h.harb wrote:go_large_or_go_home wrote:Harald,
I am a complete convert. Your style is efficient, graceful and effortless. Already your methodology has made massive gains.. However, I have to ask.....have you always skied like this? Or is this a system/ style derived from years of experience and, dare i say it, maturity? Is there anybody else - apart from Hirscher (who, although is brilliant is not a pmts skier) that your rate?
To use a tennis analogy - roger federer is the master..
I've never been asked that question before. My skiing evolved on it's own, as a kid and teenager. I always watched other skiers even as a boy, I picked the ones I wanted to ski like and tried to copy them. There was no coaching worth listening to in those days. Once I was on the Alberta Team and was invited to ski with some of the best skiers in Canada, my eyes were opened further. At that time we didn't have male World Cup winners, but we did have three guys who were consistently top 10, even top 5 runs.
In those days we never saw ourselves ski so. (no video) I had no idea about my technique or the way I skied. I knew I was one of the fastest slalom skiers and often had fast GS runs but I didn't know my methods or even which movements were right or wrong. So in a nut shell I relied on my body and my senses.
I remember at one Nor Am race at Stowe Vermont, I was 4th or 5th after the first run, one of my team mates from the Irwin family, made a comment to me, something along these lines. "How do you go so fast by skiing so round?"
I thought at the time, it was an insult. I was always trying to go straighter. We all thought if you went straighter and closer to the pole, you would be faster. Later when I began coaching I started to understand what was needed and we also had video by then.
I watched Stenmark, everyone did, and Gunther Mader, I skied with Stenmark, followed him down the mountain, I didn't have trouble matching his turns or shape. I don't recall when I realized it, but it was during my coaching years, that my technique was different from most skiers and even most racers. I made turns and I never hit hard on the edges. I was able even at 35 years old, without training, to jump in a race course and ski as fast as National Team guys in slalom.
This goes back to the comment, "you ski so round". Knowing what I know now, I realize that I was using movements "maybe early versions of them, that created carving. Which makes sense because even to the other racers; I looked like I was skiing a rounder line, but I was faster. Most of my teammates where skiing straighter, but also hitting harder. After my coaching years, when I skied on the demo Team and started writing my books and producing videos, my skiing changed with the equipment and I emphasized High C carving and developed the pure carving techniques. And later modified them for all levels of skiing.
Skiers can learn to ski the way I do with PMTS technique, but they will never got it with TT system approaches. So where does this carving or round turn originate or develop. I have no idea, I never intended to ski that way, I didn't even know what it was, but it seemed natural so I did it. Even when I tried to ski straight at the gates and turn or get on the edges, as late as possible, I was still rounder than any one else. It must have to do with my flexibility, natural alignment and the ski's feedback.
So, as far as I know that's how I ended up skiing the way I do. Of course upon realizing what I was doing, I studied and enhanced it because I liked it. It makes sense and it makes skiing easier on the body and legs.