CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE CHAPTER ON "BASIC SKI SKILLS" NOW FROM CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING (Provide us with a little information and we'll send your download directly to your inbox) * Technique demonstrated in step-by-step photos * Special learning activities reinforce instruction * Sidebars for trouble-shooting common problems and matching technique to terrain and snow conditions * Tips for engaging the family From the first time you step into your bindings to mastering the stride, the glide, and the skate: Steve Hindman has you covered. As a certified instructor, he's introduced hundreds of people to the sport; he also wrote the study guide for the Professional Ski Instructors of America certification exam. Here he shares the same techniques he teaches on the snow, whether you're setting out for a city park, looking for family fun at a groomed ski area, or heading into the backcountry to set your own track. This comprehensive guide covers equipment and accessories, waxing for grip and glide, training and conditioning, snow camping, route finding, and avalanche awareness. It will take you from how to fall (and how to get up again), through the classic and skate skiing basics (including stance, poling principles, and downhill tactics), to effective racing technique. It also takes up more advanced variations of the sport-freeheel, telemark, and ski mountaineering.

This comprehensive introduction to cross-country skiing is designed to get the reader out of the chair and onto the slopes in the first three chapters. Once on the trail, the authors take up the finer points of technique and training, demonstrating how it should be done with numerous photo sequences of techniques and top-notch, detailed illustrations.

Richly photographed and information-packed tools for the novice or handy reference for the veteran, BASIC ILLUSTRATED books distill years of knowledge into affordable and visual guides. Whether you're planning a trip of thumbing for facts in the field, the BASIC ILLUSTRATED series shows you what you need to know.

“Mantle and Lichty have assembled a guide that will help you hire, motivate, and mentor a software development team that functions at the highest level. Their rules of thumb and coaching advice are great blueprints for new and experienced software engineering managers alike.” —Tom Conrad, CTO, Pandora “I wish I’d had this material available years ago. I see lots and lots of ‘meat’ in here that I’ll use over and over again as I try to become a better manager. The writing style is right on, and I love the personal anecdotes.” —Steve Johnson, VP, Custom Solutions, DigitalFish All too often, software development is deemed unmanageable. The news is filled with stories of projects that have run catastrophically over schedule and budget. Although adding some formal discipline to the development process has improved the situation, it has by no means solved the problem. How can it be, with so much time and money spent to get software development under control, that it remains so unmanageable? In Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , Mickey W. Mantle and Ron Lichty answer that persistent question with a simple observation: You first must make programmers and software teams manageable. That is, you need to begin by understanding your people—how to hire them, motivate them, and lead them to develop and deliver great products. Drawing on their combined seventy years of software development and management experience, and highlighting the insights and wisdom of other successful managers, Mantle and Lichty provide the guidance you need to manage people and teams in order to deliver software successfully. Whether you are new to software management, or have already been working in that role, you will appreciate the real-world knowledge and practical tools packed into this guide.