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Quick resource review: Ultimate Skiing by Ron LeMaster

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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.
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Comments

  1. JessFebruary 19, 2010 at 10:40 AM

    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. DebbieMarch 9, 2010 at 3:03 PM

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

    ReplyDelete
  3. SarahMarch 15, 2010 at 10:12 PM

    My copy should be arriving any day now!

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJuly 16, 2010 at 11:17 AM

    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. AnonymousOctober 26, 2010 at 6:33 PM

    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

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