I get it that some habits can become very ingrained, but this talk on no pivot, no flat ski, etc, you guys must deal with some very athletic superstars. What I see is a lot of jelly ankles, lack of any fore aft control or balance, stepping on pole baskets, inability to step sideways without toeing out, inability to keep the ski flat, inability to stand centered so their weight is on one foot, inability to control the knee and go from bowlegged to knock-kneed but nothing else, and more.
There is a trade off between teaching what works today vs teaching what will work forever.
The discussion of this subject came up in the context of responses to an experienced skier who was having great difficulty carving. This is a very common situation. It's disturbing when one realizes how may instructors, even, can't do proper railroad tracks on very gentle terrain. Generally, this is a product of over-reliance on a pivot at a discrete moment during the transition--which to be sure, may be mixed with other difficulties such as excessive extension at transition, and poor fore-aft movement patterns. For skiers wanting to learn to carve, they need to start on those very gentle slopes, at low speed, and need to bleed out all pivoting at transition.
Nancy Hummel has been talking about the importance of learning leg rotation skills. I agree, but we should distinguish that from the dysfunctional abrupt pivoting we see in so many intermediate skiers, despite them having learned to ski in a parallel stance, more or less. Some degree of application of leg rotation will show up in any good brushed turn. (And I don't mean to imply that it's absent from carved turns.) But the goal should be a
gradual, progressive application of that rotation, which unfortunately is quite different from the pattern that many beginners develop. Then as one gets into higher speed short radius turns, it becomes less gradual, but it should still be progressive.
So in short, the problem for many skiers becomes not a lack of any leg rotation, but instead excessively vigorous and sudden leg rotation, or alternatively the use of upper body English to initiate turns.
This highlights the value of instilling edging, foot tipping, and upper-lower body separation in first lessons.
However, you make a fair point if we're considering the situation of teaching first timers in a lesson lasting half a day or less. There's tremendous pressure to get students quickly to the point of being able to ride the chairlift, and make it back down the bunny hill linking turns, any kind of turns, in reasonable control. That can preclude devoting time to a variety of basic skills essential to putting students on the road to advancement to higher levels.
Actually, low speed railroad tracks aren't particularly difficult. Just as learning to ski easy terrain isn't particularly difficult. It's truly not all that physically demanding, even for couch potatoes. I like to think that I can teach almost anyone--anyone who's motivated, attentive, and puts in the practice--to ski green and easy blue slopes reasonably well in three days. The unfortunate thing is that we usually don't get three days.
The drawbacks of short first-timer lessons may be the reason that my favorite lessons to teach were students' second or third lessons. These would be after the students had had a little bit of practice, and were able to remain vertical and not endanger themselves or others, though their technique would typically be
extremely rough at that point. In that situation, there's a lot of freedom as to which way to go, what skills or drills to focus on. There's no issue with constantly having to scrape students off the hill. The pressure is off. You can take your time. Whatever you do, things can only get better.