I have talked to many a PSIA instructor often about carving and they all believed that you accelerate your speed when you carve and that is not what you want to be doing on steeps and in bumps. I try to carve all my turns. I feel like if I get on my edge nice and early, I actually have "MORE CONTROL" than if I get on edge late or skid or jam the bottom section of the turn. My wife & I took a "Black Diamond "lesson last year and the instructor had me doing a bicycle pedal move to get my weight more forward and was yelling at me the whole time telling me not to try to carve all my turns and open my stance to a 50/50 weight distribution on my skis. he said, "you ski like a racer and we are not in a race course" I accomplished what he what trying to get me to do by simply lifting my tail of my inside ski and pull my feet back and the start of the turn, that was intuitive to me before I even knew about PMTS. What was also intuitive to me was that by lifting your inside tail, I get locked on to my outside ski edge early with most of my weight on the outside leg. I actually stopped the lesson 3/4's of the way through and let the instructor know I was unhappy with his coaching. I took the lesson because i was trying to fine tune steep bump skiing technique. I struggle with speed control and balance when the bumps are big & icy and that is a common condition Where I regularly ski. ironically, the instructor danced through the bumps without issue, even though I did not agree with his approach or technique.
After that disenchanted lesson, I started to research ski instruction on the internet and that is where I came across HH and his videos. The technique and form HH dispaleyd was smooth, and graceful, yet powerful and balanced. It was narrower in stance than what I had been preached to about for the last few years but when I saw HH ski, I said, "that is what good skiing looks like to me!" he skied like a former racer, and i was felt that Racing was the pinnacle of skiing, not straightlining down chutes on 135cm waisted skis and hucking off cliffs. I am 52 and ski primarily in the east. I can't relate to that skiing. because it is not readily avaialbel to me on a regular basis. We have tree skiing and such, but I always felt that high edge angles and complete controlled carving and perfect balance would transfer to any condition, if trained with proper fundamentals and technique.
I can't tell you how eager and excited I am to get back on the snow and start working on PMTS. I feel like it will re-energise me for the sport and hopefully provide me with a tool box to ski anywhere I like. i want to coach juiniors in a year or two, but I want to coach with PMTS not PSIA so I have a lot of work to do.