Customer Reviews

The Illustrated Guide To Snowboarding

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just one look at this guide will tell you that the author has spent the better part of his life on a snowboard. I had a chance to ride with Kevin in Colorado and he was impressive both riding and instructing others in his lessons. The book includes a warm-up section with snowboard-specific stretches, as well as how to ride bumps, carve boiler plate ice, tune your board, fall safely and enjoy the sport to its fullest. In my opinion, this is the best snowboarding book on the market and the pictures are excellent.

i briefly looked over my friends copy of the book and it was amazing. it tells you all of the parts of the body to workout and stay injury free. it explains how to take a fall without a trip to the hospitial and it has tips from some pro boarders like shannon dunn and others. it teachs you how to look at the hill when riding and how to land great jumps. this is an good book for beginners to expert riders.

I thought the book is awesome. It contains many many tips from how to figure out your stance to how to repair your snowboard. It was fun and easy to read; it was written in layman's terms, and it contained numerous comic but helpful drawings. The author was rather "philosophical" in terms of his teaching technique which I thought was great. You could actually apply his philosophy or "learning how to learn advice" to any sport. Buy it! It's a very good reference book.

I'm not a professional snowboarder, but I can stay up and I enjoy it. Ryan's guide is comprehensive and thorough. Just like you'd always have a dictionary somewhere in your house, any avid snowboarder should not be without this encyclopedia. It is well written, conversational, and contains every piece of information an average to professional snowboarder would want to know about the sport.

I took 2 group lessons and was never in so much pain. I was ready to quit. I got this book and went from complete beginner to intermediate after 4 times on slopes. I read entire book, then before and after each session I re-read the section with drills for my level. The book has some ambiguous descriptions and re-reading after snowboarding is important for understanding. If you don't have patience to re-read, work on drills, and take time to understand each sentence, then you'd be better off finding a qualified instructor.

I got this book last September in anticipation of snowboarding season. I had already gone snowboarding a couple times last year and figured this might have some ways I could improve my riding. It did. This season (now long over) I was a lot better and tried many of the things listed in this book. Unfortunatly, I spent a lot of time grounded, it didn't snow much in NJ or the Poconos, and I only got to go riding twice. Still, the improvement from reading this book was great. However, as it says in the first (or maybe second) chapter you should still take a lesson if it's your first time out. Then, you'll be able to exploe some of the slightly more advanced techniques and have a better time.

I thought that this book was helpful andcontained useful information. It was also easy to read and the pictures made reading much more enjoyable! Oh yea, and one more thing: I am doing a project on snowboarding so if N-e one knows about it, e-mail me at Allisonper@AOL.com Thanks!! :)

FEBRUARY 20, 2000

This book is a great tool for beginners as well as intermediate. Explains how things work in details and it's very easy to understand, the many images will help you visualize the tricks you want to learn. After reading this book I am in desperate need of snow. Snowboarding can be so addicting, this book will keep you fresh even if you have to wait until the next snowboarding season.

ADDED: April 17th, 2005 (Many years later :))

This book is a precious tool for understanding snowboarding. I'm sorry one reader here believes snowboarding books are useless, but it is not so (I wonder if he posts negative comments for all snowboarding books). I am a certified upper level snowboard instructor with national freestyle accreditation and I believe there is much to learn from books. My roommate has been riding for 15 years and kept saying nobody needs a lesson until we got to ride together and I pointed out all the bad habits he had picked through the years which were detrimental to his higher level riding. There is much to be learned from a book. This doesn't mean a book can substitute a on-hill lesson, but it is a great complement and Kevin Ryan does a superb job at explaining all things related to snowboarding in a manner that makes sense. As a matter of fact I'm writing a snowboarding book myself, but it is more of a technical manual on how to teach snowboarding for other instructors and I hope many will pick ideas that will help them improve the quality of their lessons. Kevin's book was my first snowboarding book and it helped me a lot, providing enthusiastic views, in moving from beginner to a professional playground.

When my kids got hooked on snowboarding, I had to try it. Already a skier, but not too good at it, I put on a board and felt way out of place. So I bought Kevin Ryan's book, and by the third time on the mountain I was easily handling blue (intermediate) runs and feeling better than I ever have on skis. Ryan makes the sport seem logical and gives great visual images which I could translate directly to my riding. I followed his progression and by mid-season was riding all terrain comfortably (except the expert mogul fields, but there's always next year!). I loaned the book to a friend, who is also now an ex-skier and doing great. He attributes his progress to Ryan's book, also. Now I have to buy another one, he can't seem to remember to return it. If you want to seriously improve at this sport, buy this book.

I referred to this book repeatedly during my snowboard learning years, and still do. My snowboard bible! Kevin Ryan has the rare ability to combine practical, technical and humorous info in a readable style.