Customer Reviews

The All-Mountain Skier: The Way to Expert Skiing

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is great. A beginner or even an intermediate may find much of the information to be too advanced to be useful. Advanced skiers should find it to be an excellent resource.

The book, among other things emphasizes the importance of steering, espescially in the important transition phase between turns. (Intermediate and even advanced skiers who learn how to edge effectively, often abandon their steering skills and simply step from the outside edge of one ski to the outside edge of the other ski.) The mechanics of effective steering are explained well as is the importance of the skill in more difficult terrain.

Fundamentals are emphasized. The modifications and different blends of skills which are required on moguls, powder, crud, steeps, ice and in the trees are also explained very well.

Highly recommended book for any skier who aspires to the Holy Grail of being able to ski in all kinds of terrain, in any condition. This book is most suitable for intermediate to advanced skiiers who are hoping to make the progression to all-terrain skier one day.

It's often very difficult to pay attention to all of the different skills needed to ski well at the same time. Mr. Elling uses a "toolbox" approach to break down each skill, and recommends specific drills to strengthen one's abilities in each skill.

Where this book really shines, though, is Elling's explanation of how these different skills should be combined in order to tackle different types of terrain and/or snow condition. Many ski instruction books out there are written with the goal of teaching you how to ski expertly...on perfectly groomed snow. But the skills that apply to Eastern hardpack/ice (edging, pressure on single ski, etc.) do not apply to Utah powder (even weighting on both skis) and Mr. Elling spells out the differences better than anyone else I have come across.

Also a useful section on ski equipment and boot fit that correctly drives home how important good boot fit is to effective skiing.

Overall an excellent book that anyone who wants to stray off the corduroy should take a look at.

This book is amazingly comprehensive for its size. It is roughly two-hundred pages, yet it breaks down the essentials of making good turns, contains an in-depth look at each ski equipment and how to maintain it, and breaks down special techniques for various snow conditions (powder, moguls, etc). If this isn't enough, there is a more technical section at the end for serious ski freaks. This is nuts. I also have the book, "Ski the Whole Mountain", and it probably has only half the information this book has.

At first glance, you may not like this book because it is black and white and not as flashy as "Ski the Whole Mountain". Also, most of the pictures are hand-drawn illustrations. However, upon reading it, you will be hypnotized and the black and white illustrations seem to almost come alive. It is testimony to the fine writing by the author.

If you ever want to ski moguls, this is the book. For years, I look at expert mogul skiers go down and I keep saying to myself that they must have some special paths they follow but I just don't know what. Well, this book draws the path, the moguls, the works!

This is an amazing book and probably the only book you need to ski like a pro. But I read "The Skier's Edge", and that book actually contains even more technical information (if that's possible) so you may want to check that one as well.

I read this book on my way to a ski vacation at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I tried to apply as many of the "tool kit" concepts in skiing the steep, ungroomed runs at JH, and found that the approach raised my skiing to a higher level. This book is designed to improve intermediate and advanced skiers, and based on my experience, it definitely achieves this objective. Over the past 15 years I have read a number of ski instruction books, and have purchased several, but none as effective as this one. Comparable books in another sport are Vic Braedon's tennis instruction series. Braedon's and Elling's books break their respective sports into the basic physical principles and techniques to understand the mechanics and make significant performance improvements. I highly recommend this book.

I started out really liking this book, but was less impressed by the end. What I liked about the book is the writing style. Its well written, in an engaging way that makes it easy to keep turning the pages. However, I felt that much of the content was a bit disorganized, like a brain-dump of a terrific skier, but not presented in a way to nurture a skier along from one skill to the next. A good skier will be easily bored with this book in my opinion, I learned very little from it.

I offered the book to an intermediate friend of mine, thinking it would be ideal for him. He started out being enchanted by the writing style also, but after a few chapters gave up because the content was too scattered and random in the way its presented. In my opinion this is like a a brain dump from a ski instructor that has learned a lot of "tips" over the years and tried to find an engaging way to publish a bunch of those tips into a book form. I didn't entirely agree with a few points, but overall, I thought most of the tips and technique ideas were accurate and well presented with great drawings to illustrate them. Just kind of random order and so much information that an intermediate would be quickly overwhelmed and not know what to try next to apply any of this. My intermediate friend put the book down after a few chapters and just said it was "too much to think about". Each chapter did provide exercises at the end of the chapter for applying what that chapter talks about. So a committed skier could take them one chapter at a time and go work on it perhaps. However, I thought many of the exercises were just the typical exercises that every PSIA instructor uses to emphasize skills. What if the reader performs the exercises wrong? There were very few if any photos illustrating proper way to do the exercises. And the order of the chapters is not a step ladder of growth..its just random different topics.

I think the book could be useful for an intermediate that doesn't plan to read the whole book and follow it from start to end, but rather keep it as a reference. As they decide they need to work on one particular skill (Let's say after taking a lesson and finding out they are weak in an area), they could read the chapter covering that skill and try the exercises, perhaps remembering that these exercises are very similar to the ones they get in their lesson, and also read the in depth explanations about it..to help sink the ideas into their brain a little better. I see the book as more of a reference tool to come back to, little bits at a time.

I think a ski instructor could benefit from this book also because it provides a lot of examples of how to give a lesson.. It basically *IS* a series of PSIA lessons in a book. An instructor can learn verbalogy to use, exercises to a apply towards specific skills, etc. Of course all of that is also available through standard PSIA literature, but hey...another source doesn't hurt.

For me and my own skiing, there was nothing revolutionary in it. I much prefer "The Skiers Edge" by Ron LeMaster which did indeed teach me some things I didn't know. Its even more technical though...truly a book for experts.

This might be the very best book ever written about the type of skiing that most of us are trying to achieve. Sitting in my Jacuzzi in Calgary at the end of October 98 with a good snow flurry developing (it is missing the mountains altogether) I read the book. The book is very well planned and laid out. It does not start at square one. He assumes the reader has experience with skis and that the reader is enthusiastic about the sport. In most ski books one must wade through a lot of useless information before getting anything out of it - not in this case. It is easily referenced. He has been very careful to clearly convey skiing philosophies and techniques. It is comprehensive - there is a lot of information here. I know my skiing is going to improve this season because of reading this book.

Woah. Problem with skiing instructors (and dance instructors too) is that they put too much into each hour lesson. With this book I was able to read it at bedtime, take it skiing and read it at lunch. I started with jumping around reading part and decided to take the author's advice and get my "tool set" in order so I started at the beginning. Whoa! 2 ski days this weekend and I feel like I've made incredible progress. (Trying to ski the black diamonds). Each chapter is full, but I would come away with one item at a time that I would remember on the slope.

If you are picking up speed that you don't want and then compulsively traversing the hill until you are stuck on your uphill ski, this is because you haven't completed your turn. That's me!! An expert skier is always turning, loading and unloading and using the C-shaped turn to keep their speed down. All of a sudden, the black was no longer scary! Going slow and falling on steeps is very harmless stuff!

Keep your stance very straight on shape skiis. People complain about burning quads and weak legs. It's because you are leaning into your boots and using your quads to take the energy in a turn. You should be using your bone structure. That's me!!! I was going to buy women's skiis because of this problem. Instead, I tightened my boots as stiff as I could so they wouldn't flex forward and I concentrated on skiing with a straigher leg, and guess what? I could ski the whole run and not get tired. (there are times when you need to get down, but a lot less than I thought).

I normally wouldn't think twice about my arms and pole planting. Boy, after reading that chapter last night, I decided to spend the whole day on the slope concentrating on my arms: shoulder width plus a little, don't swing your arms, swing your hands straight forward in relation to the skiis, and KEEP YOUR HANDS(BOTH) VISIBLE IN YOUR PERIPHERAL VISION! I wasn't doing this. You don't have to keep your hands way out in front or really wide like straight skiis demand. And the biggest thing about pole planting? You are always swinging the pole! Your pole is either coming from behind or planting and then falling away. This is pretty no brainer on tight S-turns(the secret behind steep skiing) but on the long GS turns, I was waiting and then at the last minute swinging my pole forward and planting. Brad says this causes your skiing to be erratic and low and behold, I saw a change immediately! All of a sudden it is all related into one fluid dance.

The expert skier is always turning, making us of the dynamics, turning complete "C" turns to maintain speed on the steep, and swinging their poles into plant (sometimes you use more of a pole, sometimes you don't). Everything falls into place. My turns started matching my pole rythm and/or vice versa and I started feeling like I was really skiing.

Get the latest edition, I believe it is the 2nd Edition because it has been updated for shape skiis.

John A. Davis

Yes, this book contains much information about the different components of skiing, ie., balance, weight transfer, pressure control, etc. etc. It also contains a wealth of exercises/drills that allows one to improve every aspect of how they ski...

Unfortunately, there are absolutely minimal pictures (cartoon drawings at best) to explain those concepts, and those exercises/drills..!! Yes, there are pictures - but they are mostly for posterity and not for supporting the words contained in the book.

For a subject like "Skiing," diagrams are a tremendous help, and this book has much to be desired on that area...

This book is at the top of the list for the thoughful learner. The text and the excellent illustrations explain a variety of techniques that skiers must have to freeski with confidence. Skiing well in all conditions, all over the mountain, involves applying the appropriate technique to the situation. For the advancing skier, it is frequently a matter of recognizing the variety of situations the mountain presents and trying the techniques. That's what this book is about. I bought this book a few years ago. I lost it and have missed it ever since. I'm buying it again and giving a copy to a friend.

This book is detailed and comprehensible. Just right for someone seeking to move up intermediate to higher challenges.

Warning: If you are not deeply serious about skiing this book may have too much detail for you. For example, proper boot fitting gets pages, not paragraphs.

Many of the drills proposed imply steady access to slopes and the time and discipline to spend hours working on improvement.

There are useful ideas for those of us who ski a few times a year and hope to improve somewhat, but we must treat the book like a reference-- look up what you need to work on and do that for one trip.

Still, a great book.