Customer Reviews

Sofa Ski School - From Blue to Black Diamond

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I started skiing late in life, and my 20 years of skiing on intermediate groomed runs left me with many bad habits. I tried everything to break thru to Black Diamond skiing, including $$$$ of lessons, and every instructional video and book ever made.

This one is superior by far to anything out there. It really did the trick, and I am now skiing blacks and double-backs with ease and confidence. The visuals are stunning, and the interactive format makes it very efficient to use.

I bought this DVD a few months ago and found it to be one of the best ski instructional videos I have ever viewed. I must disagree strongly with the reviewer who thought the "visual demonstration" was bad as I found the visuals and overall quality to be very good. The DVD does have an odd menu style that can be difficult to understand at first but the instructional quality and content is well worth it. I will also note I E-mailed the author to ask a question and found him to be very friendly and willing to help with any ski related questions, just a great guy.If you are an intermediate skier or even a beginner who wants to learn how to carve effectively this is the video to get. There are some short preview clips of this DVD over on youtube that give a good representation of the DVD.

Before seeing this DVD, I used to think the one by Lito Tejada-Flores was the best, but now I think this one is definitely better. A really simple and effective approach. Highly recommended to improve your skiing.

I recommend this DVD to all skiers. It is by far the best ski instruction DVD with modern skis. The author puts emphasis on "facing the danger" to keep the upper body parallel to slopes all the time, prevent from swinging the upper body, and throw the body forward in order to smoothly place skis on a fall line before initiating a turn. It is exactly what I unconsciously do on a steep slope with bumps when I can successfully run down and no instructors have clearly explained the mechanics of throwing the body forward at the beginning of each turn for years of my experience on skiing. (Although the DVD does not cover skiing powder and bumps, all the skills discussed improve your capability of bump and powder skiing.) However, it is not for complete beginners. I think at least knowing the snowplough turn is a prerequisite to follow the DVD.

Many of my friends felt surprised that I can ski at the age of 72. Actually, my first skiing was on December 29 of 2010, and now I am skiing Greens and Blues with ease and confidence. I also successfully skied Blacks in New England's Wachusetts and SundayRiver. I owe my achievements, partially, to SOFASKISCHOOL DVD and its instructor Klaus Mair.

Mr. Klaus very nicely summarizes skiing skills into three fundamentals: Find your balance by positioning your whole body forward; Use your outside ski; and Don't rotate your upper body. And the beginners' common mistakes are that they just do the opposite: Positioning backward, using inside ski, and rotating upper body to help making turns.
I feel lucky that I can guard against these easy committed mistakes from the very beginning of my ski career.

I like the many well-designed, very practical drills in this DVD. Especially helpful is the MAIN DRILL, which goes like this:
1. Have your hands in front of your body and touch your outside knee in the fall line. Come up in between turns.
2. Have the inside hands as far forward as possible and pointing down the hill. Hold this position until starting the next turn.
3.At the end of the turn bring your downhill hand next to the inside hand and move your hips forward, down the hill, into the next turn.

Mr. Klaus suggests to do this drill, and many other drills, without poles, so you can focus to your position and action.

I practiced this main drill and another one foot skiing drill almost each day . The one foot skiing drill: Lift inside ski in the traverse. These drills helped me a lot. However, I didn't fully realize their value until I skied the steeps. These two drills, in my experience, can well prepare you for skiing blacks.

Mr. Klaus repeatedly emphases one thing in the his lessons: FACING THE DANGER. I think this is the key point in skiing the steeps. Only when you don't feel scared you can up and forward quickly, and your skis followed to enter the fall line, and can shift your weight on your outside ski, and take the speed out.

I also want to mention that Mr. Klaus Mair is very friendly. I emailed some of my skiing pictures to him for correction. He responded very promptly and informatively. His instructional quality, both in his lessons and in his emails, is excellent.

I had big expectations for this DVD after watching his youtube video but I am really disappointed. It adds very little over the youtube video. Everything is over simplified to lean forward, pressure the outside ski and face the valley. Here comes the dilemma though; if it is really that simple why writing a book or making a DVD about it? I should also mention that it explains nothing about powder and mogul skiing. However, I still think that his youtube video is very good for the newbies.

Just watch it. He covers the basics, his exercises will teach you the differences between what you were doing and how to feel the heat! Carving is a sensation I only got when trying his exercises. He does things in the DVD which are normally seen only demonstrated by world cup downhillers, the "Dolphin turn" for example. This is a treat to watch regardless, better than all that free-skiing stuff which is more about jumping risking life and limb than anything that is technically fluid and shows how the human body can master the laws of Newtonian Physics!

This DVD is more of a collection of tips and not a thorough educational program. There is little explanation behind the tips. The DVD menu is also very extensive and difficult to maneuver on a TV (easier on a PC). For a thorough educational program you may want to check the Harb products (books and DVDs - not all available on amazon, the DVDs are available through his website).

After being stuck for many years on Blue Runs with many, many private lessons, I still couldn't handle and enjoy the Reds and Black. Some of my instructors were mediocre, I guess it is luck of the draw who you get sometimes.

This DVD is absolutely brilliant and has done the work of dozens of private lessons. I can handle the blacks now and actually enjoy the reds. I am able to control my descent with confidence and it really was a joy skiing last year.

He is a top rate instructor and the many years of experience of teaching really come through. He boils down the problems to their essence.

I am so glad that I bought this DVD, if you're considering it, don't think twice, it is fantastic. BUY IT, BUY IT NOW!

When I ordered this DVD I had very high expectations. And it exceeded every one of them. Giving credit to a bit out of date graphics (after all it was recorded in 2007), I found invaluable information about the skiing technique I was looking for for years and years... I skied for about 10 years in my childhood then stopped for about 8 years and then "returned" when carving was becoming more and more popular. Now I ski for about 7 years and consider myself an advanced intermediate skier. However I never managed to make some things right to get my turns beautifully carved, despite watching my "idols" from chairlifts, analyzing tons of videos, trying to figure out what are those crucial details that hinder my progress. Klaus Mair's years of instructing experience, absolute understanding of body mechanics and it's effects on how your skiing looks like couldn't be more obvious to me. By the way I am a sportsman (karate black belt) and the feeling for my body is far from being a mistery to me. Nevertheless I couldn't make a breakthrough without this video. Excellent explanations of number of typical skiing mistakes, pointing out just what is the crucial piece that makes it wrong and how to do it right. Understandable, systematic and colourful approach to advance your skiing skils more than one step further. I highly recommend it to everyone.