Inner Skiing

I received the first edition as a present at Christmas 1977 from my mother, a pioneering 1940's skier who hung up her skis long ago. I had just come from living 2 years in Grenoble and I was a pretty good "technique" skier. I looked at the title and cover, thought to myself "Oh great, more Zen mumbo jumbo from the 'hot tub - peacock feathers - I'm so into myself' set", thanked her politely, and shoved the book into my ski dufflebag and promptly forgot about it. A few weeks later, I was eating breakfast in my little Tahoe cabin, and I cracked the book open and read the first twenty pages. Those pages resonated with me all day on the slopes -- when I got home, I spent the entire evening and half the night with the book. As other reviewers have said, it forever changed my skiing life and even spilled over into my "real" world life as well. Since this book really is "Zen and the Art of Skiing", I'll stop here because the first rule of Zen is it cannot be explained in words, only in the doing. In the past 30 years, I have given this book as a gift several times, with always the same rather earth-shaking positive reaction. I'm here at Amazon to pick up a copy for my teenage son (can't find my old dog-eared copy, but it's around somewhere). I recommend this book for any age and any level of skiing, from beginner to "everyone watches when s/he comes down the hill". If you're a beginner, you'll avoid a lot of "noise" in getting to the pleasure of skiing. If you're an expert, you'll marvel at how much additional pleasure you can get from skiing just by eliminating some baggage. And, like me, you'll become an Inner Skiing evangelist, spreading this book around like Johnny Skiing-seed. Buy the book -- you're in for a real treat!

I take this book skiing with me whenever I go. I've internalised the concepts by now, but there are still some gems of ideas that are worth refreshing.There are a little too many examples of taking students out to the slopes and seeing a breakthrough - anecdotal stories, but they do illustrate a valid point and are worth sticking to.Bottom line is, you can teach yourself if you trust yourself and learn to receive feedback from your own body. You just have to work on shutting up the 'Self 2' that continually barks comments, judgements, technical tips, abuse or detrimental thoughts all the time.I tend to push myself in most sports, but this book helped me channel that energy into something more constructive and pragmatic. I also teach my kids the techniques here and it has changed my whole outlook on how to learn and teach skiing, but also in other sports.I like this book better than the Inner Golf Game, but there is a lot of cross-over in concepts.

I have been using the techniques in this book for probably 30 or 40 years of skiing. They are great. They are also applicable to other athletic activities, even beyond those for which he has written books. Once you know the very basics of skiing, I would strongly recommend this book as a way of fine-tuning your technique and progressing to more challenging terrain. Whenever I am having a bad day on the slopes, I reach into the inner skiing bag of tricks and straighten myself right out.PS. This review contains my opinion of the original Inner Game of Skiing which I purchased about 40 years ago. If there are significant changes in the newer edition, I cannot vouch for these.

I like the content. Having studied psychology in college I appreciate the viewpoint of the authors and their approach to the topic. It will have an effect on how I view my skiing but it won't change HOW I ski. If the book were better printed I'd give it four stars. The printing of the book is abysmal. Some of the headers run off the pages and the text is set in a FOUR POINT font. If you're over 45 and intend to comfortably read this book, you'll need your bifocals, a magnifier, and a bright light. The kindle version is surely better as the font size can be easily adjusted.

I like that this isn't just about skiing. The principles can be applied to one's entire life. Look within one's self for answers . Lose the fear of failing. Be aware of your surroundings and your self. Experience life.

This book conveys in a very pleasant and interesting experiences the concept of learning any skill (I don't ski, I read this book to get better at mountain biking).I can say it really opened my eyes regarding the process of learning and performing on my cycling, and I believe it will also show it signs on my every day life.I would recommend this book to anyone who can keep an open mind and is interested in mastering any skill.

After reading this book your ski skills will be 200% better and you will enjoy it more. Simple, practical advice that can easily bee applied.

This book is a must read, not only for my fellow ski & snowboard instructors, but for teachers of all subjects. With many examples it shows the reader various ways to guide students in learning by exploring and doing, rather than being passively "taught" or lectured to.

If this thinking is new to you then it maybe deserves 5 stars, but I found I was already 9/10 of the way there myself. That does not detract from the message of the book, and it is good to have an expert expound in print and give re-assuring examples, extra facts and back-ground thinking. If it has a down-side it is that it is repetitive. I haven't actually finished it yet and I hope he will summarise at the end, but it follows the very American style of telling you the same thing over and over again. Rather like those incredibly long emails that repeat themselves over dozens of pages (or rather, one endless page) with a "BUY NOW" hyperlink every 80 lines. On the other hand repetition can be a good teacher and works better for some folks. Me - I prefer précis; when I bought the first paperback book describing how to do Rubik's cube, I condensed the actual cube-solving rules into less than one A4 page. I strongly suspect I could do this here. But the value is in the message in a readable book; experts have benefited from the knowledge and beginners should progress much more rapidly with these concepts in their heads.

I came across this book last year and finally read it on the skiing trip to Austria. Having started to ski as an adult, I have pretty much had all the experiences described- fear, nervousness, awkwardness, inability to improve and thinking, thinking, thinking about it! Reading Inner Skiing in combination with working with a great instructor has resulted into the best skiing week I have ever had. It also made me really understand the gift of awareness and concentration concepts. Highly recommended to any skier at any level who wants to improve or simply take stress out of skiing.

Excellent read. Love this book and read it before I go skiing. It gets my head in the right place to 'feel' the snow and puts me ahead of the game each year. I find it essential preparation for my most favourite of holidays - nothing better than discovering the vastness of the mountains on skis

Very helpful information for a nervous skier like me. Lots of inside information on how to get into the right mind-set for enjoyable skiing. Its a well known fact that skiing is predominantly about confidence. This book certainly helps increase confidence and positivity on the slopes.

An inspirational read. As someone who has had numerous ski lessons but still feel stuck at low intermediate I now look forward to trying to engage my inner ski me when i next go on the slopes. Read it if you want to let go of your fear. Helpful also to know how to translate technical instruction into an awareness of actually doing it.