Customer Reviews

The Skier's Edge

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the most part ski books (and ski instructors) are superficial. They may offer high order instructions such as "turn on the ball of your foot." But never the underlying reasons why this is (in general good advise.) While this is adequate for the casual skier who might take a one or two week vacation a year it is insufficient for anyone really wanting to be a good skier.

For us (I live near Aspen and ski very steep terrain -- always trying to improve) we are our own teachers.

The Skiers Edge is one of two books (the other being the "All Mountain Skier) that provides detailed and usable information. The side bar page on skiing moguls is worth the price of the book.

Every year I have a singular goal to ski better than last .. this has been a year of major break throughs .. all based on clearer understandings provided by these two books.

This is an amazing amazing book. Unlike other ski books, this book not only tells you "how", but "why". All those times when your ski instructor told you to keep your shins on the tongues of your boots or edge the skis during turns; well, this book will explain what all that madness is about. Of course, the reasoning can be all explained by physics, but the author is very talented in providing just the right amount of science with the sport and as a result produces a book that is comprehensible not only to Einstein.

This is a book that can be of value to anyone that is serious about skiing. I believe the beginner can benefit from this book because it offers him a solid foundation to build on. The expert will find many ways to fine tune his skiing through this book. For people who only go skiing once a year or go just to hang out with friends or to look cool, this book will put them to sleep, guaranteed.

Although this book is quite technical, it is not comprehensive in the "how to" area. For a more definitive guide in this area, I recommend "The All-Mountain Skier" to supplement this book. Together, you will have possibly everything you need to know about skiing like a pro minus how to install bindings on skis (Can't have everything). "The All-Mountain Skier" will also have a comprehensive guide on equipment and maintenance of it.

I can't possibly imagine a ski book getting more technical and specific as this one. Plus, this book have pictures of only pro skiers so you can emulate with security. Lastly, this book is very, very well written which is important since you have to read it!

Le Master successfully dissects skiing technique better than any predecessor--using simple written analogies and liberal use of sequential "time-lapse" pictures. This book is worth its weight in gold--especially for the serious skier!

This is the best book on elite skiing technique out there. (And I have them all. It's even better than Ski Faster by Lisa Feinberg Densmore, which is excellent.) The sequential photographs alone are worth the cover price. The book covers the physics of modern skiing and modern equipment, and demonstrates different key skills (angulation, inclination, rotation, pole plants, cross under, cross over, the virtual bump, forward pressure early in turns with foot thrusts in the transition) with extraordinary side by side and sequential photographs of the best World Cup athletes in competition. Just a few of the things I learned, just from the photographs: (1) amazingly large initial steering angles (pivoting ski before the turn) used by World Cup racers, who can still carve cleanly, (2) World Cup racers consistently catch air over the virtual bump between turns, giving the lie to the advice given junior racers everywhere to always keep their skis on the snow.

Instead of general advice and platitudes, the book is full of specifics, with clear illustrations drawn from action photos of some of the world's best skiers (Hermann Maier, Kjetil Andre Aamodt, Katja Seizinger, Alberto Thomba--the book was put together a year before Bode Miller took the World Cup by storm and radical inclination.)

It's an essential book for recreational ski racers, and a good book for anyone who aspires to ski with excellence (or who just wants to know how those top racers ski so incredibly well).

Now (sigh) I just have to wait some months for the white flakes so I can practice more of the book learning in the gates.

As everybody who wrote review here, I think this is a great book for who go skiing in a little bit "theoretical" way. Some of your tips that helped you as a quick learner in the first week may hold you back from becoming a professional-looking skier. The author of this book is trying to convince you by providing solid physical principle.

Also, the illustrations are carefully selected to demonstrate the arguments. Many of them are taken from real competition and show the movement in a sequence.

Even you have figured out most of the principles taught in this book, I believe there are still some paragraphs flashing here and there will push you downhill little faster.

This is a cool book for skiing that takes an approach similar to the way the Dave Pelz books do with golf. It explains the science and mechanics of the sport. It's hard to argue with the laws of physics, and I especially like the diagrams showing the exact forces at work (gravity, centrifugal force, friction, etc.) that can make your edges hold (or slip). I wouldn't say the material is too hard for the average person to grasp, but it's not a book you can just skim through either. There will be some thinking involved. There are other good ski instruction books out there that can tell you HOW you should make things happen, but this one also helps you understand WHY. If you like having that knowledge, then this book is for you.

This book shows a set of technical skills that is based on the mechanics of skiing. I find them useful to incorporate into my skiing -- I find myself practicing one technique or another on some runs, and you can feel the difference.

This is a great book for the seasoned skier wanting to understand more on how the body-skis-works together on snow when applying different movements, pressure and so on. Good insights comparing racing techniques to recreational skiing. As a ski instructor I can use this book as a reference guide.

I never would have thought I could learn something like skiing by reading a book. But I've been so unimpressed by the teaching I get on the slopes that I had to find deeper technical instruction. This does it in spades. He gets very technical, one category and one technique at a time. Like turning. He gives three important techniques to improve your turning: anticipate, leg rotation, and pole planting. For each, he explains with text, illustrates forces with charts, then shows with sequential photographs of racers. I read the whole book. Then I realized I have a lot of work to do. So, my last week out on the slopes, I picked two techniques I wanted to implement. So, I did it. Then I want back and reviewed the book. Then I kept doing it. It's really helping. Sure, it would be great to have a live coach, but the instructors on the slopes just don't have the technical chops to help me. This fills that gap. If you crave detailed technical guidance, this book is for you.

First off, I think different learners like different approaches. I am very visual, but I really need specificity and understanding of what and why I'm supposed to be doing something physical. If you are at a stage or simply always prefer someone to just tell you cookbook instructions of steps, in sequential order (keep your torso facing downhill, keep your hands out where you can see them), you will find this book too involved and boring. For my brain, however, cookbook is horrorshow, and this book is illuminating. I get frustrated by a lack of definition of terms, and this book is terrific for explaining exactly what is meant by the terms the author uses.

I agree with the other reviews who say this and "The All-Mountain Skier" compliment each other and are the best out there for understanding how to ski. LaMaster gives us a mechanical engineer's understanding of what a skier needs to do and why. After reading this book you will have an excellent understanding of what is to be done and why. LeMaster gives you enough information to get you started on the "how", but he's not handholding. The rest of the "how" will come from experience.

If you have been irritated by different instructors giving contradictory info that just confuses you and makes you focus on superficial, static stance settings, this book will clear your mind out. And definitely get "The All-Mountain Skier", for a less-technical but still intuitive approach. The way Elling writes was easy for me to visualize and even feel what he was talking about.

If you like cookbook, try "Anyone Can Be An Expert Skier". I only started it (both the books and the DVDs, but couldn't take the torturously tedious step-by-step instruction that you must follow. I have no patience for rote learning without your first telling me where you are taking me.