Sofa Ski School - From Blue to Black Diamond

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 am in my late 50s and have lived in Colorado my adult life. I learned how to survive, not ski a mountain. I can ski blue runs , and get down black diamonds, but it isn't pretty. Wanting to ski blacks with some grace, I took a lessons a few years ago, only to discover the quality of the lesson differs greatly by teacher and the ski school lingo was beyond me. In this DVD, the teacher speaks plain English (although he is Austrian). He starts by having you analyze whether you have one or more of three common form problems, and then how to fix them. I was amazed to discover, after all these years of skiing, that I was able to pinpoint my mistakes with this DVD. He has drills to practice so that you get the feeling of skiing correctly in your body. The videoing is excellent. The organization on the DVD allows you to move through the analysis, lessons and drills to focus only on what you need. The DVD takes you through skiing the steep slopes, but does not cover powder or moguls. He has a good sense of humor. I ordered the DVD 10 days before Christmas, and received it within days from Austria, in good condition.

I really enjoyed watching the skier demonstrate his points; his form is inspiring! I wish I could say the same about the production and the organization of the script. I was quite disappointed, because the verbal instruction was so loose and poorly put together. It was almost as if there was very quick (or maybe very little) thought ahead of time about what was going to be said! The delivery was very poor. Good ski instruction should be clear, well-organized, demonstrated in short segments (not long segments watching someone traverse back and forth across the hill), and repeated. I also thought the Sofa School video would include more... including moguls, powder, and steeps.

I got both dvd, just started looking at them.. So far so good. Want to try it out, Whitetail local east coast, twice a year, December or January 2018..Also older reviewers. I am in their age groupUpdate, Nov 30,2018,son wants to go skiing with his buddies. Trying to get them watch DVD. They never been skiing but son is So stubborn. I am reviewing as we speak. He might not take me.Maybe go by myself worried he might hurt himself.Best ski DVD... Local ski instructors do not teach this!!!

I perfer Lito Tejada-Flores style of teaching, but this video is more current and presents a broad overview of skiing with some recommended drills and 3 Reminder Cards for your easy reference. The DVD is a little awkard to use but once you learn to move around it in the lessons are very useful. As an intermediate skier I picked up some tips I will try next week when I ski. Worth the money.

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.

This video reinforces a lot of what I've been taught about skiing....face down the mountain, stay out of the back seat, etc....His instruction and technique are both solid, and better yet, the DVD is formatted and presented in a way that it actually sticks with you so you can apply it on the slopes. Watch it when you're on the treadmill, winding down after a long day at work, or like me, stuck home with the flu, and apply it the next time you go out to the hill.

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).