Just got the books!

[dewdman42]

Well, just wanted to say that I just received my package of HH books and DVD's. I got 1, 2 and Instructors manual, along with all three videos that go along and also the Fitness book. Wahoo. Actually, the video for #1 is on backorder.

In any case, I flipped through the books a little. I'll save some of the reading for next week when I get to utah and might have some free time to read. In the meantime I did watch through the instructor DVD and #2 DVD.

Very interesting stuff. Later on I will ask for clarification about the difference between the phantom turn and the super phantom. Its probably in the books and I don't want to waste everyone's time with that question.

I was trying to figure out where the name "Phantom" came from and what the visualization idea is behind that..or concept. I guess the main idea is that the inside(free) ski is riding lightly on the snow, but since it APPEARS to be touching the snow the onlooker can't really tell that the skier is not weighting it as much as the outside ski.

I am normally the designated ski instructor for the group of people I am going skiing with all next week in utah, but frankly I think I will not be ready to teach them any of these concepts until I have it much more dialed in myself, and I don't reallly want to teach them the other balonie from CSIA either...so not sure what all I will be able to tell them this year other than a few simple pointers about pole plants, etc.

I am kind of gathering that the whole point of the "phantom" move is that the act of tipping the free ski somehow causes the other ski to turn. Its not clear to me exactly why that is from a biophysical standpoint..but i'll read the books more.

The other thing I'm a little nervous about is trying to show my friends that the way to learn how to ski is to run through a bunch of exercises where one ski is in the air. They aren't going to go for that, I can tell you that right now. They won't even want to try it more than once and will give up I'm sure. So until I get a more thorough understanding of where its going and how I can explain to them the concepts behind why they need to trust me to do those exercises..I'll have to refrain from telling them much of anything about PMTS.. I can't really think of very much I can tell them about it other than maybe a few simple things like narrower stance, weight the outside ski (for now that's about as in-depth as I would get with them). etc..

Anyway, I am excited to start working on all of these exercises for myself. If nothing else, HH makes a great point about working on balance rather than fancy skills and concepts. Every one of those exercises will improve balance, which will improve skiing, regardless of the end technique. I think my own skiing already has a lot of the right elements in it, but I am pretty sure I can improve the 3/4 point of my own turns and get a little bit better, longer leg extension and a better transition. For me, I will need to focus a lot on the idea of releasing the stance leg at the same time that I'm already transferring weight to the free leg(while its still on little toe edge). Its possible I'm doing that already, but I'm not thinking about it that way. I tend to come out of a turn by releasing both legs and rolling onto my new edges with more weight on new outside ski. but all the stuff that happens between about the 3/4 point and the 1/4 point of the next turn (halfway through high-C) is where I'm sure I can work on it. So I'm excited to try some of these one ski exercises and new visualizations.

One criticism that comes to my mind as I watched the video and read the book (and this may very well change as I become a convert , is that it definitely seems kind of technical. there are a lot of technical concepts and scary one-ski exercises that personally I think a lot of recreational skiers I have known would tune-out to. HH and crew have done a lot of work to try to create a completely doable progression from first time beginner to speedy carver. I will give them that. But somehow it just seems complicated and a bit intimidating for some recreational skiers that dont' want to think so much about it. Acually, very first time beginners would probably be 100% ok with it. They would be these naive clean minds ready to learn and would just do the exercises without questioning. The people that I think would be very difficult to teach this to and get them to buy into doing these exercises and trusting in the results are skiers that have already been taught or have skied more than say about 10 times.

I was trying to think about how it could be presented without being so technical and frankly I can't think of a way. High performance skiing simply *IS* technical and if they want to get there then they need to open their mind to these technical concepts (and HH has already massively simplified the concepts down from what I know must be massively more complicated in the racing world).

Nonetheless, as I go through this and apply it to myself, I will constantly be thinking about how I could teach my recreational friends (at various levels) how to ski the HH way. Its going to be interesting to see if I can come up with simple simple simple concepts *AND* convince them they need to do the phantom turns and one footed exercises to get there. I have a hard enough time convincing them to do simple things like "plant your pole a bit sooner". ha ha...

But I sure would love to get them carving better. One friend in particular is so stuck on a plataeu its not even funny..because he skis old school windshield wiper turns and I have tried and tried to find ways to get him carving sooner and failed. I think PMTS is perfect for him, but he's also one of the first people that will probably laugh and give up when I try to get him to do one legged turns. (sigh). There is an ego issue I'm dealing with there also. B=)

Somehow, what I need is to present to him an end-goal concept of what we're trying to acheive so that as we're doing those exercises he won't feel like a goof ball relearning how to ski. He needs to understand the end result purpose to those earlier exercises..and I need to be able to explain it to him in 5 minutes or less without too much detail about counter-rotation, counter-balance, etc..

Any ideas?

[Hobbit]

I think that the name for the "Phantom Move" relates to the appearance of the inside ski just gliding on the snow parallel to the stance ski looking like you are riding on both skis, but in fact it requires constant LTE tipping and pooling the free foot towards the stance foot while riding on the outside ski.

I would have to disagree with the criticism on the ?technical? part. PMTS allows you to take / use as much as you want as long as you don?t skip to the next level without being able to perform the previous level drills / tests. For example my son is quite happy with just the basic phantom move and he does not have much counter balance (not even talking about counter-rotation) in his toolbox either. He just does not want to learn more at this point and just wants to cruise around. He can?t do the wedge turn to save his life, but he?s just fine doing basic PMTS parallel turn while being in the back seat and skidding the tails.

[milesb]

Here is an idea, go to an instructor camp before you teach your friends.

[dewdman42]

Hey Miles. That may very well happen someday, but I don't intend to wait until then to show my friends a better way to ski, if I can help it.

[dewdman42]

I think that the name for the "Phantom Move" relates to the appearance of the inside ski just gliding on the snow parallel to the stance ski while in fact it requires constant LTE tipping and pooling the free foot towards the stance foot.

Right..That's what I got too...the appearance of nothing special going on with that foot, while in reality a lot more activity is happening with that foot then with the stance foot. Just want to make sure I am not missing an important concept about the word "phantom" here.

[Jim Ratliff]

Harald was a ski instructor at Aspen and also skiing on Lito Tejada-Flores ski instructional tapes. In one of those venues, he demonstrated a turn for his fellow instructors and asked them to analyze the movements creating the turn.

They were unable to, and one of them volunteered that it was almost like a phantom move. Urban legend or actual truth, who knows?

[richk]

With respect to "convincing" friends, the old joke applies: how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Only one, but it has to want to change.

Many of my long term ski buddies have said 'What are you doing differently to have improved so much? Show me!" Others, while even less skillful, are content where they are.

It's all good.

The skier's goals and interest level define what is possible, not the evangelical hopes of the instructor--and I'm plenty preachy!

When I offer to teach a friend, I set the expectation that time is needed on groomed terrain doing drills--it isn't just "skiing with a few tips."

[tommy]

Later on I will ask for clarification about the difference between the phantom turn and the super phantom

Hi,

the SP is simply a refinement of the std. Phantom move, with more focus on staying on the current free ski LTE for a moment during initial tipping the new free ski in transition. That is, SP tries to disallow the old free ski to flatten at the moment when tipping begins.

One way to think about the SP is to visualize a moment of "severe" bowleggedness in transition....
--T

[dewdman42]

oh interesting. So regular phantom just focuses pretty much on the basic moves of narrow stance and constantly tipping and pulling back the inside foot during the duration of the turn, while the SP is all of the above + more detail about how to transition...specifically, transfer weight from outside(stance) to inside(free), stay on little toe edge a few moments and start tipping new inside ski(causing bowlegs), then as the upper body crosses over allow the stance leg to tip also and catch up with the free ski in terms of edge angle. That about summarize it?

[ChrisSSBB]

dewdman,

You sound like one of my ski buddies - he was our designated instuctor on ski trips. I could keep up with him except when the moguls got steep or when skiing steep powder, crud, etc. But, even when keeping up he was controlling speed by carving while I was controlling speed by jamming the BTE. I was resigned to the fact that after 20 years of skiing with him, that this wasn't going to change particularly given that I only get 10 - 15 days on the slopes in a given season - and most of those days are on hills, not big ski areas.

What changed things for me, and changed things dramatically was when I finally got my boots aligned along with footbeds. While I was making some progress with the drills in Book 1 prior to alignment, it seemed more difficult than it should be. After alignment, it was night and day.
My friend cannot believe the difference in my skiing and is asking me questions about release, transition, etc. I showed him this site and he loves it and is using the techniques to get his 8 yr old daughter out of wedging.

You might want to take the video along on the ski trip and play it for your friends while sitting around drinking beer and eating nachos. The drills work and maybe they will try it when on some easy slopes. If they have a lot of difficulty with the one ski stuff, it could well be because they have an alignment issue. If they have any desire at all to improve, try to convince them have their alignment checked out. I wish I had years ago but I didn't so I had to wait until age 48 to achieve my best skiing.

[tommy]

oh interesting. So regular phantom just focuses pretty much on the basic moves of narrow stance and constantly tipping and pulling back the inside foot during the duration of the turn, while the SP is all of the above + more detail about how to transition...specifically, transfer weight from outside(stance) to inside(free), stay on little toe edge a few moments and start tipping new inside ski(causing bowlegs), then as the upper body crosses over allow the stance leg to tip also and catch up with the free ski in terms of edge angle. That about summarize it?

Yup, at least as far as my understanding goes.

Obviously, the "bowleggedness" is a gross exaggeration, but I've found it useful when doing slomo SP exercises - in actual skiing, the transfer to LTE and the bowleggedness lasts only a very brief moment in time.

--T

[dewdman42]

he heh. Yea. the books and DVD's are definitely coming on the trip. Never know where that will lead.

Yea I noticed in some of the basic phantom turns that HH was exagerating a bit of bowleggedness. I agree you don't really notice it so much in actuality at speed..its really the visualization and perhaps a feeling of tipping that inside foot AS IF its going to make you bow legged, but it will happen so quickly at the transition in dynamic skiing..that there probably isn't much actual bowleggedness.... hehe...

[Sam Snead]

So for Super Phatom if we release, transfer to LTE of old free foot and end up bowlegged for a moment will not our tracks show up this way - it does for me when I view my tracks from the chairlift.

In between turns my tracks are about 6 inches wide during transition, then become one basic knife edge during the engagement part of the arc then widen as my stance ski goes flat through to tipping and I balance on the LTE. repeat. Are these correct movements or am I holding the LTE transition too long?

[dewdman42]

HH actually makes a point in video #2 about the tracks not being any wider at the transition. That would indicate (I think) that you're releasing your free LTE a little too soon.

[Icanski]

speaking of "bowleggedness", I'm bowlegged, and while working on carving tonight I can say that it takes a lot of tipping to get that stance leg to start tipping, and balancing on the LTE of the free foot before following the new free foot (the super phantom) is really tough. It also make the temptation to bring the legs in clost together tricky because if my knees are touching, I'm on the BTE on both skis a bit, and the edge angles don't match.
I've been "aligned" by the local non-PMTS boot experts, and had three foot beds...and rich stuck wedges under my boots during my test, so I can't wait to see if they were done right when I get to Fernie. I hate to think that all the daily practicing is ruined by not being aligned...it's frustrating. I also hope I'm not just blaming bad alignment for bad skiing...we shall see.
icanksi