HeluvaSkier wrote:agent00F wrote:HeluvaSkier wrote:How much time have you dedicated to working through specific PMTS drill progressions and performance checks that are in the books? Your statement reads like one from someone with very little practical experience skiing with expert level movements.
It's possible I'm misunderstanding what "comes from" means here. If it means "starts from" per comment about balance point above that makes sense; less so if it means "comes from the ankle independent of the knee/hip". I can believe that "expert level" implies stronger ankles, but not superhuman strength.
I see my question went ignored... I'll just take that as a "No I actually don't have any intention of developing PMTS movements in my skiing and I only came here to start an argument on a topic I have no understanding of."
Is PMTS meant to defy physical explanation or be some belief system which requires indoctrination before understanding? I was curious how ankle flexing per the boot is possible given the torsional rigidity of the boot design in that axis, and the answer here is that this is only accessible to level X members or something.
I've actually watched a decent bit of Harb's material and considered what's going on there. Much of it makes considerable sense, for example the feet pullback to basically load the tips efficiently using the body's momentum. Some of it isn't so apparent, like this ankle flex which ironically I've also heard from PSIA instructors. Now it's entirely possible there's something going on there that's not readily apparent, the "hidden" mechanics of which I'll try to guess at subsequently, but "accept the doctrine beforehand" doesn't make for a good explanation.
noobSkier wrote:agent00F,
You would be shocked what's possible with only your ankles. In fact, those with highly developed tipping skills can do more with one ankle than an average skier can do with their entire bodies...and to much greater effect. Don't make the mistake of taking an overly simplified view of PMTS, expert skiing is very dynamic and nothing happens in isolation to anything else. An expert skier is a finely tuned machine, everything is connected from the ankles to the shoulders and is moving in harmony to produce performance.
The PMTS progressions are all about emphasis and exaggeration, so we isolate certain movements to build muscle memory with the goal of eventually being able to connect everything together. Needless to say this takes years. PMTS'ers are doers, not talkers; so while many are willing to discuss at length your specific movement needs through movement analysis (see MA section), few of us can help you with questions that have no apparent relation to your personal progress.
Just to be clear, I'm not denying that using the ankles is effective, just that it's not what's physically causing changes in the tip angle. But rather it's probably due to ankle movements initiating a shift in balance combined with the sensation of tipping it causes. To help demonstrate this, you can try the ankle tipping when standing while paying attention to how it starts moving your knees to the side as a natural consequence of balancing, and then trying to move your knees to the side sans ankle (using the hip muscles more consciously). While both might result in similar shin (and hip etc) angle to the ground, the sensation is certainly very different, which might account for the "using ankles" instructions. Now it does seems using the ankles more deliberately makes the movement feel more progressive in a way and arguably better controlled.
If we accept the physical reality that the boot isn't flexing much due to forces from the ankle, it necessarily means what's going on is more physiological, and understanding the specific underlying causes here doesn't somehow diminish the content.
To use an analogy from racket sports, there's often talk there of the ball "dwelling" on the racket and player somehow controlling it while in contact, when it's provable that this time period is far too short; or oddly overemphasized "wrist/grip" talk, when really these are just part of the more consequential complex biokinect chain of the body each of which must work in concert for full effect. Now I suppose for pedagogical reasons there's no need to delve into the underlying mechanics, but I'm more curious WHY it works and not just looking for steps to follow.