Saturday, February 03, 2007

Thank You, Readers

As many of you already know, I self-published my book, Everything the Instructors Never Told You about Mogul Skiing. And as many of you can probably guess, I don’t have a huge marketing budget. But word about the book is getting around the slopes, and “Everything” is ranked #3 today among ski books on Amazon.com. In other words: the book is whuppin’ the tails of literally hundreds of traditionally published, big-budget ski books on Amazon!


It’s also selling well through www.bn.com, www.LearnMoguls.com, other web bookstores, and a number of brick-and-mortar, ski-country bookstores. For this, I thank those of you who are recommending the book to friends and thereby providing me with my most valuable book marketing.

A special thanks to the people who’ve taken the time to submit reader reviews on Amazon.com: K. Ibarra of Seattle; Steven Whitmore; John Metzig of Southern California; James Shohet of Chicago; Albert Reiner of Steamboat Springs, Colorado; “Bill” of Washington DC; “Ski Bum Wannabe” of New Hampshire; and G Blasko of Connecticut.


There’s a lot of fun to be had in the moguls. And when you use the right techniques, moguls aren’t half as hard as most skiers think they are. For years, I’ve been frustrated by the instructing establishment’s ignorance of real mogul technique. This is what motivated me to write the book. And now you, my readers, are helping me get the word out, helping me bring mogul skiing to the masses. Again…

THANK YOU.

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dan -

I am 36 and a skier at Sunapee. My 7 year old daughter loves to ski bumps, but I can't ski them for shit. Is there anyway we could hook up for an hour lesson. If so please email me. kpfarrar |at| yahoo |dot| com.

Thanks

Ps. I'll be buying a copy of your book.

12:19 PM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for buying a copy of my book, and I hope you find it useful.

Unfortunately, my schedule just can't accomodate instructing this season. Read the book, though, and practice the drills, and let me know how it goes.

Is Sunapee still seeding those nice mellow bumps in that back bowl area? If so, be sure to begin on those bumps, not the Flying Goose bump course.

-Dan

7:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love your book,

Had a question. In your book you describe how bumpers some times turn in the air with steering and land on bumps. I see bumpers do that often. How exactly do they land on the bumps? Using landing described on your trough hop technique (landing on edge)? Also should the leg reach slightly forward when landing on the bump doing a trough hop? Looks that way in the picture? Hop then absorb?

I was able to ski a tight zipper line kinda of hopping on soft bumps for a few runs. I just don’t know exactly how I did it?

11:15 AM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

Aspiring Bumper:

Glad you liked the book! You're talking about two different things here:

1. High-speed, high-performance mogul skiing during which the skis leave the ground over every trough (between every two bumps); and…

2. Trough hopping - something you do in irregular moguls to negotiate, leap over, a tricky spot.

Think of the first – high-speed mogul skiing – as a progression from slower, more conservative mogul skiing. When you ski the moguls slowly, with maximum control, you absorb and extend dramatically – with a big range of motion – so that your skis stay in contact with the snow all the time, whether they’re on a bump or over a trough.

When you ski the bumps fast, you reduce the range of your absorption and extension, and your skis end up leaving the snow between bumps. You still extend somewhat into the troughs, and you still absorb bumps somewhat, but your skis do spend some time in the air, over the troughs, and there’s much less up-and-down / absorption-and-extension movement. All else – the timing of the turn, body posture, degree to which you’re on edge, etc – remains the same.

Yes, soft bumps would be a good place to start doing this. This sort of high-speed mogul skiing is usually done by good mogul skiers on soft bumps and not too steep a trail. (More challenging bumps usually require more ski-to-snow contact.)

About that “reach” during the trough hop… sure, there might be a little “reaching” forward. Your goal should be to end up centered, balanced, over your skis after the hop. Sure, in some circumstances, if you don’t reach, you’ll end up too far forward, falling over the handlebars. Reach too much, though, and you’ll end up in the back seat. You want to find that balanced, centered middle place.

I like your comment about not knowing exactly how you did it. Hey, so long as you’re doing it, why worry? If it’s starting to come to you intuitively -- starting to become a spontaneous art for you -- maybe there's no need to analyze!

Have fun!

-Dan

9:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why analyze?
I think the problem with most weekend bumpers like myself. Some days we ski moguls great and some days were terrible. There is no consistency. It’s also hard to goto a mountain and ask for 1hr lesson to have an instructor teach you competition style bump skiing. They just don’t teach it. I think that where your book fills this gap. It actually gives you the solid building blocks for good mogul skiing and actually explains why.

You answered most of my mogul skiing questions in your book. I still have q few left… I think you need to write a second book to tackle common problems in double black diamond bumps... I ski black bumps pretty good now… I guess I just need more practice.

Thanks for writing the book and being so accessible with your blog!

3:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Saw you on zoomer weekend after the dump, different jacket and pants but you can't hide! Man what a day, mittersill is still skiing great as of sunday. Bought your book pre-season and have experienced immediate results, a lot of things made more sense after reading it -

8:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dan:

Your book is fantastic. Read it once preseason, and twice more since then. Definitely has results.

I'm working on a project to start a mogul skiing forum and website, specific to tips/technique and appreciation for the sport. If you would be interested in becoming involved that (on whatever level you'd like), drop me an email at admin@mogulskiing.net. Thanks.

5:38 PM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

Aspiring bumper:

Thanks again. Glad you think the book provides solid building blocks and "fills the gap." Not sure if I've got another book in me, but I won't rule it out. Good luck.

-Dan

10:00 PM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

Anonymous 1:

Glad the book made sense and produced results for you. Thanks for telling me.

Yeah, Zoomer was great with that new snow, wasn't it? What a fun weekend, especially Sunday. And more is supposed to fall on Friday! Say hi if you're out there this weekend.

-Dan

10:07 PM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

Anonymous 2:

Thank you! Glad you found the book worth multiple readings!

Yes, I'd be interested to hear about your new site. I'll email you.

-Dan

10:32 PM  
Blogger Dan DiPiro said...

jsul185,
Thanks for the note. I exchanged messages with the web master of that forum a couple of weeks ago, but didn't know he had things up and running. He tells me there's more to come besides the forum. Good stuff!
-Dan

8:47 PM  
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