Waterski Lesson: Two On-sides by Terry Winter

http://ballofspray.com/images/stories/2_onsides-resized-600.jpgWe naturally have an "on-side", and an "off-side" turn in slalom. What manyhttp://www.ballofspray.com/images/sunset.png skiers try to do is to overcompensate on the off-side by trying to turn, and rotate the whole body to get the ski to rotate around. This just makes the off-side worse. Why do we have an "on-side" and an "off-side" turn? It's the stance... On our on-side turns our hips are naturally opened up, making it easier to keep the shoulders level, and get the lower body weight moving over the inside of the arc. The off-side is more difficult because our hips are closed up.

To improve this situation, what can we do? Well, think of a snow skier. They have two even, or on-side turns. By being able to move the feet individually of each other a snow skier can open equally well on both sides. Approaching a left turn, the outside foot will drop back a bit making the skier essentially a left foot forward skier. On the other side the left foot will fall behind the right foot a bit making them a right foot forward skier.

A slalom waterskier isn't allowed to make quite as much change in stance, but we can improve our off-sides by making them more like our on-sides. As you approach your off-side turn try to mimmick that snow skier movement as much as possible. If you could you would drop that outside leg back. Well we can't move our feet, but we can move our hips. Try taking that outside hip back as much as possible. If you're a right foot forward skier approaching the 1 3 5 buoy side twist your hips to the right. Bring the right side of the hips back, and the left side of your hips forward. You're trying to open up your hips so your left hip is now more over your front foot, and your right hip is brought back more to the middle of the ski. A left foot forward skier will do this on the other side of the course, on the 2 4 6 side. Bring the right side of the hips forward over that left foot, and allow the left side of the hips to trail, staying over the middle of the ski.

Ski with Terry to develop your two on-sides!

By opening up the hips as much as possible into and through our off-side turns we can make the ski turn equally well on both sides of the course.

Come to California and ski with Terry this spring!