with all due respect to ryan, getting a mogul lesson from a psia sanctioned instructor who blindly drinks the kool aid is just not going to happen, with the rarest of exceptions...
i have seen the source material that psia uses in it's ratings of instructors and in what it exposes the instructors to for them to study and teach. it's not far off from the baloney that is in the nov issue of ski magazine ( the one with " how to master moguls " on the cover ( can the demo skier in those photo sequences get any more tilted over and unstacked? can he be staring down any more at his feet?...how's that chumley gonna make out on paulies in january at cannon on 4 foot ice bumps ) and the same one that misquotes dipiro's point about absorption " . anyone who has a chance and is looking for a good laugh, pick up that issue and look at some of the pictures and bullcookies they talk about for the psia version of bump skiing.
a popular sentiment in the ski community seems to be " there are many ways to ski moguls ", implying that one way is or can be just as good as another. well that's a load of horsespam. just like it would be a load of horsespam to say there are many techniques to flat ski ( ie race gates ). there is one way to ski moguls and it's like dipiro says, the proper way. now there are certainly different STYLES that can come out of the proper technique.. but the technique- the essence, the fundamentals- there is no deviation... bode miller and daron rahlves have different styles of racing, but they both have the same fundamental techniques. and without these techniques they wouldn't be as good as they are... from bode to some 12 yr old kid in a ski academy, they learn the same basic techniques. individual styles then emerge from that, but no matter how different the styles , the technique is the same.. but for some reason, when it comes to bumps, some people, PSIA raise your hand and plead GUILTY. seem to think they can come up with " an easier way ", " a better way " , a less " stressful way on the knees "... please. dipiro says there is only one proper way to TRY AND ski bumps- the way world cup competitors do.. and he is 100% right. ryan, my friends and i wasted a ton of money and, more importantly time, and took many moguls lessons from PSIA staff before the truth set us free and we found john smart. and 99% of what we we were told was just plain useless or wrong. if you are one of the guys out there in PSIA land who are fighting the system and teaching the proper fundamentals, then i take my hat off to you, because from what we have been able to dig up, what we've seen from this crowd in their on hill drills, the leadership of the PSIA does not look kindly on those who stray from the book. their problem is that for them, it's all about race technique and everything else can/should/is derived from that . they are so brainwashed into this wide stance, let the ski shape make the turn nonsense, they just apply it to everything. the ironic part is that it is just about the least useful technique to apply to many types of conditions... ever watch a brainwashed racer try and ski trees, or powder or corn or bumps. it's like they can't put their feet together at all for any amount of time. and anyone who has ever taken a boot psia lesson knows that one of the first things they indoctrinate into people is " get your feet apart ".... well guess what, to ski powder, and trees and spring corn and bumps, you can't ski with your feet apart... or i should i say , you can't ski very well with your feet apart....
remember the popular phrase a few years back " f.i.s sucks "?
i say " PSIA sucks " :roll: . wel maybe they don't suck, but they aren't very openminded.
good to see the bumps getting some attention with a book and a movement to educate people. i think if more people wanted to learn bumps, we'd see more lines so here's to dan's success!
