The Inner Glide: The Tao of Skiing, Snowboarding, and Skwalling

Skiing can be a path to higher spiritual awareness, contributing to centering, ego effacement, and the search for perfect mental stillness

• Shows how exploring and applying the laws that govern movement, practitioners gain access to the “right gesture,” the action that brings body and mind into balance

• Includes nine “katas of the glide” that all skiers, snowboarders, and skwallers can incorporate into their own technique

Patrick “Thias” Balmain, creator and promoter of the skwal--a type of snowboard that positions the feet and the body facing forward on the board--discovered that by applying a concentrated awareness to movement activities such as skiing, a balance in motion can be achieved that is pure harmony and joy. When the mind is completely engaged, not with its thoughts but with the attention it commits to the movement of the body, it brings forth a balance between Earth’s center of gravity and that of the individual that evokes lasting transformations in one’s stance toward life, influencing one’s attitudes, gestures, words, and actions.

The Inner Glide presents a unique and original practice that will challenge ski enthusiasts, snowboarders, or skwallers, whether experts or beginners, to make the transition from the raw quest for sensation--itself a source of imbalance--to a more subtle and harmonious practice based on internal centering. Balmain offers a complete illustrated program that includes nine “katas of the glide”--conscious movement exercise sequences to help practitioners discover the “right gesture” and “the inner glide” for any terrain or situation--to bring body and mind into balance with joy.