by Willy » Wed Nov 03, 2004 7:39 am
Is Tommy Moe an expert only because he won in the Olympics?
Is Johnny Moseley an expert also only because he won in the Olympics?
Is Ingemar Stenmark an expert also only because of this almost 100 WC wins?
So, if Tommy, Johnny, Ingemar had decided not to race and ski for fun instead, today they would not be considered expert?
Either it is in their genes, then the title of the books should be "Anybody can be an expert skier (if you have got the right genes)" or it is something you achieve by training and working on techniques then the title of the book is about right.
It is not an issue of being world class, not to me at least, it is an issue of achieving what I set out to do. But , it seems to me, somebody now says you cannot be an expert hence you cannot ski here or there but you need to get stuck to the lower level runs, i.e. you are a terminal intermediate.
Scott Schmidt cannot carve a round turn? It is fine with me as long as this does not prevent him from dropping off a huge cliff. Quite honestly, given an option, I'd rather have the ability to dropp off a cliff and not carve a round turn. Round turns do not get the chicks, dropping off cliffs does and plus you could end up on the cover of some magazines.
If we had a slalom race on a 50 degree + slope, I bet that Eric Deslauriers becomes a top racer too... If I thought that to be an expert in skiing you must be a racer then I would have chosen snowboarding. To me being an expert means to ski where few dare to ski. I can enter a WC competition, get last place, and being laughed at. But, if I try following Eric Deslauriers or Doug Coombs or the like of them, I may end up 6 feet under and very quickly. So who is the real expert?
All I am saying is that I am following PMTS because I would like to live my dreams to ski to the limits and not in the sense of speed doing gates or poles, but on very difficult double black terrain. Now, are we saying that double black terrain is only limited to those who have the right genes and that, lacking the right genes, PMTS is useless. I am not that stupid, I realize that PMTS alone will not make me in a WC winner, but can PMTS enable me to ski the most difficult in-bound terrain at least? After all, don't PMTS books say that a solid short-radius turn is the key to conquer the entire mountain? Now it is not enough any more, now we need to be in the WC circuit to ski the whole mountain? This is what is confusing here! It is not the elite or not elite skier thing. Who gives a dime, I do not even watch the WC events....