HH's Book - Page 9

Covered in Expert Skier Book 1 and in the Instructor's Manual. Its how I taught my kids to ski. Basically a progession to get the student used to using the edges and balancing on edges. First in boots and then on skis. My kids were 5 and 8 when I taught them and it worked well.

With all due respect, Max, kids of 5 and 8 typically learn very well if you just put them out on the snow.

I think the question had more to do with the 30, 40, 50-yr-old never-evers who show up on the hill with minimum athletic ability and maximum trepidation.

It worked fine for my wife and a bunch of friends as well (I've got an almost unlimited amount of patience when I ski so I happen to be the guy that helps his friends' significant others on the slopes). We are all well past the 30 something phase of life.

Now, to address the kids aged 5 and 8 comment, HOG FREAKING WASH!!!! I see kids that age skiing like crap every day.

Max,
What's better for teaching your kid, Expert skier 1 or the manual?

The manual helped me a great deal, but alot of that was because it has a section on teaching and I needed to read that. There is overlap as far as the exercises go but I think the manual has more detail in it (its been a while since I've looked at Book 1 and I don't have it handy to compare to the manual because its at a friends house).

Oh Ok, It's the customrs fault. They simply aren't spending enough money. The point is that skiers are being taught from the begining that steering the feet IS how you turn the skis. Once they learn this it becomes a abd habit that is hard to break. A skill that should be used very very subtely if at all becomes the very dominant one for them.

If you can't make a round turn and/or carve then you can't ski everywhere. The major reason why people can't ski powder , crud etc is because they pivot to a skid. People who feel that they can't carve on a steep are not able to get on their new set of edges at the top of the turn.

Yes tipping and edging are the same. However, with todays skis I can tip my skis on edge with absolutely no pressure management and they will turn. In a sense thats the diffrence between todays skis and the old straight ones. The old ones required a lot of pressure management in order to reverse the camber and therefore carve the arc. Todays skis have that arc built in. You can change that arc with pressure management. The more the skis is bent the tighter the turn

Through massive amounts of movement -- any and all directions - vertical, fore/aft, lateral, and yes, rotational. However, very few of the exact movements or positions visited in these movements would find their way into skiing. eg. poles overhead, poles across ankles.

There is no recipe -- it is an exploration. Once a technique has been codifed and a recipe has been created, that technique is obsolete.

Uh...how do you figure that?

Everything works like that. There is nothing more constant than change. Any book describing any technique is a snapshot in a continual evolution. A moment in time visited, and chronicled. A historical record.

I could care less. You cannot copywrite a skill. There is nothing new in ski teaching I'm sure Harb copied it from someone else first.

Try looking in the mirror....

Another opinion FWIW:

I've now read three of the PMTS books - Anyone Can be an Expert I, II & Essentials. I give full credit to the the first book for teaching me how to carve. I was a lifelong skidder at the time - I could skid down tight & steep chutes - and Harb's book really added a whole new dimension to my skiing. The first book more or less ignored the upper body but I actually think that's ok as you can get pretty far without having to worry too much about the upper body. Yes, I really like the phantom move.

I didn't like the second book at first because it really seemed to run contrary to the teachings of the first book in my initial impression. As I learned more I now really appreciate the focus on the weighted release and some of the upper body movements.

As for Essentials, I thought it would be a combination of the two with some additions but it seems like more of a study guide than a stand alone volume. It's well worth the money but I would still purchase book one if I was trying to learn how to carve. This is more to get you to that next level if you already have the carving skills. The exercises and material are great for those with prior knowledge but it seems to lack some of the "emphasis" in the other books. Much more upper body discussion.

Is carving for all of the time like the books imply (supporters seem to be back off this now saying they don't expect beginners to carve but the books - especially the first one - seem to imply it's all carving and no skidding)? No.

Let's take a real life example. I'm standing on top of a North East expert trail that's been scraped bare of fresh snow - a common scenario. This trail is going to be very difficult to make pure carves on without great technique. If I can carve, speed control will be very difficult. Then there's going to be people in the way. I'll cut a few turns short and the next thing I know I'll be going 40-50 mph on a crowded slope. What, after all my Harb reading am I going to do? Rotate and skid a few turns - thank you.

Why not use the brushed carve you learned from Book 2? Its what I use on steep and narrow runs.

max, are "brush" and "carve" not antonyms?

Think in terms of meat - you brush it (baste) with a soft, flexible, um, brush. You don't penetrate the surface when you brush, although you may push it a little.
When you carve meat, you take a hard, sharp edge and slice into it.

If you're not slicing in cleanly, then you're not carving. If you're not sliding over the top without going in, then you're not brushing.

What I think you are describing when you say "brushed carve" is just a skidded turn. Is it, or is there a big difference? (it sounds more like a marketing term to differentiate two identical things)

It's a rounded, skidded, carved turn
You's guys take your English way to serious over there

We also serve our tea in cups/mugs, not harbours...

Because, as others have already pointed out, it's the same thing. A brushed carve is a failed carve (or skid!). I love carving for the g forces and the ski snap but if you're not going to get that - and it's certainly fun to always try - then just admit you're skidding.

Does'nt changing the words somehow elevate the action?

Skidding? Pmts? IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

If I'm skidding, then how could I be an expert????

A brushed carve can't be a failed carve as the brushing is intentional. Also, there is a lack of the rotational components I see many skiers use when they are skidding all over the hill.

This is an old argument and not worth rehashing.

"A brushed carve is just a carve that isn't locked into place. So instead of producing a skinny track it leaves a wider track. But the PMTS movements are still there."

- Max_501


i would link to the thread at realskiers ("Carving Madness") in which you said that, Max, but unless i'm doing something wrong, it's not happening.

Then, in the same thread, when "Ken" said he envisioned this as letting the skis "drift," and that "brushing sounds active and drifting sounds passive...releasing some of the carve into a drift is a passive way to scrub off speed,"

you said:

I think its the other way around. Drifting (at least in the Aspen Method) is an active engagement and weighting of the inside ski's edge as its used to scrub speed. The PMTS brushed carve I'm talking about its a standard PMTS turn without a solid edge lock. You don't do anything active to get the brushed carve (other than not doing an edge locked carve).

Then "SkierSynergy" talks about digital vs. analog, light switches vs. rheostats, and:

Skill 2: Independent/differential tipping of the feet. To answer the above question very simply, a drifted turn is produced by tipping the stance foot less than the free foot. Note that this skill already assumes that you can do skill 1. The movement question to ask is what movements in the stance leg could flatten the stance ski in relation to the free foot ski? Often this can be achieved by simply relaxing the stance ankle a little (i.e., not try to vigorously evert) while simultaneously continuing to tip the free foot. This flattens the stance ski a bit and it drifts. One can also flex the stance leg a bit and while continuing to tip the free foot ski. This will also flatten the stance ski a bit. By the way this is why you don't want to be flexing both legs during the engagement phase: it actually decreases bite in the stance ski.

If you can independently, or differentially tip with fine analog control, you can drift and carve at will. The infamous “pivot turn” (sic) that many people talk about is actually done not by pivoting (as a cause), but by differential control of edging and pressure. You see this lately in racing when the gate is placed too high and far across the slope to "carve" it. As the body exits the previous gate and is directed at the high gate, the racer can relax the stance ski and begin to drift horizontally across the slope. At the same time, if the free foot continues to tip while the stance ski flattens, the body begins to pivot (something like a canoe with one paddle dragging pivots as it moves downstream). As the body passes the gate, the skier can evert more to gradually change to a cave or, if needed, hammer on the edge with immediate eversion and enhanced countering.

The skier does not pivot or rotate to turn. He differentially edges to get the RESULT of pivoting as he drifts.

If you feel that you can carve like crazy, but you can’t do these things, then it’s time to take your movements to the next level. They are the same movements, but at a higher level of control.

Many people who can carve it up on the groomed, may feel klike it is taking a step back to learn tghis stuff. I would argue that their obsession with straight carving may be holding them back from going to the next level both generally and also in their carving.

I agree with Max that the two footed release of the "graduate test" is a great exercise. There are others also. I’ll let other people chime in with suggestions.

______________________________________

As I am unable to link to the thread at realskiers (as I am also unable to post there, having been banned), maybe this post, though pertinent to the discussion, may seem incendiary. (though clearly it is not.) and maybe it is unfair to include SkierSynergy's comments without him here to elaborate, BUT...

It seems to me it's mainly being pretty facile about finding new names for old movements. However, it's a pretty interesting thread. H-Squared himself checks in and offers more.

Ryan, thanks for digging that up. I knew the detail was around somewhere.

I didn't realise a controlled skidded turn was so difficult to do, but I see people brushing all over the hill all the time, and they look like they are missing a bit of rotational pressure that would cure their problem.

So, how can a "brushed carve" exist, using English as a language? (To be honest, it seems like a load of marketing BS to try to make something seem different. Less of the BS please, more of the information. )
I go back to my comment earlier - brush and carve are antonyms.

WTFH,

My guess is that HH is trying to make a distinction between a skidded turn that is caused by turning the feet and a skidded turn that is caused by differential edge angles. "Terminology" is a big part of PMTS. It's not just marketing. It's primarily intended to communicate distinct concepts. When one makes up new terminology one has great lattitude in semantics.

We've used the term "scarving" before here on Epic. The concept is that although the skis are technically skidding, there is also a component of edge grab that is contributing a carving "component" to the turn.

a related aside:

i guess i understand the axiom of "using the expensive part of the ski."
however, there's no good reason to dismiss the rest of the tool.

Yes! Thanks for typing that up.

But Rusty,

Does it matter? I mean, it's a chicken and egg sort of thing. If you are skidding, you've turned your feet farther or faster than your selected edge angle can hold you. Does it matter what skill we think of to get to that point? Let me turn my feet more to get the skis to drift. Let me edge less to get the skis to drift. It doesn't matter. The skis are drifting...

L

As the body exits the previous gate and is directed at the high gate, the racer can relax the stance ski and begin to drift horizontally across the slope. At the same time, if the free foot continues to tip while the stance ski flattens, the body begins to pivot (something like a canoe with one paddle dragging pivots as it moves downstream). As the body passes the gate, the skier can evert more to gradually change to a cave or, if needed, hammer on the edge with immediate eversion and enhanced countering. The skier does not pivot or rotate to turn. He differentially edges to get the RESULT of pivoting as he drifts.

Yet when I look at race video in slo-mo, I see very aggressive pivoting of both legs. I don't know, but it seems that in racing, you don't have the luxury to tip and evert aggressively and wait for the skis to twist.

Im not sure why this is so hard to understand. It's very simple. Is the turn round? Is the tail following the tip. I can make a turn that is nice and round with various amounts of edge engagement. Sure you can call certain round turns "skids" becasue you are not riding the edges all the way. But this is a far different skid then what we see on 90% of the mountain which is an initiation from strong turning of the feet that causes the tail of the ski to be pushed out. The extreme form being the windshield wiper turn. Scarve is a very good descriptive term

To drift or not to drift? That is not the question. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous rotary, or to take aim with the free foot, that is the question!