lifting and tipping, it will give him a good external cue for managing his stance. Have him finish the turn on the little-toe-edge of his old free (inside at transition) foot so that when he lifts and tips the old stance (outside at transition) foot, it will trigger a release of the old turn. The tipping actions of the Phantom Move at this point, combined with the forces of the released turn, will allow his center of mass to move naturally into the new turn.

Dear Geoffda,

I got stuck of how much improvement Tommi still need to reach in order to get to a higher level of his skiing skill. I don't either know if his coach is ready for this but I'll try to follow up myself when I ski with him.

Here is another video, during a GS race, where the deficiencies are, probably, more evident due to the emotive situation and race track constraints that made him sometimes drifting and balancing the stance on the internal ski.

But, anyway, I would like to hear also your opinion.

Still waiting for Harald to express his opinion.

Cheers and thanks to everybody.

Ancient

[CO_Steve]

Ancient, since you're new here you haven't seen that Harald tries not to get involved with every MA that gets posted. Don't worry, Geoff is spot on. Many of the posters here are certified PMTS instructors and/or have years of PMTS experience. You can trust what you're being told.

[Ancient]

Ancient, since you're new here you haven't seen that Harald tries not to get involved with every MA that gets posted. Don't worry, Geoff is spot on. Many of the posters here are certified PMTS instructors and/or have years of PMTS experience. You can trust what you're being told.

Thank you Co_Steve,

I had no reason to doubt what I had been told, but a Welcome to a newcomer of PMTS Technique by its Founder would be very appreciated.

Cheers again.

Ancient

[Max_501]

The GS footage emaphsizes some areas to work on.

- Tip, rather than twist, the new inside foot
- Pull the inside foot back and hold it back to stay forward, big effort required to stay forward in a course
- Narrow the stance so its easier to balance over the outside ski, rather than the inside ski
- Inside hand up and forward (outside hand lower) to support CA/CB
- Flex to release

See this post from Harald -

http://www.pmts.org/pmtsforum/viewtopic ... 764#p38412

[geoffda]

I'd still say the same things with respect to the GS video. There is more inside foot steering and less balance on the outside ski. Transitions are accomplished by stemming and pushing off. If you stop the footage at 1:11 you can easily see how he holds on to the big-toe-edge to give himself a platform to push off. This allows him to avoid releasing the ski. Max_501 gives a good summary of what to work on.

[Ancient]

I'd still say the same things with respect to the GS video. There is more inside foot steering and less balance on the outside ski. Transitions are accomplished by stemming and pushing off. If you stop the footage at 1:11 you can easily see how he holds on to the big-toe-edge to give himself a platform to push off. This allows him to avoid releasing the ski. Max_501 gives a good summary of what to work on.

Dear Geoffda and Max_501,

many thanks for your precious suggestion on how to improve Tommi skiing technique.

Ancient

[Ancient]

Dear all,

do you see any improvement in this year Tommi's skiing technique?

Ancient

[geoffda]

Hi Ancient,

By and large, I think Tommi has gotten better at the same movements he was showing the last time around. He still is not tipping with his feet and his wide stance in transition is still causing issues. He has learned to use the energy from the ski to launch him into his next turn, so the push off is less obvious, but the problem is still the same. Because he does not suck up the inside foot and tip it to get it out of the way (which also removes the base of support), one way or another his hips have to move laterally before they can drop in, because they are still being blocked by the inside leg. This slows him down going edge to edge and is the reason why his angles happen late. It looks like he's improved his balance, but his inability to precisely control what happens in the transition still has him on his inside ski occasionally.

My advice would remain the same. Narrow his stance, and focus on flexing and tipping the feet. If you can, slow him down and focus on precision instead of speed. Now that he has figured out how to use the turn forces to move him onto his new edges, he has a very attractive crutch. Until you take it away from him, he will have a tough time learning how to ski with his feet. Once he understands how tipping works, he will be in a much better position to deal with wider-stance transitions when he is racing.

He's great with the big toe edge; now he has to learn how to use the little toe edge. That is what seperates elite skiers from everybody else.

[cheesehead]

Great skiing. Quite a bigger hill this year. He is still not using his hands correctly. Inside hand up (as if supporting a pole) outside hand down (as if boot-touching)
He often has both hands up (the outside hand up ruins his counteracting) or the inside hand down (limiting his tipping)
Great to see him skiing at this level even if he were much older

[cheesehead]

You can see pictures of the correct arm/hand/pole positions on Harald's recent blog posting 1/13/13.

Also in the Performance Free Skiing video where he describes & demonstrates the no-swing pole plant.

[Ancient]

Dear Geoffda and Cheesehead,

thanks for your precious tips, I'll try to understand from Tommi's instructor if he's correcting the same incorrect movements, nevertheless I presume there can be also some differences in the skiing technique he's teaching.
I'll let you know.

Cheers.

Ancient

[Ancient]

Dear Geoffda and Cheesehead,

thanks for your precious tips, I'll try to understand from Tommi's instructor if he's correcting the same incorrect movements, nevertheless I presume there can be also some differences in the skiing technique he's teaching.
I'll let you know.

Cheers.

Ancient

I checked with Tommi's instructor and probably the main difference with PMTS technique is the release and flexing of the stance ski onto the new edges, as far as CA and CB are concerned I don't see big differences.

Here there is a video of Tommi (second skier in the race track) together with his big brother Andre (10 yo) for whom an MA is also appreciated:

Cheers.

Ancient