Whistler/Blackcomb PMTS Tech Camp

[Ihamilton]

Pretty, pretty, pretty good. My apologies to Larry D. in Curb, but that best describes how I am feeling tonight.
Yesterday at the dry land sessions, most of the campers had never heard of tipping the feet. I spent 3 to 4 hours on the floor working with people to try to extend their range of motion of the small muscles in the foot. The unkown was how would this play out on the snow. Well it worked great, and hats off to Wendell for coming up with the idea.
On the snow they could do the stationary tipping drills. We had easy communication because of yesterdays introduction. Long story short, they skied great!
The great thing about PMTS is even when a client only gets about 25% of what they should be doing, they still ski better. I worked hard with them. On the last run down they were tired and I wanted to just let them ski. It was just great to watch them come down. They were tipping and moving laterally, always in complete control of their speed. We skied down 5000 feet and their turns were better at the bottom then at the top. Their skiiing didn't regress towards the end it improved because they could tip better at the end.
We had lunch together and they all had one comment. They had never skied so much on their edges and their foot muscles were tired. It wasn't a complaint but what a telling observation. One client, Paul, who missed yesterday, told me first thing this morning that he was scissoring again, something I helped him with last year. While we were standing waiting and before we had taken a run, I had him tip his feet, making sure that inside his boot his feet were tipping before his knee moved. I didn't see him scissor once, he was tipping great. Paul was quite the happy camper at lunch.
Today was tipping, tomorrow is flexion and extension and Friday we put it together adding some upper body coaching. I bet the Wendell and I are the only instructors on W/B tomorrow who are teaching flexing and extending. I have to go and do my lesson prep., read essentials, watch the essentials DVD and the free skiing DVD on flexing extending. You know the saying, dirty job but someone ....,

[BigE]

So what happened today?

[serious]

Irwin: I bet the Wendell and I are the only instructors on W/B tomorrow who are teaching flexing and extending.

You are the only ones who teach it properly! CSIA flexing and extending is alive and well, but basically the opposite of PMTS. I am sure you know what I mean.

[Ihamilton]

Another great teaching day, the group I had today can tip and flex, therefore they can manage their speed and their turn direction. That is a big step for some as we were skiing blacks today. We skied a lot today, one camper had a Suunto watch and said we skied 14200 feet in the 3 hour lesson.
We skied the mens and ladies downhill runs today, a lot of vertical and steeps. All were very pleased, prior to this camp not many would have had the abiltiy or desire to ski them. Now they can do them whenever they want.
We watched some TTS in the gondola rides from Creekside. "Now plant the pole, push up and around, good!" It prompted a discussion by the campers about how much bad instruction they had had over the years. They wanted to know what I thought. I said we have really been exagerating flexing and extending to day and yesterday we worked all day on tipping. If you exagerate PMTS movements you become a really good skier very quickly. If you exagerate TTS teaching, such as "up and around" or "swing that knee down the hill" you at best will become a really lousy skier or at worst you will lose control and might hurt yourself. That got a half laugh but some strong support too.
We have really happy campers. We are likely to get an approval rating of about 90%. The SS at W/B gets a 33% approval (Ie. 33% think the SS improved their skiing), the same industry wide for TTS. This is a big step for us, we have worked hard to have these campers learn how to ski and to advance the program. We hope the SS embraces it and encourages the program. My comments quoted above may seem intemperate in view of our desire to advance this program, but I couldn't BS them with such a direct question in those circumstances.

[BigE]

That is FANTASTIC news. I sincerely hope that this small spark catches flame. We need more people like you out there getting the SS to consider PMTS movements. That will mean that race programs will consider PMTS movements and those that do will be WAY ahead of the curve.

Congratulations on your good work so far. I hope the observers are impressed. Are any trying the PMTS moves along with the other students?

[Matt]

Thats pretty much tells it all. If you turn it around, the only way to become good at TTS movements is to make them smaller, or in other words avoid them. Hmm, Isn't there something wrong with such a system?

If you exagerate PMTS movements you become a really good skier very quickly. If you exagerate TTS teaching, such as "up and around" or "swing that knee down the hill" you at best will become a really lousy skier or at worst you will lose control and might hurt yourself. That got a half laugh but some strong support too.

[A.L.E]

http://www.pmts.org/pmtsforum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1065#wrap

http://www.pmts.org/pmtsforum/viewtopic ... t=0#p14329

http://www.pmts.org/pmtsforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2140&start=0#p20867

Thanks Max, great to re read these old posts. Gives the Whistler guys and any possible new readers from the Whistler camps some excellent explanations and reinforcement of tipping..........and of course the rest of us.

The consequences of not having a proper release and tip and the resultant abstem rotary movement is a crucial explanation to have for PMTS instructors. Particularly ones with TTS observers.

[dan.boisvert]

Thinking back to my first in-person experience with PMTS instruction, I had no doubt the students would love it, though I'm certainly glad they did.

Any comments on how the observers responded?

[Ihamilton]

There is some magic about PMTS and I don't know how to explain it.
The camp was hugely successful. We had our rap up lunch and every one was so happy. Many told me they had never skied so well in their lifetime. The campers chose a gentleman to thank Wendell and I. He said the best run of his life was the last run he had just taken. He said he has never skied so well and when skiing down he actually knew what he was doing to ski well which was new to him. Prior to this he had tried to copy good skiing with out knowing why those skiers were skiing so well. I believe this gentleman is about 75 years old and he has skied all his life.
What magic is it that converts what were lower intermediate skiers into very good skiers? We had two groups, and I think there was only one skier in each group who actually could ski parrallel. Yet at the end of today all of them were parrallel on steep runs and they were having the time of their life. The mens downhill has some really big rollers and the bottoms of the rollers drop right off. I wanted the campers to have fun. So I got them carving and we skied the rollers, some of them we skied up the down side as far as we could and then if we couldn't get to the top, we would shorten the stance leg and let the skis turn down. We had the run to ourselves so we used it all, up and down rollers and ridges, letting the skis carve. Many times we were actually going up hill, the skis bent to their limit. They had never skied like that, with full control of speed and direction, making the skis carve to where they wanted to go. Prior to this camp, if they ever got on such a run, they would have skidded basically in the fall line most of the time and just prayed they got down. To day they actually felt the true joy of being weightless and feeling the G forces on their skis.
But there is magic at work here. At any other ski camp, the two good skiers would not have been happy skiing with people just learning. But the good skiers were as happy as the others. They came to the camp to learn the basics and were quite content that they were with others who were learning the basics for the first time. What is it about PMTS that makes the campers jell together and the whole group improves. I noticed it today and I have felt it when I have been a camper.
But there is more magic here. What is it about PMTS that gets instructors so excited to teach the very basic movements? In TTS, you wouldn't ever catch a CSIA level 4 or PSI 3 teaching a new learner. Wendell and I had the best teaching experience of our lives. Wendell started teaching in Grey Rocks Quebec in the 1960's and he was as excited as a little boy. He got so carried away he forgot the time and missed me for our planned rendezvous to switch students. I been teaching about 15 years and at 5 am this morning my eyes popped open because I woke up thinking I had a better plan for today's session. I wouldn't have had such a sleeping problem if I was going out to teach new learners to wedge.
I have a lot of ideas I want to share. I became a better teacher because of this camp. I want to discuss that. One of my campers follows this forum and he told me he was going to comment on the camp and share his experiences with you. I don't want to say much more until he has posted his comments.
Also I want you to know that I have been a PMTS camper three times and a coach once. Let me tell you it is a lot easier being a camper. I am beat. By chance I met Wendell's wife in Creekside at 815 this morning and we rode up together. She said Wendell went to bed at 8 pm last night. I made it to 9 pm. I am going to log out and catch a snooze as the Christmas parties start tonight and I don't want to snore at the table.

[Sam Snead]

PMTS is Magic, at least for me. I’m one of the campers Irwin wrote about that has some PMTS background.

I am fortunate enough to have skied with Harald, Diana and crew on several occasions including a Dark Blue camp. Based on this point of comparison I can say that Irwin and Wendell did a terrific job with the camp. I got just as much out of it this week by focusing on the essentials, from the ground up, just like in Colorado.

Last year Irwin created a “Eureka Moment” for me - he identified a scissoring problem that was locking my hips. This year I joined the new campers and went back to basics - focused on tipping inside my boots the first day, flexing, CA and CB the second, feet pullback and fore-aft today. My skiing felt very solid, but I’ll leave any MA comments to Irwin if he wishes.

I am not a natural athlete and have some significant mobility issues. Before finding Harald’s methods my skiing was limited to skidding around the greens and blues with a lot of pain by the end of the day. Regular instruction did not help. Because of these people – boots fitted and aligned, encouragement to keep developing tipping and the essentials, I can now ski most of Whistler-Blackcomb with confidence all day long. Not an expert, but a very happy skier working on my BPST.

This stuff works – it makes skiing accessible. I will be sending a letter to the director of the ski school at W-B letting him know how pleased I am that this type of coaching is now available close to home. That I will be attending more camps, and how valuable PMTS methods are to us non-athletes. Not just me, I saw a lot of smiling faces today at the end of the camp.

Thanks to Irwin and Wendell for creating this camp and of course Harald.

- Paul

[A.L.E]

Whistler is an almighty resort to have established a little toe hold for PMTS. Congratulations. Your post is inspiring Erwin.

Whistler is a true destination resort for many Australians. It was in fact my first North American experience 11 yrs ago on a YES Improvement camp. I haven't been back because I found PMTS first in Fernie with ex Blackcombe Aussie instructor Scotty Burns and Peter Stone, but now the USA is where it's at.

I am sure if you want you will be able to expand the camp dates a little further. Aside from the UK and North American market, Australia and NZ have large numbers skiing each year in the northern hemisphere. Whistler would always entice many as first and foremost a ski destination. Whistler's reputation however as party central is well known and can be a turn off for older skiers when choosing a destination. The clincher for older skiers could be the mystique of a very special ski teaching program.

There is a snow travel expo in Sydney & Melbourne each year. One idea would be to have a PMTS camp representative on the Whistler stand. For Australians and Kiwis it has the added attraction of being a direct flight from to Vancouver.

Whistler management has a great opportunity to have another point of difference with the PMTS camps. The support the PMTS instructors have with Harald's thoroughly documented system, the books and DVD's, blog, forum etc is absolutely unique. Despite the millions invested in PSIA and CSIA over the years they have nothing for the ski student, just the lesson which soon after usually amounts to fading memories of what was taught. A 33% success rate proves that.

[Ihamilton]

Paul is one of the skiers who was a good skier before the camp started. He can tip, flex/extend, CB, and CA. Watching him ski, one is not aware of any physical limitations. As Paul has been to PMTS camps before and was here for basic training, the others seemed be encouraged. Paul did everything with them and that was part of the social dynamics that made his group successful. Maybe that is part of the magic. We all like to be successful and working together from the basics, as the group collectively become proficient a bonding develops that is somewhat hard to explain to an outsider. That bonding is not part of TTS because only a small number in the group are successful. With PMTS we know we are going to be part of a group that is going to feel good about itself. That aura makes each individual become even more competent.
I am not a social engineer but if any one has a good explanation I would like to hear it as it may help my coaching.

[A.L.E]

That bonding is not part of TTS because only a small number in the group are successful.

I think you have nailed it Irwin.

In TTS camps contentment amongst campers is often lost when the skill levels vary and the terrain skied is too basic for some and too challenging for others.

By comparison PMTS student at any level are happy doing the basic drills because we know they are "Essentials" that need practice. There is little sense of dissapointment if a whole day is spent doing basic drills on the green runs. There is no problem for an accomplished PMTS skier being part of a group that is many levels lower. Skiing slow is not a problem for the PMTS skier. Even cat tracks become another opportunity to practice tipping skills or indeed many of the "Essentials".

[Ihamilton]

Wendell has been a coach in the Yes program for 25years. In his PMTS contributors photo he is wearing his Yes jacket. Most people never forget him as he has a perpetual smile. Today at lunch he was beaming and lots of belly laughs.
One of my coaches at the Tech camp was Max who taught at the Fernie PmTs camps. The skiing world is often very small.
Whistler no longer has the party hardy rep, to many of us geezers around.

[richk]

Congratulations Wendell and Irwin, both for creating the niche at Whistler and making PMTS lovers everywhere proud!

RichK