by Hamy » Sat Feb 05, 2011 10:36 am
Rick K. sent me this thread this morning and it was very apropros. I have some students who can't tip because they extend at initiation. Once they extend there they have no where to further extend so they pivot, lean in and rotate. They are like Pavlov's dog, as soon as they plant their pole ( which invariably is rotational) they pop up. Should I take their poles away? What is more frustrating, at least for me, is that traditional teaching encourages this, I know because I personally have been there. Yesterday in the Pika's coffee shop, I overheard a Level IV instructor telling his group to initiate the turn by rotating their fibula in their hip joint, and not to initiate the turn with their feet. I didn't want to hear any more so I move away. Later I saw him and his group on the slopes. He popped at the end of the turn and his hips were locked. The whole class followed his example. How could a student follow that instruction, ie. don't initiate the turn with your feet but with the fibula rotating in the hip joint. I don't even want to try. Rich K. was here for 2 weeks and we saw instructor after instructor popping up, leaning in and rotating.
I don't think that I will ever stop trying to be better at tipping. Threads like this help a lot. Harald wrote about confidence and Jeff about relaxing. On steeper, icy, bumped up runs, I don't have the confidence and therefore I don't relax. It is something I have to work on by skiing more often in more challenging conditions and using video.
It is somewhat difficult being in the PMTS wilderness. I only know 4 instructors who use PMTS as the basis of their teaching and it isn't often that we get to sit down and shoot the bull or ski together. I do talk to my supervisor, who is a PMTS junky, about 5 times a week and ski with him at least once, so that is good. It was great having Rich here for 2 weeks.
The students we have love PMTS. I have a group of advance skiers who can't get enough PMTS and in fact in this week's session one suggested we have a tipping party at his place and we watch the 3 essentials DVD's. I sent them all an email encouraging them to keep it up and told them they were skiing better than people 40 years younger than them and they were improving faster. That was actually a censured version of my original draft which was "you are skiing better than people 40 years younger who are in traditional ski school classes and you are improving at a faster rate than they are." I have to be careful about what I say and who I say it to.
One thing that is assumed in this thread, but not mentioned, is that PMTS only works if the skier's boots are properly aligned. I have one student, I will call him S., who cannot tip. He pops up, stems, and skids for 90% of the turn. I found out this week that his boots are a size larger than his street shoes. He is holding the rest of the group up who are tipping and loving PMTS and wanting to go to more challenging slopes. I mentioned this to my supervisor who commented "video him, tell him he has to get new boots properly aligned to keep up or he gets religated to the remedial group because it isn't fair to the others in the group." When I got my boots from Harald, he and Diana spent 4 days getting my alignment correct, and my skiing improved several notches.
It would be great if we could have an annual PMTS convention, where we get together, shoot the bull, ski together, shoot some video of each other, nothing too formal just having fun.