Inner Skiing: Revised Edition

A selection of phrases that come to mind after reading this book - well written, insightful, down to earth, will definitely help my skiing. I will read this again and again. The light bulb above the head went on !

Unlike most of the ski books I read, this book helped me zero in on my attitudes-- all the little mental numbers I did on myself while trying to improve or just enjoy skiing. It helped me focus on areas I had problems with, without heaping criticism on myself. It changed the way I learned by teaching me constructive things to replace that inner critic with. "You look so loose and relaxed," an instructor who had worked with me before commented. This book shows you how to allow yourself to learn unencumbered by fears. Things I read here helped me when I learned to inline skate, and pavement is a lot rougher than snow.

I rad Inner Skiing about 6-7 years ago, and it changed my skiing life. Most everything written about skiing (and other sports, as far as I can tell) is about technique, tricks, how-to's and so on. Inner Skiing is about being a skier - about the fundamental relationship we have to the snow, the mountain, the skis and ourselves. Discovering who I am as a skier (and what my fears, my doubts, my anxieties look like) have exploded this sport for me. This book works on the emotional, intellectual and physical levels - I use the discovery tools on myself, and with my students, and get incredible results.Even if you don't ski, this book is great - I've used some of his approaches in many areas of my life. They're fun, they're doable, and they help me focus on what's really there, not what I imagine. And beyond that, they open up incredible opportunities to play, explore and have a great time on the slopes or off.The earlier edition of the book poo-pood technique - I don't agree with that, and my sense is the book took a bit of a hit for that. There's things to learn about skiing, and taking lessons from a great instructor will make a huge difference whether it's your first day or you've been at it for decades. Nonetheless, I recommend this as book #1 for anyone who wants to ski, or who wants something more from their skiing. ANd for the instructors out there - read it!

I have been reading this book for about twenty years(first publication was November 1977); it was the first of two Inner Game books which, although differing in details, both transformed my attitude to and my performance in the sports I love. I was fortunate to have been given it by a patient who was an Inner Game instructor (or rather, facilitator). If Inner Skiing has only now (1997) become widely available, thanks to the Internet, a generation of British skiers has lost out; for years it has been available only in the USA and to members of Inner Game workshops. With examples from life and from Inner Skiing workshops which are encouraging, inspiring, and often emotionally touching, the book helps skiers of all standards to confront their fears and to tap into the mind's and the body's unconscious store of knowledge and skills; the fears of "flying", falling, speed, injury, failure, and the fear of looking stupid; the knowledge locked into Gallwey's Self 2, a Self which, he teaches us, is ours too. Where his Self 1 is trying, tense, unsure, scared and controlling, Self 2 is free, relaxed, effortless, powerful, and instinctive. Gallwey and his co-author Bob Kriegel, a more experienced skier than he and a psychologist, equip their readers with simple but highly effective keys to Self 2, enabling us increasingly to find in skiing the exhilaration of the breakthrough run, and unlocking the confidence without which the sport can be an exercise in anxiety. Most of us in the UK only get to ski once a year. I reread Inner Skiing annually as an essential pre-ski exercise, and if I don't read every word I never fail to take a dose of inspiration from the paragraph in the last chapter which begins "Inside us all is a mountain with no top and no bottom. The skiing there is perfect. The snow is made of pure peace and there is not a trace of Self 1 interference.................Skiing this inner mountain has the power to satisfy the human longing to know oneself and the reason for which one was born." You may guess from this that Timothy Gallwey's is the inner game of life, with applications far beyond the realms of sport, as his other writing attests. Dr. Basil Lee, London, England.