Skip to main content

Quick resource review: Ultimate Skiing by Ron LeMaster

After a fantastic day of on snow coaching yesterday with Jeb Boyd of the PSIA National Team and Arc2Arc, he recommended what appears to be a pretty awesome update of Ron LeMaster's original book The Skier's Edge.  By the way, if you ever get a chance to ski with Jeb whether at a PSIA event or through his coaching company - Arc2Arc, go for it.


Perusing it on the ride home, the 2009 copyrighted Ultimate Skiing (still by Ron LeMaster) is one of the best modern technical skiing resources I've seen.  Great pictures, examples of drills and how to use them, technical discussions, even profiles of US Ski Team athletes.  Since I just got my hands on a copy yesterday, I'm still working my way through it but already I've read clear discussions of the apparent but oft-confused centrifugal force (not a vector force!), alignment and center of mass differences between sexes, unweighting moves, analysis of the skill blends under different conditions, assessing forward lean in a boot - you name it. 

Most useful for visual learners are the many photomontages - a series of frames over time.  The captions under these highlight in which frame edges are re-engaged, the skis are redirected or unweighted, etc.  The skiers pictured include a few guys in the park and pipe, some familiar top American instructors, and quite a few World Cup racers - including a DivaSkiTips-approved number of women.  You can find some of the images on his website, but the good analysis is in the book.
 
Image copyright 2009, Ron LeMaster


You can get Ultimate Skiing by Ron LeMaster from Arc2Arc at the bottom of this page, Ron LeMaster's site, or it's probably available from other online retailers.  While you're at Arc2Arc, pick up a copy of Shawn Warman/Bootleg Films Images and Concepts of Good Skiing 2008 - a DVD chock full of good skiing and demonstrations of the modern skills.

Comments

  1. The Sean Warman video is somewhere in the house in PA. I will poke around and see if it turns up.

    I've been thinking about buying this book, now I've got more to think about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OK...you sold me. Bought the book, can't wait to read it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My copy should be arriving any day now!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Images and Concepts "Going South" is now available for purchase on the Arc2Arc website.

    http://www.arc2arc.com/Default.aspx?RD=5673

    You can check out clips from 'Going South' at: imagesandconcepts.com

    Images and Concepts 2008 will become available again in the fall of 2010.

    Sean Warman

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just ordered it! Hopefully I will get my new avalanche beacon at the same time! I ordered a Pieps Dsp a couple days ago and I can't wait to actually try it out!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VAK - Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic

Visual learners These students learn best by watching and imitating others. The following guidelines are helpful when teaching visual learners. • Ski well-executed demonstrations that illustrate the point. Be careful not to exaggerate and destroy the picture of good skiing. • Target the students’ attention to a certain part of your body or to particular movements.

Learning Styles – Doers, Feelers, Thinkers, Watchers

A learning style is the way a person’s sensory, perceptual, memorial, decision-making, and feedback mechanisms operate. Or more simply, the preferred technique to approach learning. Some students have a dominant style and others are comfortable in more than one. PSIA references different theories on learning styles, this is a classic one. Doers Values active experimentation Pragmatic, practical, functional Good problem solvers, work well with others Constantly active, doesn’t like being idle and gets frustrated with too much talking Learn by experimenting, trial and error Instructor should provide experiences that will guide the child Experiential learning is an effective method for all students

Ski good or eat wood

Ski good or eat wood. That’s only one of two mottos for White Grizzly Adventures , a cat skiing operation based in tiny Meadow Creek, British Columbia.  The other motto is considerably less family-friendly. I was a little excited to see the lodge sign... I should say, this was my first time ever cat skiing – it’s quite the splurge but can truly make a ski vacation a vacation – no worries, just lotsa skiing and eating (yes, we had sushi for lunch in the snowcat one day!). Appetizers.  Seriously.  The first question Carole asked when I called to give them my credit card - I’d already filled out about 3 pages of forms online! - was whether I’m an expert skier.  Did I know they ski steep, tight trees most of the time?  Did that sound fun?  Am I fit enough to ski a whole day without getting exhausted and increasing my chance of injury?  Um, yeah!!!  Epitome of a 'tree bomb'. Without a lot of wind, snow piles at the top of trees can be a problem. These stumps were more p