Peceptions on the effectiveness of PMTS - Page 7

Arc - adaptable & flexible are nice...
My biggest problem with PMTS was exactly THAT - Dianas inability to "adapt" or the system to be "flexible" enough to deal with me....

Ditto the one instructor I skied with that had done some PMTS stuff...

In both cases it was like a broken record "you must balance on 1 foot"
I can't balance on 1 foot
"but you must or you can't ski"
But I am skiing jsut not as well as I would like
"then you can blance on 1 foot"
NO I can't balance on 1 foot

etc etc etc...
I could program a computer to give the answers Diana etc gave... There is a perfect example that does the whole abbott & costello "whos on first" routine in that manner

Having said that SnoKarver helped me a lot with his balance exercises .... thing is he is NOT solely PMTS trained is he? So he was combining MANY different things & information to find the suitable things for me....

How many ONLY PMTS qualified instructors are there?
Can we do a trial with a random selection of never evers, intermediate & high level skiers, give them all a week with instructors
a) ONLY PMTS
b) ONLY Staatliche
c) ONLY CSIA
d) ONLY PSIA
etc etc trained & compare?
What will the results be?
Who cares?

None of the others do enough to keep insisting that one or more of the other systems is completely useless....

Guess what? all my favourite instructors have experience teaching in multiple countries & systems.... something about that international experience tends to lead to flexibility

Rusty - take a season OS instructing & HH/PSIA will shrink a lot I think

roger you answered my question. i really don't understand the secrecy, however, i will respect your feelings concerning disclosure. i don't know why someone would seek an certification/accredidation and not want to divulge it. if the motive is as noble as mere learning then so be it.

nolo i think you raise a fascinating point. had hh approached teaching in the manner you describe as having taken place involving the "master" then none of these exchanges would have ever occured.

my way is the only way, TTS sucks, PSIA is the demon, certainly leads to lively banter. it doesn't draw me to the flame.

disski i heartily agree a trip to your neck of the woods or training with kiwis would be the ticket. we have a kiwi demo team member at winter park and he can getrdone. where did you meet snokarver? have you been in our midst?

lastly.......what makes arc think any rocky mountain psia member would ever snicker at a central division member?

Snokarver was in the chat room we used to have.....

besides he knows Bobby(aka Satan) the evil one ex Oz now Kiwiland

Rusty,
In central that group pursued the pure learning available thru PMTS in spite of the antithesis of any ‘pin status' in a political environment leary of PMTS. They got a learning opportunity, in many ways : , that I suspect some others more 'status conscious' simply backed away from.

But you raise a more interesting question.

Do our students care about what pins we wear, or their color? Raises the axiom: They won't care how much you know till they know how much you care.

We all know instructors with no pins that are very knowledgeable and great teachers. We also know some with all the pins that struggle to teach the people and not just parrot what they memorized to get their pins. I find that great learners, not pins, make great teachers. The pin should be but a milestone on a more important endless pathway.

I experienced stages I suspect is not unlike a lot of fellow pros. I first went thru the cert levels just to 'get the pin' for more pay and 'status' but quickly realized that once I had it, it was the learning process that really intrigued me. That led me to jump in and explore any process available, PSIA-C Education Staff, USSCA coaching Jr and adult racers, D-Team Tryouts, Masters Racing, Snowboard Cert, PMTS, Epic, etc. I've abandoned nothing of value as I have moved amongst those varied pathways, and have acquired a uniquely composite experience base and multifaceted insights that no one path could have provided by its self.

I have also been very fortunate to have a number of great friends who are ski pro's spread throughout the country who share that passion for learning and continue to inspire mine. Had I stopped with what I 'thought' : I knew at L-III 30 yrs ago I’d have never met most of them, or you, and we wouldn't be having this dialog. :

As Education and Training Director for 110+ alpine instructors at my area (Sunburst) the most valuable thing I'd like any of them to develop is an ongoing passion for their own learning as a pro and as a skier. With that process engaged we can easily work together to develope the skills they need to help their students share the win-win that can only result.

as always...well stated

Hey Rusty, good to get to meet you and Todd at Loveland!! Hopefully I'll make it out your way this season so we can make some turns together!

sorry i didn't get to ski with you. i'll look forward to doing so later in the winter.

For the fun of it

I'll be at the PMTS Instructor camp next week. I'll do a canvas on certs. I'll be surprised if there are any that are PMTS only certs. My impression from last years camp were that most all were PSIA cert.

Rusty - winterpark open yet? I'll be skiing for the fun of it on Wed at copper with SCSA, Jay, Rick, Hobbit, others.

The one ski focus can be tough. It certainly raises the bar quite a bit on the balance needs. My lesson with John Clendenon while one ski focused, we always kept both feet on the ground. Similar end result, easier path. But, I was already competent in one ski skills by the time of that lesson so I don't know how that approach would work in a tough body/alignment situation. Within PMTS you can ski parallel within the context of the two footed release. You can ski the rest of your life with that turn style and that has little requirement for alignment boot or body wise. But the goal is independent leg action which does require high levels of balancing skills ultimately which are arrived at quickest through one ski drills. At least that's the rational. Interestingly, there was little difference in these one ski drills that I've done with PMTS and what I did two summers at the PSIA ran race camp. One ski balancing skills aren't just a PMTS thing by any means.

Related to PMTS's one ski focus there is an axiom amongst PMTS instructors "lifting is for learning - lightening is for experts". You to get to put that foot back on the ground eventually.

It's not an easy path if you have alignment issues that need addressed which is one of the reasons a good PMTS instructor will be accessing your alignment and will have a ready pocket full of test shims to help.

Got on my carvers today. I'm finally skiing in less than a week. This is drool time. You people already skiing have my full envy.

some poor soul just posted this at realskiers. it speaks volumes

Great thread John.
I'm glad that I didn't stop looking in yet because I want to post this pure question here:
Does a Hop turn ever fit into PMTS - at least on steep very narrow terrain? If so, how exactly would it be executed to a PMTS preference?
And, additionally, if on that steep narrow terrain the snow happenned to be soft, could PMTS then advise or ever condone any partially skidded turn - sometimes there just isn't time or room for a round fully carved turn to control speed? (Either, first third skidded, finishing with a carve, or even check style edge sets at the end for speed control).

it is far too precious to even add a comment

did he actually use the word condone:

Rusty,

It was a typo. The correct spelling is "condom any partially skidded turn".

There are elements within PSIA-C that will attempt to destroy you if you think outside the box. Here if you want to be anything at your resort you follow the training protocal that is engrained in Central. Its part of the cert thing.

Outside the box is dangerous for candidates seeking cert therefore, do not clinic outside the box. That would include PMTS. You just try something like "Waist Steering" in an event here and see how far you get.

do they condone hop turns?

I'm curious how the PMTS instructor uses the shims referenced in the above post. I don't see how they could be temporarily installed under the bindings from run to run . Are they placed under the foot bed ? Thanks.

Hop turns are fine

Eric D's book has a great description in his book. By focusing on the free foot and laterally tipping the body is better placed for the landing.

There has always been a management or creation of rotary with the lateral tipping because the lateral tipping of the free foot creates an o-frame - or slight bow leggedness between the legs. The hip tension makes the other knee want to either edge or follow depending on what you're intent is.

Hop turns - hockey stops - a 180 on the top of a bump - can all be done this way.

In John Clendenon's bump training for this type of 180 turn on the top of a bump it was coast on the uphill LTE, laterally tip the downhill foot (that was barely or off the snow), pole plant and flow around the bump. You feel the uphill foot roll to the bte as it comes around the bump. Basically just a super phantom turn. Eric's description of hop turn in his book is also is described as a SP turn.

Oh, Copper is out for skiing Rusty since I'll be on a demo ski. They are preferring I go to Loveland with the posse if you want to join us.

Under the heel

They put them between the binding and the heel. There is a limit to how much correction you can play with this way before moving the whole system out of Din spec.

At the heel it is +/- 2mm IIRC. I believe its +/- 1.5 for the toe lug.

I wouldn't be experimenting with non trivial spacers in that regard, unless I had a binding designed to have a large range of heel lug heights. Such as my Fritschis.

My suspicion is that we're about to get bogged down in semantics again. However, in my book, a hop turn by definition requires both skis to be airborne simultaneously. At that point the only way to get the skis turned is through "rotary". I read John's statement above as saying that lateral (i.e. downhill) tipping of the free foot (new inside or downhill ski at turn initiation) creates a slight bowleggedness which is enough to cause enough rotary force to cause the skis to turn 180 degrees for the hop turn.

Ain't gonna happen.

Start by standing in a starting hop turn position. A good hop turn starts with the upper body facing down and the skis 90 degrees offset, across the fall line. From there try to do lateral tipping. Because of the hip tension, you're natural movement is going to be knee rotation. If you force yourself to only roll your feet (the knee will move directly downhill) you won't feel any added rotary force beyond the already existing hip tension. When you hop, there's built in rotary force from the waist that is released. But it's not enough to get the waist turned a full 180 degrees. Also, the feet, knees and hips must rotate in synch or else parts will get out of alignment. Practically speaking there must be some little toe pressure on the inside foot and some finishing turning of the waist for all body parts to be in synch for a full 180 degree turn. Watch a good hop turn in slow mo and you'll see all parts of the body move in synch. Tipping the free foot alone, even before take off, can not generate enough force to pull the entire body around 180 degrees. First off, you've got to get on to the new downhill edge before the shape of the ski can cause any rotary movement. If you did that, it wouldn't be a hop turn (seems more like suicide to me). Secondly, if you just tip the free foot with no movement at the waist the amount of rotary force generated is slim to none. Thirdly, you've got to have something create stored tension in the waist before landing to set up for the next turn. The big question here is whether or not "eversion" is occuring in a hop turn.

But let's give semantics the benefit of the doubt. Let's say the lateral free foot movement is the initiating trigger for all of the other necessary movement. We're still left with the dreaded "R" word as part of the PMTS technique. But wait, "R" is a cardinal sin of traditional teaching. How do we reconcile this? What if good "R" is caused by lateral foot tipping (i.e. inversion of the inside foot) and bad "R" caused by "turning" feet (i.e. eversion of the inside foot)? My argument is both inversion and eversion (of the inside foot - and corresponding movements of the outside foot) are essential elements of a hop turn. The semantics thus boil down to what is the "initiating" movement.

Anyone can be an Expert Skier defines "Steering and rotary movements" as "Traditional method of twisting parts of the body to move or stop movement of the skis. Movements initiated with leg rotation are gross motor movements that have a negative influence on precise ski control." I'm sorry but a hop turn is ALL about twisting and untwisting the body. But PSIA does agree that turns (even hop turns) should not be initiated with leg rotation.

The whole point of this part of the discussion was that PMTS says rotary is bad and a hop turn is all about rotary. John says PMTS is ok with rotary in a hop turn, but that it's caused by foot inversion. So now the argument is not about whether or not rotary is good or bad. It's about whether leg rotary as an initiating move is good or bad. Except there is no argument there.

Good skiing has counter. Harald's skiing has counter. Counteredness is by definition a twisting of the body. Does Harald achieve counter through a non-traditional method? Maybe the difference is in the mix of eversion and inversion. Maybe it's just semantics.

I continue to believe that PMTS is an effective teaching system. I continue to believe that there are elements of PMTS that are more effective than elements of PSIA. But I also believe the opposite is true. Inflammatory statements about rotary and traditional teaching that boil down to differences in semantics is an example of the latter.

John,

I honestly would like you to take a stab at why I would want to join you and/or the posse. I'll give you a couple of reasons that come to mind.

1. Our deep, abiding, and long standing relationship friendship.

2. The opportunity to watch an intermediate skier from Indiana "lift and lighten".

3. The chance to open my horizons and have you enlighten me about the intricacies of pmts.

4. The chance to hear you gush about PSIA

5. Perhaps the chance to bask in the light of the great one.....himself.....the almighty.

I ski five days a week for a living and two days with friends or family. I think I'll book a dentist appointment instead, then clean the house, and then start on my taxes:

wen iz sum 1 goin to git our es steamed acadimion to currect the tie-tell ov this tread to............puuuuurrrrceptions

So I guess coming to LA to ski with me is entirely out of the question?

Miles - I seem to recall that your take on ANY lessons is that they are a waste of time for YOU & everyone else except beginners....

Did you change your mind?

actually, primarily due to you being the king of the one liner, i would probably do so. if you come here be happy to be your host as well.

no one can git-r-dun in one line like you.

all joking aside, i am anxious to "ski california". i've never been there during the winter