laughed out loud

[Bolter]

Producing correct movements is the point. HH Essentials has it down. BB flounders in confusion and prescribes movements that are flat out wrong if you want to ski at your best.

Twisting of the legs for more tip pressure- NO WAY!
Skiing into counter and all the steering BS
The list is long, really long.

BB could cut through all of his own noise and give the resultant movements from all his writings- drive the knee, don't release, Rotate the upper body, lean in and skid. If you need a visual to confirm all this look from the lift at the instructors skiing beneath you. Harsh, but generally the truth.

JR

[John Mason]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... vail1.html

[HeluvaSkier]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0106091vail1.html

Chairlift FAIL.

[Ott Gangl]

Hi John, nice to see you around, have a nice skiing season....those pictures are something!!!

...Ott

[Ott Gangl]

>>>drive the knee, don't release, Rotate the upper body, lean in and skid.<<<

Those are all the no-nos in Bob's writing, I don't know where you gleaned these...

....Ott

[Bolter]

I've picked up the pieces of relevant info from BB words while seeing the movements that steering, steering into counter, anticipation/release, leg twisting and all "that there" produce. Bloviate and dodge all you want, it is the results that prove it. Don't you see it on the hill?

Sorry Max I know this may be a downer to some.

JR

[Ott Gangl]

If you ask what I see of instructors skiing on the hill, I see the gamut from ripping expert to tentative newcomers who are trying their best and hopefully are shadowing classes and drilled in clinics to advance in their skiing prowess, and a lot of them in between.

How you hold Bob Barnes accountable for them is a mystery to me.

The same holds true in the general public, there are 16-year-old kids who ski as if they were born with them and others of the same age who have yet to buy a turn, neither may have taken a lesson,ever.

Most of the adult skier you see slithering about are mostly self taught who only ever take a lesson when they are stuck, but most are happy with their skiing for the ten days a winter they spend on the hill and never take a lesson.

Bolter, you have been an instructor and ski school director and before you jumped on the PMTS bandwagon, were you responsible of teaching skiers to ski badly and are all instructors in West Virginia super skiers?

Come on, you know better.

....Ott

[Bolter]

It shall remain a mystery.

PSIA is lost, if you do not see that then OK.

BB is a major source of info, that is how I connect him to the rank and file.

I jumped the PSIA ship long before I read one word of Harald's work. That is no news. I am glad I felt the need to look elsewhere for improvement when not finding it in PSIA and was lucky to have a great SS Director who allowed me the freedom to pursue it.

I taught plenty of PSIA methodology/mechanics lessons in my past with successes and failures as a result. That is no surprise, is it? I can tell you now that if I had an alternative source of info earlier in my career I would have looked into it. Most do not, will not, can not, so they don't and look what you get- compromise at best. YAWN!

I am not the Messiah of skiing, Tomba is. So I the good folks of WV will have to suffer along with no hope or cause to believe that there is something better.

I can help my Team and the few instructors that are not rigidly stuck in denial- with Harald's help I do.

[skidaddle]

Ott - I know you have been on this board for years, and it puzzles me that you don't see the value/difference in what HH teaches vs the usual routine. I have had some good PSIA lessons (1) - was taught tipping by a guy who called it patience turns. What he failed to teach me, was a system to put it all together in a way the would help me ski the way PMTS does. It seems to me that you understand the benefits of PMTS, you just can't make yourself abandon PSIA. Curious.

Also, I have skied at Timberline where Bolter teaches and it just jumped out at me that people where practicing and benefiting from the PMTS. You could see it from the lift, nice carved arcs. Many more skiers that were appealing to the eye. Does that mean that I haven't seen them elsewhere...no, but the truth is that it isn't all that common.

[Ott Gangl]

>>>It seems to me that you understand the benefits of PMTS, you just can't make yourself abandon PSIA. Curious.<<<

Over the years I have said that Harald's PMTS is great where applicable, direct to parallel just isn't everywhere with limited terrain here in the Midwest with buses gorging a thousand junior high and high school student who are more interested in socializing while in a lesson. The system works well with motivated student.

While I have taught the Austrian and French systems along with the American system, I can avail myself of what PMTS has to offer without abandoning what I have learned before. I give you an example from about fifty years ago: the Austrian teaching was up-unweighting and counter rotation while the French did down unweighting and now there is no unweighting. Guess what, I can do all of them with correct timing to allow me a smooth transition.

Why would I need to abandon any of my prior knowledge? Bolter or Harald get plenty of students who have been skiing whatever they learned and now are shown the easy way of PMTS, they wont forget what they knew before, naybe not using it often but being able to call on it when needed.

When I bought 'Anyone can be an Expert Skier' I pretty much agreed with it, for a truly motivated skier it gives a easy road map, but for the Sunday skier in a six week season it would take many years to even get to the end of that book. And the guy you see putzing around on that blue slope who drove the four hours from Akron, Ohio to Holiday Valley, NY, he just doesn't want to spend any of the precious six hours skiing time in class, especially if he has his family along.

So my beef is not with Harald (well maybe some) or PMTS, it is the "My way is the only way" mantra and bad mouthing the American technique and any other traditional teaching system and folks who teach it. That is so not cool.

....Ott

[Bolter]

That is a nice post with historical perspective, thanks Ott.

Have you ever taught DTP to a group lesson? I have not and would like to hear from anyone who has. My PMTS DTP of the never ever is limited to one on one.

I know that a refusal to change anything regarding the methods, lesson length and logistics of how groups are taught, assures things will stay as is.

A big contributor to the "we've always done it this way" excuse, is allowing the kids to take off wherever they want when the lesson is over. This justifies the braking wedge as the lesson goal for safety (which it is not) and maybe turning for the "gifted." Low expectations and shrugging off responsibility after the hour lesson spells the ruin of anything better.

Program groups (consecutive weekly lessons) could be taught DTP if the desire was there from the Director, management and instructors.

Harald knows this subject better than anyone I can think of.

Most instructors that have heard of PMTS have very little real working knowledge of it due to misinterpretation, partial understanding, bias, peer pressure, fear of standing out, being lazy, not caring, unwilling to study, scared to challenge themselves (or their students) and a perception that PMTS is only for experts and racers.

Getting "naked" is not easy when all your buddies keep their cloths on.



Not to forget . . . the dead end at Christie conundrum and the huge problems steering presents. PSIA will continue on as is because the wedge is the foundation of the mechanics. BUT I heard yesterday from a trainer there is a parallel progression now for DTP in PSIA and that it joins the wedge progression at "open parallel." Progress? maybe so maybe not it is up to you Ott and every other PSIA instructor out there.

JR

[Sidecut]

>>>It seems to me that you understand the benefits of PMTS, you just can't make yourself abandon PSIA. Curious.<<<

Over the years I have said that Harald's PMTS is great where applicable, direct to parallel just isn't everywhere with limited terrain here in the Midwest with buses gorging a thousand junior high and high school student who are more interested in socializing while in a lesson. The system works well with motivated student.

While I have taught the Austrian and French systems along with the American system, I can avail myself of what PMTS has to offer without abandoning what I have learned before. I give you an example from about fifty years ago: the Austrian teaching was up-unweighting and counter rotation while the French did down unweighting and now there is no unweighting. Guess what, I can do all of them with correct timing to allow me a smooth transition.

Why would I need to abandon any of my prior knowledge? Bolter or Harald get plenty of students who have been skiing whatever they learned and now are shown the easy way of PMTS, they wont forget what they knew before, naybe not using it often but being able to call on it when needed.

When I bought 'Anyone can be an Expert Skier' I pretty much agreed with it, for a truly motivated skier it gives a easy road map, but for the Sunday skier in a six week season it would take many years to even get to the end of that book. And the guy you see putzing around on that blue slope who drove the four hours from Akron, Ohio to Holiday Valley, NY, he just doesn't want to spend any of the precious six hours skiing time in class, especially if he has his family along.

So my beef is not with Harald (well maybe some) or PMTS, it is the "My way is the only way" mantra and bad mouthing the American technique and any other traditional teaching system and folks who teach it. That is so not cool.

....Ott

I've never seen so many excuses. A couple are character traits in all ineffective teachers whether they teach skiing or math. Your description of teaching to bus groups is not indicative of PSIA or PMTS or the Arlberg, it is pure and simple LAZINESS. Uninspired and uninspiring ski teachers who don't know any better and don't have the smarts or personality to do any better. Teach to the the lowest common denominator. It's nonsense and doesn't work. Programs that you are running as you describe are damaging to this industry

I am also perplexed by your comments about not forgetting. Old habits that are no longer useful and have been invalidated by changes in technology are no longer applicable. Put them in mothballs where they belong. You know Ott, if I ever find myself skiing on a pair of Northlands or ST650's I'll break out those old moves. As for new students why burden them with systems that will only hold them back.

Your description of the blue square putz really shows how out of touch you are. Skiing is in decline, ski instruction and ski lessons are in decline and more importantly the ski instructor is looked down upon as someone who can't ski. This is the result of PSIA and instructors like YOU, Ott. People feel that lessons are useless and ineffective. The way you create life long skiers is by giving them the tools to progress and succeed. You give them the way to reach the top, you dont relegate them to a skill set that will keep them locked in an intermediate rut where the only way to progress is through extensive lessons and mileage. Instead PMTS gives skiers an easy to use system to get them there that is the complete opposite of your time intensive characterization.

[Ott Gangl]

Well, you have your opinion and by that PMTS one hour lessons should be available at most resorts. I taught at a small hill for 25 years with thousands of school kids, and with the exceptions in repeat privates, I don't remember of ever having the same student twice. And I averaged four one hour lessons a day four days a week.

I retired from instructing in 1986 and subsequently another system was instituted to have instructors get the same bus students for five weeks, that is the length of the school program. Instructors were assigned the same school for the duration and it sounded great.

What wasn't so great was that instructor were waiting to greet the bus which often was up to one hour late, then they walked the students through the rental department while they got their equipment fitted, the were with them in the lodge helping with boots etc. when the whole group was finally ready they took them out for a one hour lesson and got paid their $8.50 for that hour for a process that mostly took three hours. That will give great incentives to instructors? And despite all that they try to keep the group together, not having more than five defectors after runs out of a group of twenty, the average class size for that hour. Instructors dropped out in droves.

That sure sounds like excuses. You can't see a doctor or lawyer or hairdresser without a prior appointment and I would love to see ski lessons by prior appointment only. Instruction is a cash cow for the area and they don't care a whole lot if the students are learning much, but surprisingly the learn and retain a little, but of the bus student, after the five week program few ever return, for all I know they are now in a bowling program. So unless you have taught under those circumstances, don't pretend that instructors are lazy or any of your other accusations.

Would all instructors like to have small groups of five in uncrowded terrain, sure, but that is not the reality of it.

>>>"Teach to the the lowest common denominator. It's nonsense and doesn't work. Programs that you are running as you describe are damaging to this industry"<<<

Talk to your ski area manager about that. By the way, please describe how the programs run where you teach.

....Ott

[ginaliam]

I'll take a shot responding to a few thoughts here.

There's been some sentiment that folks aren't skiing well (as compared to some time in the past) or that skiing is in decline. I don't see it-I've never seen so many folks ski well and do things once thought impossible on skis. I can't right off all those twin-tipped teenagaers and twenty-somethings as mere acrobatic aberrations-I see to many of them doing it all well (trees, bumps, steeps, and of course Jumps both in and out of the park...I love that ski-wheelie all the kids can pull off these days). And that all-mountain bug has bitten plenty of us early middle agers, too and again, I remember a time when to ski the trees at Jay peak was to be alone- now, it's amazing how many folks can handle that terrain and handle it well. That's not a pitch for PSIA, I doubt some resort group lesson is turning out the people I'm talking about. I just mean to point out that there are plenty of folks skiing well, irrespective and perhaps completely without regard to any instructional school of thought.

Sure we still see folks swishing around in wedges, hunched over like pregnant ladies while riding very hard skids-but no more than in days of yore (and at least they don't have the football jackets and jeans anymore..well, not ost of them anyway! ).

Now to the more pressing argument. Apples and Oranges, Ott. Neither Bob Barnes nor Harald (and not any other high end instructor or Coach) are ever asked to teach the sort of lessons you are describing (and yes, the school bus crunch model is still alive and well at my mountain, too) nor do they give advice on teaching those lessons. I think you're right when you ask, what else can you teach in that situation except some sort of beginner balance and the rudiments of a wide footed turn which is about what folks get, and that's no easy task even for a good instructor.

But Harald's Camps aren't for never-evers, and Bob get's sought-after privates at keystone and choice clinics at Epic Academy events (and PSIA instructor clinics) so I'm not sure what your plaint about the lowest end lesson experience means to this thread. Does Bob Barnes even have advice for that sort of lesson?? Any more than Harald?

The student that both Bob and Harald compete for is the intermediate. That is, the person who got started with friends or in one of those corporate group lessons, has put a few years in but is stuck in an advanced beginner, or very low intermediate rut (that's right, someone else did the hard work of getting them up and moving around the mountain).

The question is whose advice will move that student along quicker and further?? Harald's books and videos have worked for me-I've never tried any of Bob's stuff-Has anyone taken a clinic via Epic Academy with him (or any other high-level PSIA coach) AND worked with harald??? That's the comparison at hand.

[skidaddle]

Here's my beef with Ott et al. - When I taught my daughter how to ski I showed her the phantom move. She had already seen and heard pizza all over the mountain so she knew what to do in an emergency. I chose to ignore the pizza and french fries altogether. We practiced the phantom move and quickly progressed to hockey stops - "the right way to stop". She did great and that was with an inexperienced teacher. So what's keeping PSIA from doing that? That in a nutshell is my question.

Ott - I think you did a good job of answering my question. I agree that I'm not interested in making all the PSIA people into bad guys. BUT - the question above remains for me. Why not go to something as simple and helpful as the phantom in a day of wonderful shaped skis. It is easier than pizza and french fries and a more effective basic platform from which to advance.