Pros: GREAT photos, clear, well-organized, well written
Ron LeMaster's photomontages of World Cup skiers are probably familiar to anyone who has read a ski magazine in the last 20 years. Ultimate Skiing is just packed with these photomontages, both of world cup racers as well as PSIA demo-team-level recreational skiers. As an illustrative technique, the photomontage is particularly well suited to skiing, where the forces are so dynamic and the transitions between turn phases are so fast that a single individual photo just can't capture the reality of the well-executed turn.
Ultimate Skiing is divided into three parts: Fundamentals, which covers basic physics and turn anatomy in a approachable way; Techniques, which is the core of the book and which goes into a lot of detail on the how of a well-executed turn; and Tactics, which describes how to apply the techniques discussed in Part 2 to ice, moguls, powder, and steeps.
Although the text throughout is clear, well written and well organized, I find myself just leafing through the book and absorbing the pictures. The cumulative effect is sort of like a print version of one of those old Sybervision muscle-training tapes where you watch someone at the top of their game perform the same action over and over again in slow motion until you almost start twitching sympathetically.
I'd recommend this book without qualification.
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