intermediate skier and pmts

[temps]

I have been signed up on this site since spring of 04, somehow my user ID doesn't know who I am, But non the less. Hello WTFH and SCSA,andJohn Mason And HH and Lisa. You guys don't know me but I have a web site knowledge of you. I am a supporting member on Epic ski and will be attending ESA this Jan for the first time. I am entering my 3rd season of skiing at 54 yrs young. I got in about 25 days last season and feel that I am moderate intermediate skier. I have investigated HH books and videos. I own them and have read them. In the beggining I even tried , in my novice fashion to incorporate the lessons unti I realized that one sky skiing and two ski skiing were diametrically opposed. At least to my understanding. Since I ski in the Tahoe region I found that it was in my best interest ( to avoid the mass confusion) to drop PMTS and go with the PISA instructors at one of my local mnts. I have continued to read the posts here and I must say that I really wish the 2 camps could get along. But, be that as it may. My observation is that HH believes that the PMTS way is most benificial for those advanced skiers. I know that he belives that PMTS is the way to begin, but it seems to me that the real advantage (as HH sees it) is to the advanced skier. Obviously in terms of practicality for me I can learn from DCHAN at Sugar Bowl and advance through my initial stages. DCHAN does not try to incorporate wedge turns as I have somehow managed to progress passed this. My question then is a mater of selection. Who in reality is HH trying to teach? After reading many of HH posts it seems that the target skier is the one that is aiming at the advanced/expert skier. I am obviously not in a position to judge whether HH's methods are "better" than the tradition methods but in a practical way it is very hard to deal with the differences when it seems that these differnces are really applicable to the most advanced skier, of which I am certanly not. And in a more practical sense, as a consumer that needs to learn the basics, as a moderate level intermediate skier I really wish that the diversion between the PSIA instructors and the PMTS instructors would resolve into a friendly choice to the student who is obviously confused. I guess it will all come down to how much I trust my current ski instructor, cause at this point it is all a matter of trust. I think that I may speak for many students out there who have investigated both the PSIA methods and the PMTS methods. Any help?

[John Mason]

Interesting perspective "temps".

PMTS includes and in fact starts out with 2 skis in the 2 footed release. At higher levels the actual release you can be doing a super phantom style release or a weighted release which are the oppisite skis or any combination between them. I think it's a myth and not in my experience that PMTS is a one ski only approach.

In the development of better balance there is the oppourtunity to improve balance with various one ski drills etc. Lito also emphasized the importance of developing that repretoir of skills. One of the terms you'll hear around here is "lifting is for learning and lightening is for experts". Some people see these drills in the books and don't understand the context/purpose or where it will take them and label PMTS as a one ski approach. That is a myth.

DCHAN may be an excellent coach. Many people in and teaching in PSIA are not teaching the traditional PSIA stuff to their students. I see a lot of variance in the epic ski comments.

That being said, looking at the published materials officially from the PSIA and what HH teaches are not very compatible. Some of the latest fads making the rounds at PSIA are even more out of kilter. I don't see that as a problem but as simply an oppourtunity for non-traditional teachers to excel.

Oh, you said the one ski thing - oft repeaded myth. The other one you said was that PMTS is for experts or geared for experts. (maybe Harald's Marketing title promotes that myth) My 2nd trip on the slopes was a PMTS lesson and I certainly was no expert then but it got me comfortable on blues in a hurry. While I'm now doing easy bumps (heck - clendenon got me down a double black bump run at Ajax last winter in the midst of my 2nd season of skiing) I'm sure no expert. But, I'm learning things that are compatible with expert skiing without wasting time on skills that don't build toward that goal.

I'm seeing steady improvement. And I guess that's what it's all about for us 50+ year olds. I started just over 2 years ago and am over 50 now and I want a logical, thought out, biomechanically sound approach. I don't want to waste a lot of time or money. If you really want an opinion on this stuff, do what most people here have done, do both. Take an HH camp (most are sold out again for this next year), but try to. They are a blast. It'll make much more sense than the books do in a real life session. I think the all mountain camp at big sky is not sold out. What a great camp that is. The lowest level group is pretty tame while the highest level group is going down from the top of them tram. Quite a span of students sorted out so everyone is comfortable but challenged.

I might sign up for that jan ESA event. You may not realize it but some of the EPIC ski coaches teach PMTS and teach it in the clinics they put on. Most of the people in the November PMTS instructor camp are dual cert in both PMTS and PSIA certs. This doesn't make the systems compatible, but does make an interesting group of people to talk and learn from about the functional/structural differences between the various approaches.

And - over on Epicski - we have 2 more approaches. Tai Chi skiing and waiststeering skiing. There will be a never ending list of approaches to the problem of skiing. As students with dollars and time to spend you get to pick one or more. If you're happy and improving stick with it!

I met the former ski school director at Park City and spent the afternoon skiing with her. She was doing HH's stuff as taught to her by Lito. It was beautiful to watch her ski. Her friend was skiing with us and had just had a lesson with the new guard there. It was scary to hear her say what was being taught now - wide stance, no use of balance, knee angulation to get edging - bah - yuck - ugly - dangerous. But, pick what you like and be happy!

(oh - and go ski with HH someday - that's it's own education to see him in person skiing)

[WTFH]

Hi temps,
Welcome here! It will be good to see you at the ESA - although I'm trying to work out who you are, and if we've skiied in Jackson Hole together.
As John says, at the ESA there are instructors who are from both camps, and there are differences, but there are also a lot of similarities - primarily in helping skiers who want to learn to be able to have more fun, and expand their possibilities on the snow.

John, it would be great to see you there as well - if you can't make it to the Academy, maybe even to the Gathering in Park City on the weekend folowwing the Academy.

[temps/mk evenson]

John and WTFH, we have not met I am mkevenson at epic, Mark, thanks for the replies. I hope to get to the point where I feel the confidence and ability to try different methods and gain enough knowledge to be able to make an informed judgement. Snow is coming, I can smell it. Oh maybe it's the bacon!
I don't know why I have to still be "temps" but haven't been recognized by the Powers that be, here.

[tommy]

just my 2 cents on top of john's comments:

PMTS, while definitely suitable for the advanced skier, is also an excellent way to learn to ski using effective and efficient movements for the intermediate as well as for the beginner, particularly if the skier in question isn't in tip-top physical shape.

When I started skiing PMTS-style, I would probably count as an intermediate. Even though I was in pretty good shape, except for my long time bad knees, I could most days only manage a few hours of skiing, before my body told me to stop.

After learning PMTS, I could not only "press" much harder, i.e. ski faster and more difficult/demanding slopes without getting tired, I furthermore had no longer any pain in my knees after several consecutive days of all day skiing.

Good luck!

--Tommy

[milesb]

Maybe what you see on this forum is not really a representative sample of typical PMTS students. I think Harald enjoys sharing some of his ideas for very advanced skiing and has found a receptive audience here.
But remember that low level PMTS skiing looks very similiar to high end PMTS skiing. John Mason posted a video (link, John?) of himself making low dynamic turns on a very flat slope. But you know what? Just about ANY skier would be proud to make turns that well. Maybe it wouldn't look so good with higher dynamics or a steeper slope, but that's why Harald does the rating of green through black skiers. Meaning the terrain on which a skier can make PMTS turns is their ability level.

[Ott Gangl]

>>> I met the former ski school director at Park City and spent the afternoon skiing with her. She was doing HH's stuff as taught to her by Lito. It was beautiful to watch her ski. Her friend was skiing with us and had just had a lesson with the new guard there. It was scary to hear her say what was being taught now - wide stance, no use of balance, knee angulation to get edging - bah - yuck - ugly - dangerous. But, pick what you like and be happy! <<<

John, would you like to share this with the present Park City Ski School? They'd appreciate the input of an expert observer...

....Ott

[Rusty Guy]

John,

What PSIA fads are "out of kilter"?

[John Mason]

Hi Rusty - what I described. I'm sure most on epic wouldn't like this either. But the exact same description was given to me from both the PSIA III cert doing demos at snowcrest on a ski deck just back from some national PSIA event where these ideas were being presented - and the gal and her friend (the retired park city ski school director) on the afternoon skiing at Park city.

They described these attributes: (and the guy on the ski deck demonstrated them)

Feet shoulder or even further appart, knee pointing to create edging, CM staying between the feet.

Total ugly.

PSIA has lots of people teaching lots of different directions, but this particullar style that I see a lot of people doing on the hills seems to be someone's faux understanding or implementation of what they think racers are doing. This was the PSIA III cert's explaination of where the inspiration for these techniques were coming from.

To encourage the wide stance the gal at the Park City lesson was told to imagine a basketball or beach ball between her knees. Both of these gals had been to Lito camps in the past and had a functional stance - like Von Grunigen has suggested - where the legs dangle out of their sockects - there is your stance. They skied with balance tipping the inside foot while removing pressure from they old outside foot while tipping it to release the old turn and create the new turn. Very smooth skiers. The gal had seriously tried the new approach and hated it. She said it hurt her knees and she felt very unstable skiing that way. The retired park city school director had told her nothing wrong with skiing the same way she had been doing and not to worry about it. She knew I had had lots of lessons from NW PSIA tech team and HH and one with Clendenon and wondered what I thought about they new wide stance thing and I told her what I said here. Misunderstood Faux race style skiing. I suggested she just follow her friend/retired ski school director's advice.

Are you going to be at Winterpark this year? When does Winterpark open up? I'll be at the Nov Instructor camp at copper again, and I like a warm up day before camp starts. It'd be fun to ski with you finally (instead of 10 sec then being on oppisite parts of laps the rest of the time). I bet you'd enjoy the Instructor camp. I'm sure you'd feel welcomed there. Most of the attendees are PSIA certs/examiners/etc. You can pick any combo of clinics so it's a camp that you can tailor it to your interests. They are doing V1 ski software analysis again, skier improvement, on-slope alignment analysis, eliminating the wedge - those are 4 I remember, but there are are more categories than that. Check it out at http://www.pmts.org if your interested. Great value for the money. Diana on the V1 software is brutal though. But, you'll get a clear picture of the most important thing to work on to improve in that session.

Last year the WC skiers were skiiing in the AM before the slopes opened for general use. That's fun to watch too. (and they all seemed to know HH quite well and the coaches as they'd all be kibitzing and talking each morning as we came in)

[John Mason]

.

John, it would be great to see you there as well - if you can't make it to the Academy, maybe even to the Gathering in Park City on the weekend folowwing the Academy.

Your home base is England - which ESA stuff are you going to this year? Meeting a forumite in person would weigh in my own equation of where to go!

Ott? Any Holiday Valley plans yet?

Haven't you noticed Ott? I'm low key now.

[Guest]

[quote="John Mason"]Interesting perspective "temps".

"PMTS includes and in fact starts out with 2 skis in the 2 footed release. At higher levels the actual release you can be doing a super phantom style release or a weighted release which are the oppisite skis or any combination between them. I think it's a myth and not in my experience that PMTS is a one ski only approach.

In the development of better balance there is the oppourtunity to improve balance with various one ski drills etc. Lito also emphasized the importance of developing that repretoir of skills. One of the terms you'll hear around here is "lifting is for learning and lightening is for experts".

John, I just rewatched HH first video. It clearly emphasises release of a turn by "lifting the old stance foot. This is in this video an integral component of the phantom move. Relax the muscles of the stance foot, lift it , move the heel closer to the new stance foot and engage. This is not my imagination. I realize that having only this video and the first book I may be not seeing the "whole picture". But please based on this info only don't try to convince me that lifting the free foot is not part of the phantom move. At least as demonstrated in this video. I realize that this part of the turn release is only "part" of the entire turn but respectfully submitt that this lifting of the free foot is what I was refering to when I said "one ski skiing. This lifting movement is what I was criticised for in my first formal lesson and in subsequent lessons. Not by DCHAN, I must say, because by that point I had not been lifting the free foot in the release. Maybe a minor point, but to a novice, two seasons ago, a major source of confusion.

[mk evenson/guest]

Sorry John, neglected to ID myself in previous post.

Mark

[Rusty Guy]

John,

I attended eight days of level 400 training hosted by PSIA-RM last winter and heard no mention of the items you outlined.

In many posts that publish you seem obsessed with the term "knee pointing". That is always included in your criticism of PSIA.

I won't even begin to go down the overwarn path of stance width. Simply stated no one in PSIA or USSA is advocating a "wide stance". and/or stating ski racers are utilizing a wide stance. Stance width needs to correspond to morphology

You take every opportunity you can to make some nexus between something you attribute to two instructors and PSIA as an organization. My question is why?

The answer in my mind? Who has consistently been the biggest critic of PSIA and TTS? Do you surmise that if you echo his tune your stock will rise?

[gaper]

Gee, I am a lowly Level 1 PSIA cert and I have never
heard the wide stance, knee pointing used in any lesson,
clinic or PSIA event I have attended. John, get a clue.
You heard one talk by some nameless gayrod giving a clinic
on a snowdeck and you continue to quote this guy as being
the advocate for the PSIA method. Not so, big guy.

Amazingly, the functional stance nomenclature does appear
in various PSIA clinics that I have attended. Oh my, did PSIA
steal that from HH. I bet those scumball PSIA guys did.
Shame on them.

Would love to see you at Snowbird at Epic Ski Academy.
Bring it on, JM.

[Rusty Guy]

John,

Recently at this forum you have utilized the term "gapic". Now we're to believe you might attend epicski event?

You and many others here have jumped in march step behind Harald in your criticism of PSIA. I have explained my theory as to why. You want to please your teacher.

Then you also want to put forth a facade of friendliness and suggest we make turns.

Please offer some rational as to why I would want to ski with you. To see expert skiing? Our long friendship? For you to expound on the merits of PMTS? For you to deride PSIA?

I think you have been wandering around too long in the soybean fields of Indiana this summer.