Peceptions on the effectiveness of PMTS - Page 5

courage? did you say courage? puhleaze:

let's get together and we'll pin a medal on the little fella's chest.

have you ever heard the term "private publisher"? i assure you if you want to pay for it you can get anything you want published.

I want to see him post the bolded part in an email to Herman maier.... as an austrian I will almost bet he learnt a snow plow progression...... ruined his skiing for life I bet that did!:

That is absolutely true. Unfortunately, just how flat that terrain really does need to be for a never-ever to feel comfortable even making steps turns to start is not obvious from the PMTS information available. For god sakes make absolutely sure there is no possibility of them running into a rope tow or lauching off a trail edge. Until they learn to shorten up the turn its all edge and ski radius till they either arc uphill enough to slow down and stop or run out of trail.

Onyx,

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about? Do you teach wedges with an edge lock relying only on sidecut and camber to turn? What would make you believe that PMTS or any direct to parallel program teaches this? Can you not teach progressive edging from a parallel stance? What movements can you as an instructor do from a wedge stance that you cannot do from a parallel stance?

As far as terrain, I teach at a 10 acre hill in Wisconsin and can seem to find suitable terrain. I teach most beginner lessons in about 90 minutes on a strip about 20 feet wide by 40 foot long. My class sizes are usually between 8 to 12 students. It might be tougher out west though, who could possibly find a gentle little slope amongst a mere 3,000 acres!

Rusty Guy, are you saying that Harb's books are homemade? Well, I will point your attention to the fact that every book on skiing is published by relatively small and unknown publishers given that they will hardly ever make it to the NY Times list of best sellers. Nevertheless, recall that PSIA's books are also published by the organization itself (and some even out of print) and sold overpriced to PSIA members. If we go down the road of disparaging books because they have small publishers, I am afraid we are going to eliminate pretty much everything ever written on skiing. What about the magazines that have more advertising than anything else?
Where are your privately published books? You could just copy paste all your posts here, don't you think? Rusty Guy's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Skiing, But Never Had The Courage to Ask. "

Many things evolve. No need to get stuck in the past. During the Industrial Revolution, new machines were smashed, inventors beaten or even killed.
Yet, if the new ideas had not prevailed, chances are we would not be skiing today and stuck to a machine for 16 hours a day.
I always admire those who say "Today, we can improve upon yesterday state of the art. " It seems to me you don't. :

During my first ski lesson (PSIA) 35 years ago or so I hit a fence 7 times and once I hit the wall of the building used a storage room. No helmet either. Survived and did not sue anybody: Direct parallel or death!

Holy Triple Posts Batman!

The first one is the only one with a solid point...

Mike, I was mostly referring to the fact that you really need wide gentle terrain to teach a never ever PMTS effectively. It's not an issue with the movements taught with the PMTS progression.

From the limited experience I have had with this, one person, when attempting to follow the progression in "Anyone Can Be an Expert Skier" the student was making turns too wide for the beginner terrain available at our small Illinois ski area. Following the same movements, I could shorten the turns enough to work, but my skills with these movements are much greater than hers are. Since PMTS does not teach active steering via rotary, she didn't have that tool available for shortening a turn radius or braking.

When following the same exact progression at Whistler where the beginner runs were much wider and she could allow the skis to turn to completion and develop the skills to shorten them, she improved rapidly.

In attempting to teach her via this progression, It was not initally obvious to me how wide of a space should be used to make the student comfortable. The spaces we were attempting to use are typically used for beginner wedge lesson that focus on using foot steering to tighten turns to fit within the terrain.

Somewhere you missed something?

I have taught 3 people now. I've seen a pretty much beginner be taught by an expert PMTS instructor. In all these cases it was rather simple to get the student doing the 2 footed release which for most beginners results in a SKIDDED TURN with way too much rotary for carving. How does this happen? Because the passive rotary generated in PMTS can do a 90 degree hockey stop no problem. It is a continuing myth that PMTS has no rotary component to it and I don't understand why. Probably because it's not an active rotary component and direct leg steering is indeed taught against. The phantom move combined with a stance foot that remains flat or simply flatter than the free foot tipping results in a rotary torque. Most beginners don't allow the stance leg to edge as much as they could (they have no clue how to move or coordinate their upper body with what their feet are starting) so the tails wash out, which in this case isn't such a bad thing.

My first PMTS lesson I told the instructor you can't do a hockey stop with it and then he asked me if I was sure about that and proceed to show me one. That was a lot easier than what I had been doing up to that point with active rotary based hockey stops and it was much more balanced.

The valid problem in teaching a PMTS style instruction that I'm not sure has been brought up is that a PMTS approach uses traverses more than a standard wedge lesson. Thus if you have both approaches being taught at the same time, you can have an issue with the wedgers going down the hill while the PMTS'ers are going accross the hill. Of course once you get your PMTS student to the 2 footed release this problem goes away or it's not a problem at all if everyone is teaching the same thing.

The other thing I've seen brought up before against teaching PMTS vs other more traditional approaches which has not been brought up here so I'll bring it up is:

PMTS requires you to have good boot alignment. I look at this as a myth also. While this is true for later PMTS skiing development or any skiing development for that matter, the 2 footed release which is the first turn style taught to beginners does not matter a whole lot what the alignment issues are.

How can you do a hockey stop without twisting a ski out of it's direction of travel?

"Good boot alignment" may not be required by PMTS, but it sure looks to be REAL IMPORTANT and applies to all levels. I agree with HH on these points.

In this case the 2 footed release did not create a skidded turn, it created a mostly carved turn which was much to wide for the area in question. In fact, thats even a bit too far advanced. Teaching the traverse using the phantom move tipping the uphill ski to its LTE and then having the ski turn up the hill was producing carved turns too long for the area in question if much speed at all was introduced.

It only takes one or two attempts which end up in running out of space in a hurry to scuttle the confidence of the learning student. PMTS doesn't teach active rotary, and if the passive rotary component isn't breaking the tails lose into a skidded turn, where does this leave you? I never claimed PMTS didn't involve any rotary and stated explicitly active rotary for this reason.

I am not an acredited PMTS instructor, and didn't have ready access to one during an available time so we were doing the best we could at approaching PMTS for a never-ever based on published literature. We were much more successful doing the progression at Whistler on wider runs and with ski blades. The shorter radius naturally shortend the resulting turns and also allowed easier access to the passive rotary elements.

The point behind the whole inital and following post was to say that learning via PMTS isn't as simple for a never-ever as just picking up the literature and going at it. The knowledge that an experienced instructor brings to the table fills in the non-obvious gaps. It also lends some more real-world credence to the argument put forth that direct-to-parallel systems can be difficult to teach without the correct location.

I understand what PMTS teaches at the introductory level. I've taken lessons on the subject matter from a PMTS accredited instructor. I've read every line from "Anyone Can be an Expert Skier 1." Both myself and the person I was trying to teach had seen the videos and read the books. The student had a professional boot-fitting with footbeds. That still doesn't mean it's just going to happen with no problems.

The issue of objectively qualifying the success of a particular method is important. This need to quantify results of teaching is why all areas of education make great use of standardized testing, as a way to provide some metric (however imperfect) of the quality and effectiveness of the service.
I can't imagine trying to teach anyone how to ski with any DTP method at a place like, say....Mad River.

Going back to metrics of effectiveness being important, I once met a woman who "learned to ski" by going to MRG with some friends who brought her to the top of the single and left her there. :

Obviously, she eventually learned how to ski. I think its fair to say that method might be found less effective if someone did the research.

Are the huge portion of skiers that don't continue skiing or taking lessons makng that decision based on their experience with the instruction, or other factors? Last I heard, the retention rate is pretty horrid.

During a random unrelated google search, I found this tidbit. A good article to read, and note how generally correct it was about the direction things have come in. Part of it made me laugh, a description of goals for Level 8-9 skiers on shaped skis in PSIA lessons:
That about sums up why I haven't taken a ski lesson from an "instructor" in the better part of a decade. At that time, it was utterly ridiculous to do so. There were stretchpanters everywhere either skiing on 205s, or the few cognoscenti doing those silly ~1997 things like skiing without poles and grabbing the snow, pissing off everyone by using the ENTIRE trail. It was a mess...a total clusterscrew.

If you read that, note the references to the wedge perhaps being someday dropped. Guess that didn't happen. Overall its a surprisingly forward looking document, but it was my experience at the "front lines" that the typical instructor was a lot less enlightened.

therusty
My thoughts exactly as I read the post you mention.
Harald himself said "no rotary". That's what prompted me to ask for his definition. He gave a 15+ minute talk about "internal rotary" before I was able to pin him down. Most of the other people in the clinic were upset with me (for "wasting time") because I kept asking for clear definitions and explainations of the things he said. The rest of the group either had the "HH says it so it must be so" or "see HH is wrong" attitude. No one was very interested to get a real understanding.

When I mentioned in my earlier post that "experienced instructors thought the movement pool was too small" it was from the time before I skied with Harald. After I took the clinic I realized that these instructors thought that the tight, narrow stance that others had demonstrated to them was the "standard". One of the first things HH cleared up (when I asked) on that was that vertical separation is necessary. With vertical separation the thing works quite nicely.

After watching Harald ski and skiing closely behind him, I figured out that all of the desciples I've run into haven't got the vertical separation thing and haven't figured out about moving their feet fore and aft through the turn. Those are the two things that Harald does so well in his skiing.
It would be interesting to watch him ski in a variety of terrain and some gates. I don't doubt he would be excellent, I'd just like to see the mechanics he'd use

Some of the local racer types were trying to get him to ski the NASTAR course they'd set. He refused saying he only had Slalom skis. They were all saying "I bet he'd be slow". I wish he had skied it. I'm sure he would of "handed it to them". The best racers I've watched never "look" fast.

Onyx,

You may have missed that element of my previous post when I asked you about egde lock in a wedge, but it still seems to be a stumbling block. This is not a PMTS, ATS, or CSIA issue, this is understanding movements. I get the strong impression based on your writing that you believe with the absence of active rotary steering such as in PMTS, that you have only edge lock and ski sidecut to determine turn shape. Your remedy as you stated was to alter equipment by using Ski blades to get a shorter turn. But if the movements of expert skiing are the same as beginner skiing, only varying in degree and intensity, there must be more involved in turn shape. Here are a couple of thoughts:

1) Less edging causes "skidding". In a forward side slip on shaped skis, progressive tipping short of edge lock will still cause the tips to turn uphill while also providing a "braking" effect and shorter turn radius. This holds true for all skier levels.

2) PMTS does not start out teaching "pure carve" turns, and neither does any other system I am aware of. Two footed release, phantom moves, or any other movements do not automatically facilitate a carved turn. That's why as instructors we have to be skilled in movement analysis. If we cannot recognize movement patterns and correct those issues, we will not be effective teaching any system, PMTS or other.

By the way, you mentioned Whister, I don't know whether you are an instructor there or not, but I would love to ski with you and show you what I know of PMTS,(I am accredited). We can do "two footed releases" on Spankies!

Mike, thanks for your response. I had typed out a big long post, and then just deleted the whole thing to replace it with a much shorter and to the point one.

The edge lock question was a very good question to ask me. Reflecting on your edge lock question, I realize now that I had completely over-looked the importance of the word "progressive." Sure enough, it is right there, plain as day, in the "Anyone Can Be an Expert Skier" drills. There might as well have been a lightbulb come on over my head.

She had a much too aggressive tipping of the free foot and was bringing her stance ski to too much edge too quickly. This was locking her into one radius on her turns. We had never worked on tipping the free foot progressively enough to produce a skidded turn. The importance of the manuever had been lost on me because my own skiing was focused on an aggressive tipping of the free foot to engage the edges at the top of the turn. I remember asking myself the question "Why isn't she skidding these turns?" Well, now I know.

We had worked on side-slipping quite a bit to get a feeling of sliding and being on edge. She had become quite good at this. The importance of this drill made sense to me before, but now I understand its usage has a lot more to do with just being on edge vs slipping. It also teaches the effect of progressive edging.

I am, unfortunately, not a ski instructor. Maybe someday when I get the skills to do it. I would be happy to ski with you sometime anyway.

Although he may well have handed it to them, NASTAR courses, in general, do not favor the technical expertise of cranking turns. They favor the skier who can gauge the slighter edge necessary to make the turns and still keep a tight line, but not too tight. It doesn't take much to F' that up such as getting too much shoulder against a gate.

I've been beat by technical "lessers" in NASTAR type courses. It's a matter of grin and bear it. I don't blame him for not doing it. Get the NASTAR locals on an FIS type hill against HH and I believe they might not be so eager.

Turnalot

No doubt about that. They don't even like the training courses I set for the kids. Very low completion rates. Not unusual for them to be beaten by a J3 or4 girl on a trainer.

You'd all like this I'm sure

Harald at the race camp this summer was riding SCSA pretty hard to widen his stance.

Harald himself has very narrow hips thus his functional stance is pretty narrow. But the more you need to crank-em the wider the neutral stance needs to become. SCSA, with his preference for bumps and off-piste has developed quite a narrow stance which helps in that environment.

I think in PMTS training where there is some confusion regarding stance width is that in the lower level drills where in other methods a stable wide stance is sought after, a PMTS progression will encourage a pretty narrow one so less of a balance shift is needed to get the CM to one side of the skis or the other. Of course, the emphasis on one ski technique as a learning tool in PMTS makes it very simple indeed to be on one side of your skis by definition.

But, in the race camp environment that I had with HH and crew in June, its much much different than what you get in the books and much more in common with what non-PMTS high end skiers encourage and talk about.

What some of you may not realize is the Harald was a racer, coach, a member of PSIA's D Team and in my opinion an excellent coach/instructor. I took a week long class with him when he was on the D-Team. He has the skills to ski at a very high level in all terrain and conditions.

>>>He has the skills to ski at a very high level in all terrain and conditions.<<<

I have not heard anybody claim otherwise...

....Ott

When I got my accreditation a few years ago, Harald ran some bumps on a pretty steep "blue" (FIS homogulated slalom run). At 50+ years old, he put most of the young guys to shame.

I still take clinics with Harald and Diana. They are excellent teachers. But I don't listen to the rhetoric. I have come to the conclusion that skiing is skiing and not talk. What I have learned from them is to watch other skiers and learn from watching. I take different ski techniques and try to break them down so that I may try the movements on my own. It is a lot of fun and sometimes I find something that I can keep.

While I fundamentally a PMTS skier, I am not going to limit myself to that technique. I am going to explore and have fun. So often people on this site (and other sites) get tunnel vision. There is a lot of differing ways of doing things. I want to reach out and grab new stuff and play with it.

Rick H

Rick H

What Rick H said.

You are right. HH has alienated a lot of people. He talks down to a lot of fine instructors and other professionals who are very strong skiers. He's a dogmatic guy and PMTS, which may have some virtues, is a dogmatic system that limits skiers if you take it as gospel.

Publishing ideas for public discussion is a standard procedure in all disciplines, sciences, and professional organizatons. Often, the discussions get heated and sometimes they get downright nasty. Innovators usually come from outside the Establishment. The Establishment is usually smug and denies the vailidity of the new idea. The innovator goes off on their own and starts something new. If it's got value, a revolution in that discipline takes place. If not, the innovator is written off as either a minor figure in history or even a downright failure.

From my pespective, if PMTS were so effective, wouldn't skiers on the WC be flocking to it? I mean, these people want to go fast anyway they can. Every run for them is "time to open a little can of whup ass." When Bode tried shape skis, they all followed suit right away. Are they flocking to PMTS?

Since Harald is a race coach with high-level experience, and since he based his program primarily on race technique, I say that the reason World Cup athletes aren't flocking to his program is because to a large degree they're already there. You'll find very few race coaches that disagree with the bulk of PMTS. They may have a quibble here or there about stance or weighting issues, but he does know his stuff when it comes to training racers.

I disagree that his program is the absolutely the most effective method of getting a skier from point A to point B (your experience may vary), and I'm not crazy about his personality or methods of operation, but I don't think there's a question of the man's credentials.

Nightcat,

I think you miss the point of PMTS. TS means teaching system. The WC skier already knows how to ski. What is really at question is that if PMTS does produce skiers with high abilities FASTER than regular methods, then why are ski areas not flocking to it?

If it worked as magically as it is supposed to, wouldn't adopting PMTS as the primary teaching system give your area a competitive advantage?

I don't think PMTS has anything to do with race training. Race training is all about getting a feel for what is fast and what is not. The movements all develop from that. PMTS is all about restricting the pool of available movements so that intermediates can lose the rotary push off. You'll never learn to go fast doing that pahntom foot thing.
I don't know if HH has ever trained racers or not. USSA coaches never talk about PMTS. I suppose that people that HH is looking for like the idea that they are following some path to the World Cup, but PMTS is just another internediate lesson, with better quality control, along with some PSIA bashing for good measure.

BK