Peceptions on the effectiveness of PMTS - Page 6

Bode,

Your last post is merely your belief and based on a predisposed bias. If you are going to support the credentials and background of PSIA-E staff, don't turn around and diminish someone else's lifelong pursuit. HH has an extensive background as a racer and a coach and I believe you are fully aware of that. If you believe that the movements PMTS teaches are simply "an intermediate lesson" than you show either a lack of knowledge of PMTS or just skiing in general. But I doubt that is the case, as you seem to be very committed to the sport. As someone accredited in PSIA, USSA, and PMTS, I don't believe any of it was a waste of my time and certainly not merely "an intermediate lesson" that "is all about restricting the pool of available movements".

Mike C,

Do you think you could take a second and run over to HH's site and make the same speech?

Rusty,

Two wrongs don't make a right. And it was not simply HH's lifelong pursuit being minimalized, but many others that agree with much of what PMTS is based upon. What many have done is to take a very real personality issue of Harb's, and used it to not merely attack his over the top statements, but diminish what he teaches. A true professional should be able to "separate the wheat from the chaff".

When Harald carves do his tracks converge in his transition? I assume they do, I'm just looking for a yes, or a no, and for a "how much."
Later
GREG

Race progressions (at the early stages) are actually very much like what Harald promotes- effective edge control and stance/balance. Pure speed has never been the goal of any lower-level race training I've been exposed to. If anything, many coaches push their athletes to slow down and control their turns (through restrictive exercises). Remeber, this is a system that starts at the beginning and progresses from there. I don't neccessarily agree with everything he says, but I've seen the progress (in several skiers) and have to admit that he does get results. Is it the fastest way for everyone to get from developmental stage A to stage B? The jury is out there (and I lean toward the Nay side), but he does have a progression that works extremely well for some.

In my neck of the woods, Harald coached with the Alyeska Ski Club and oversaw the development of or directly coached several future US Teamers, including Tommy Moe and Megan Gerety. He didn't stop there, and is still involved on the international level. Ask a national level coach about Harald sometime. I very much doubt there are many of them that don't know him in some fashion. Just because the USSA coaches don't talk about PMTS, doesn't mean they dismiss the program. Why would a race (USSA) program need to subscribe to a program based on what they are already doing? PMTS is a program to bring race training progressions (after a fashion) to the masses, not the other way around.

Greg
Harald carved pretty clean railroad tracks most of the time I was watching him. No diverging or converging.
Bode
He does have extensive race experience. The movement pool is not limited if you look at the whole picture. Most get too focused on the narrow stance and forget the vertical separation that makes it work. Another thing that a lot miss is moving the feet back and forth under the CM. The disciples spend a lot of time in the backseat. A lot of this stuff is stuff coaches have been doing for quite awhile. They just didn't name it and "copywrite" it.

Hey Slatz, Greg asked a pretty good question.

I haven't seen Harald ski yet in person, but on his web site he has images of himself making turns employing big edge angles, and the neccessary foot seperations. If he maintained those seperations through the transitions he'd display a pretty wide stance at neutral. I believe Greg was asking if that was the case, or if he reduced the lateral seperation during the transition. I betting he reduces it.

Ummm, to clarify - it's probably best to credit to Chip Woods and the Glacier Creek Academy with latter grooming of Moe/Gerety - They were already on the Team when Harald arrived in Girdwood. Granted, non household names like Bjorn-Roli, Woodland and Montalbo were part of ASC as juniors while HH was there -

The day after Tommy won Olympic Gold, Lolly Moss announced a party.
"Will it be a big party?"
"About 500 people!"
"Wow, who's invited?"

"Everyone who's ever said they coached Tommy........"

I don't think Tommy took much coaching, from observing him at races while he was here in Montana.

yes, they do. there was an analysis of his skiing vs. the ESA team posted once. I clearly recall the separation decreasing at transition. I also seem to remember that this was pointed out in the text of the analysis by SkiSynergy.....

My mistake

That sounds like Lolly (I did private race coaching with her for a year), and to a large degree like the Alyeska Ski Club. I still race and free-ski with Bjorn-Roli's dad and brother, who still is a big fan of Harald's. However, the relatively large percentage of US Teamers from such a small, off-the-circuit club during that era points to a incredible staff of coaches. I shouldn't have made it sound like a one-man show, and I got my dates and time-frames mixed up a little. I race and free-ski with Bjorn-Roli's dad and brother (both named Per), who are still big fans of Harald's.

A lot of infighting and the eventual demise of the Glacier Creek Academy (among other unpleasant events) happened a little later during his tenure (not all events to be completely attributed to him), but the club seems to be pretty healthy now. It looks like I'm headed to Mammoth in a couple weeks with a group of 30 Juniors from the club. Again, that might not sound like a lot by lower 48 standards, but imagine the logistics and expense of getting 30 kids down from Alaska and it points to a solid program.

Anyway, back on topic...
My errors aside, Harald does have top-level coaching experience and knows a thing or two about racing. That he doesn't jump at the chance to prove himself at every turn and take on every single challenge probably is a good idea, since sooner or later he's going to fail and all of his detractors are going to point at it as singular proof of the failure of PMTS as a whole. To a large degree he brought it on himself by the way he marketed PMTS and the way he deals with some people.

But let's look at this another way. Harald came from a world (racing) where the training is a little more regimented and progression oriented than PSIA. "Athletes", not "students", are your target audience, and you've come to expect a certain level of personal dedication, physical ability, and yes, financial investment from them to achieve a higher level of performance. Then put him in a large organization that caters to "students" of ALL abilities and motivation levels and has adapted its teaching style to serve them as best as possible. A guy like Harald (personality and experience) would go nuts. Surely, he reasons, if you show people that they CAN ski at the expert level, everyone will want to make all of the sacrifices neccessary to make it happen. He places the blame on the system (PSIA), not the consumer, for what the system teaches.

To his credit, he has created a program that makes this structured, drill/progression-oriented, race-style training more accessable to the average skier, which is something most PSIA schools don't offer. It suits a certain type of personality, and I believe structured programs are the quickest path to expert skiing if the student applies him/herself. The books are not the last word on PMTS, they just outline the foundation for what he believes is the core of expert skiing. I would be willing to bet anyone attending a PMTS clinic would be exposed to all sorts of drills to hammer home points until the student understood and could demonstrate the particular skill. Not a narrow progression at all. However, it's hard to do that in book form and get your point across to everyone. I think he did a pretty good job, all things considered. It didn't work for me in book form, but I probably would have thrived with regular, direct PMTS instruction.

I've had some very bad PSIA lessons. I didn't always know that until later, so getting my money back was not an option. Inefficient movement patterns, bad communication... all things I blame on the school and individual instructor, not PSIA as a whole. I've had some very good PSIA lessons, which I attribute to the school, instructor, and PSIA as a whole. For me, the crapshoot of finding a good instructor that could communicate with me effectively and would be around for more than one season was extremely frustrating (and extremely expensive). I ended up going to a race program, which was actually cheaper (!?!?!) and much more effective for me. Kinda hard to work on a skill progression when you bounce from instructor to instructor. PSIA doesn't have a semi-rigid roadmap of drills that each instructor can use to find where a student has left off.

That, Harald would probably say, is one of the weaknesses of PSIA. Given his small cadre of instructors, all certified (by him or his small staff) to teach from his progressions, he can keep quality control very high. While some PMTS instructors are undoubtably better than others, there's still that roadmap of drills and skills that they can use to make the best use of lesson time. It happens within PSIA at some resorts of course, but does it happen when you move from resort to resort? Given the size and organization of PSIA, I doubt it will ever be possible.

A lot of PSIA instructors have real trouble separating Harald, the man, from PMTS, the system. Harald attacked PSIA and the work several highly-respected instructors, and has marketed his system directly against PSIA. He burned a lot of bridges there. Probably not the best move on his part, but he does have his cult of the faithful that have made real progress under his system and will probably believe most things he says. If I had regular access to a PMTS instructor, I might have been right in there with them, selling flowers in the airport and skiing my ass off.

Is PMTS effective? I've seen several of Harb's students ski, and they all exhibit a well-balanced, graceful style in a variety of conditions, relative to the amount of instruction they received and the time they have been skiing. Some exhibit characteristics I don't particularly care for (personal opinion), but overall they glide down the hill in a graceful, efficient manner. Isn't that the point of ski instruction?

The tracks I saw him make at Tyrol were pretty even. Of course if you get big edge angles there you stop so it's probably different on bigger hills.

You guys are really sensitive about criticism of HH. I never disparaged him, and I really don't know anything about his racing background. I know he was a Demo Team member for a while, and I know he's been pretty harsh about PSIA ever since he left the Team. And why shouldn't he be criticised? He disparages everything about most of the ski instruction world, and he even (at Realskiers) judges skiers he hasn't even seen. You can say what you want, but PMTS is marketed to intermediates looking for a quick fix to their rotary push off, tail pushing, mediocre skiing. That's fine with me, I've even used his excercises myself, but you shouldn't confuse it with race training. I'm sure HH has trained racers, but that doesn't mean everything he teaches is based on race training.

BK

Great post Alaska Mike. I think you've pretty much said everything there really is to say.

Great posts Alaska Mike

All of your information matches what I've heard and observed. Tommy Moe was part of his race program up in Alaska for kids. It was from this race program and working with the local staff in the ski school that he popped onto the demo team. He didn't have the normal PSIA background. (prior to that he was on the WC circuit (I think I read somewhere that he skied for the Canadian National Team (he was born in Canada and his Dad has dual Austrian and Canadian citizenship))and what many people don't know is he has no cartiledge in one knee which is why he quit skiing WC)

At Copper Mountain last year the WC skiers were practicing Super G's before the slopes opened. Whenever we gathered at breakfast there were always people come up from this group of WC skiers and coaches and visiting and saying hi and catching up on stuff. (and quite a few of these conversations were in German). Later in the week he did a seminar on bio-mechanics to many of these people as well on one of the evenings. (happened to be the same night as LeMaster was doing a seminar in boulder to non-wc people)

Jay (Skiersynergy) has stayed at his house before and HH gets calls from people from all over the world. These can range from coaches to wc skiers and often it's not about skiing but biking or fishing. I was in his shop once and a mom came in with her son that was coming of a prior season ending injury. The mom just went on and on about the list of people and coaches she talked to that said make the trip and have HH do the boots. I think this also tells a bit of the story in that the people in his shop are from all over the world getting work done.

The concept he was trying to bring to ski instruction while on the demo team was primary movements. For people interested the PMTS instructor manual is quite a bit different from the 2 "Anyone can be an Expert Skier" books (I've talked with him about that title because of course not everyone is willing to put in the time work and money to be an expert skier - heck - most skiers won't even get their alignment checked and do one ski trip a year!). The instructor manual goes much more into the bio-mechanics and logic based on this of defining what is a primary movement vs a secondary movement. It is a multiple author collaboration and one of them is a PHD in bio-mechanics. (Rob Hintermeister) If you're actually interested in PMTS at a ski instructor level and to have more of the why's explained its a very interesting read. (or just a curious student that wants the full explainations)

In my experiences in the various camps the blue/dark blue camps (what I started with) and I'm assuming the Green camp are pretty much out of the books. Still, each student gets their own things to work on based on the concept of SMIM (single most important movement) for that student).

But, and it's a very big but, in the camps past this, the all mountain camps and the race camp you learn things that go way beyond the books. I think that's his challenge in the book that will be published this spring is he is trying to bring the rest of the material down to an accessable level for students and coaches to use that people get at these higher level camps.

------------------------------------------

Stance width - do Harald's tracks converge some at transistion?

That's a good question. Harald's functional stance (where the legs dangle vertically out their sockets) is very narrow. He is not hung up on stance width and it varies by conditions. But, his range of variance because of his hips being so narrow is narrow compared to many people. At the Race camp he was having some people in the camp open up their stance so they could generate the angles needed. (racing is not bump skiing after all)

I'll watch for this at camp in 2 weeks (wooo hooo - I'm finally skiing in 2 weeks).

The whole discussion about ILE vs OLR turns revolved around a turn style taught in PMTS called the Super Phantom. In PMTS you actually learn a number of turn styles. But, HH when he skis the race course is usually doing a weighted release which has almost no history of discussion on the Epic forum or really on RealSkiers for that matter. Most PMTS students don't do this turn. I don't do this turn that much as the Super Phantom is so much easier. In a weighted release style turn it is no problem to have a stance that changes width at the transition point vs the apex of the turn because at the transition point the pressure is still mainly on the downhill ski (just the oppisite of the Super Phantom turn). Either turn tends to be a one ski pressured approach at the transition so a varying width is not much of an issue.

I won't be surprised to see the tracks converge at transition. It's a change in vertical seperation which results in a change in track width.

Flame away.

I never said not to criticize Harald. He certainly criticized others in the instruction world, so it's all fair.

If you look at his exercises, many of them have long histories in race programs. He may have named them differently or put another spin on them, but a great deal are adapted race drills. You could probably pick any one of the drills in the books and I could probably tell you which camp, training session, or clinic I did that one in, or at least the coach that exposed me to it. None of the coaches are affiliated to PMTS in any way. He just took the world he knows and made it accessable for the average skier. There's more to race training than cross-blocking.

Flame the man if you want. Flame the program if you want. All I ask is that you separate the two when you do so.

Bloody hell mate ... you people are STILL bleating about PMTS.

What a sad existence.

Be like an Austrian, ski fast, say little

MOZ

PMTS is not based on Modern Race Technique, regardless of what Harb says. WC skiers are not doing what Harb says because Modern Technique is completely different than PMTS, much more complex, based on different premises and actions for edging, inclining, angulating, disengaging and transitioning.

No, I haven't missed the point of PMTS. I've actually studied the books, the instructor's manual and the videos. Shared it with WC coaches I know in Europe. PMTS and its technqiue is not what they teach for either general skiing or racing. There are better ways to teach, to ski and to race today than with the techniques of PMTS.

Actually, I agree that PMTS is not based on modern race technique (as defined in the last few years). It is based on classic race progressions/drills that are still taught by a great deal of coaches that are integrating them into the new style. The fundamentals really haven't changed (despite some people's assertions to the contrary), just the application of them. The goal of PMTS is not to train racers to compete, it's to train average skiers to ski effectively. It's success in that way is the point of this debate, and our opinions of it as a teaching system (as outlined in the books and videos) for the general public may not be as different as you might think.

That made me giggle.

Harald is an Austrian, and while he can undoubtably ski fast, no one has ever accused him of saying little.

LOL .... thats why he can be found in Colorado yackety yack, yacking with the rest of the yackety yack yack team.

Happy skiing

Keep up or shut up.

Modern Race Technique and HH

Modern Race Technique and HH -

Interesing proposition that PMTS and Modern Race Technique are disconnected.

The reason this is interesting to me is that HH actively coaches top skiers and also works with different race coaches in addition to his PMTS activities. (for instance this week he is coaching the number 2 ranked junior in the country and he always is coaching at various camps on Mt Hood in the summer)

I'll post this over on www.realskiers.com/pmtsforum and see what I can churn up.

John,

You may have missed my question. Who are the current psia examiner(s) and former demo team member(s) that you attended a pmts camp with?

Who?

Rusty,

I looked up in the HH site. Arcmeister is not on the list, but he was one of the coaches at the PMTS Fall Clinic last year. Demo Team former member is Lavelle Sair. And if you want, John Clendenin, world mogul champ and Scotty Brooksbank, former worl freestyle champ. I have been in a PMTS camp with all of them. But who cares?

I haven't a clue as to who the junior is.

Rick H

who cares?

john cared enough to write what he did to support some sort of point. he has done so in the past and when called on it never answers.

coaching the number 2 ranked junior? where? tuesday HH was skiing with diana and a couple adults. if he was coaching yesterday it wasn't at loveland. maybe he was at a-basin.

who is the wonderkid?

now we're hearing about throngs of folks coming into his shop and that certainly differs from what i see passing the place. I've never seen a single customer. has anyone else?

i certainly don't know of any current psia examiners involved with pmts. if there are i'd love for john to tell me who they are.

I agree with Mike there.
I'd offer additional perspective that PMTS is not really based on any unique 'technique' particular to any point on skiing’s time-line. While HH has a deep background in racing and coaching, I think it was what he observed that all the best were doing at the fundamental (primary) movement level that inspired him, not some national biased outcome style representing a 'technique'. PMTS's foundation is in biomechanical analysis and understanding of why these common fundamental movements that are so evident in all great skiers (not only in the race but in the all-mountain arena as well) work so efficiently and effectively but are timeless as well.

All skis are designed to react to the net sum of edging, pressuring and turning inputs from their skiers. How the sports best skiers actually initiate those movements (from the feet first) to make the tools work as designed is pretty universal, and the basis of PMTS’s movement pool. How individual skiers, racers or coaches choose to enhance or modify those movements is the downstream whirlpool of personal perspective, preference and ‘style’ that fuels the competing 'techniques' debate. If you are doing the basics right, you have a lot of presentation options, if not the presentation will not save you.

One often overlooked asset of PMTS is that it's movement pool offers the flexibility and adaptability to ski a wide variety of snow, terrain, and speeds efficiently and without needing to learn (unlearn or re-learn) some another ‘technique'. If someone really needs to categorize PMTS as a ‘technique’, ok. But I’d then offer to consider that it is an ‘input’ based, not an ‘output’ based one. As in: PMTS inputs provide optional outcomes for each skier to choose from.

Side note: I personally know at least 7 PSIA Examiner folks who have gone thru PMTS accreditation and I expect there are more I do not know about. I find it a peculiar point of reference some are hung up on (that I am not). I am looking forward to being involved with the Copper Mt PMTS Camp in a couple weeks, and skiing with some of those same folks.

roger,

i don't doubt the truth in what you are saying, however, peculiar is certainly a great choice of words. i don't know of any from the rocky mountain division who are accredited. that being the case, i was surprised by john's claim and simply wondered who they are. now that you have mentioned it, i'll ask you the same question. any from the division i work in? where are these seven examiners?

i'm no marketing guru, however, hh might want to list all these psia examiners on his list of pmts accedited instructors.

Rusty,
The examiners I know of that have PMTS accredidation are all close friends of mine in PSIA-C. For me to toss their names out on the internet as some placebo endorsment of PMTS would be disrespectful of their individual desires to pursue greater knowledge, understanding and personal growth as teachers o this sport, where ever that path leads. I would not involentarily subject them the this forum's unfortunate dark side of behind the back snickering that for the most part demonstrates ignorance, not working knowledge, of what PMTS is, or is not. I do not aspire for Epic to digress to being the mirror of other forums that take that same approach toward PSIA. If you are around Copper the 13-20, look me up and maybe meet and ski with some of them, they are great folks.

I find it fascinating that the topic of PMTS, something that has been hashed and rehashed around here, is still such a hot item. Where's the beef? Anyone who gets to the level of HH has developed his or her own story about skiing--call it a teaching model, a technical framework, that is all rolled up into the personal charisma of that particular guru. As Horst Abraham says at Weems's site (www.edgechange.com), they all should write a book, but few are courageous enough to hold their ideas up to criticism.

I once took a clinic from a master. He began by saying, "I will tell you what I believe about skiing, which I have gleaned over decades of observation, study, and practice. I hope you will find some of it helpful, and want to keep it, but as far as I'm concerned, you are perfectly free to take whatever I say or do or leave it."