The American Soaring Handbook, available long ago from the SSA, is not the same as the FAA Publication, "The Glider Flying Handbook", linked above. If you want to see how things use to be, I would encourage getting a copy of The American Soaring Handbook. If you are interested in good, glider flying and training books, get something current.

It is always amazing to me how things are done now and thought of as "new, and innovative", and you look back and, nah, that was done first in the 1930s. But we have learned a bit since then, and can do it better now than we did back then.

Steve Leonard