breaking at the waist out of the onside

[skispray]

What are the major causes of breaking at the waist on your onside turn, considering both technique and fin settings?  I have been encountering this lately at one ball, especially at my harder passes, even though my edge change and outward direction going into 1 feel great.  The sensation I have as I'm coming into the ball is, "the ski is casting out great and I'm early, this is an exellent start to my pass!" and then massive break at the wake and poor turn instead of the ski coming through and finishing in front of me with nice angle. 

[Horton]

Does it feel like you ski sticks about 2/3s of the way out from the wake to the ball?

[skispray]

"Sticks" is a good way to put it, but the feeling is as the ski is coming back in from it's widest point, when I'm expecting it to have it's most drastic acceleration (as in turning acceleration, not the acceleration you'd get pulling through the wakes).  Instead of the ski making a carving turn with the ski coming all the way underneath me in a controlled manner, so that the ski is between myself and the boat, it feels like the ski makes a very abrupt change in direction without really coming back underneath me.  So the ski gets angle and points across course but hasn't come through and is being left behind me.  Either that or it does come through but there's a ton of load that I can't hold on to.  I'm having trouble describing the sensation, but it's just like a ton of work to get the ski to come through without putting a lot of load on the rope.  My main focus as I'm coming into the ball is just counter rotating and staying level with my upper body - I kind of expect the ski to do the rest.

[skispray]

Funny, I just made that adjustment last night because the water temp had warmed up and I felt like I was skiing in a heavy cream instead of water!  Wasn't sure if that would improve the turn but good to know it might help!

[Horton]

Add little depth maybe.

[skidawg]

Post vid

[clemsondave]

Agree, video would tell the tale. Another suspect would be not holding onto the handle long enough into the pre-turn. You cold be slowing down too much by the end of the turn.

[Ed_Obermeier]

I'm far from an expert skier; having said that, in general the most common cause of breaking at the waist out of the turn is not letting the ski finish the turn before you start to pull (load the rope, however you want to say it).  I see it pretty frequently with the 28 - 32 mph skiers I ski/work with.  One definition of the finish of the turn is to make sure you allow the front of the ski pass under the rope (so the ski is between you and the boat) before you start to pull/load/leverage.  May not exactly address your specific issue but you did ask what the major causes of breaking are.  That's probably #1 IMO.

Ed

[ForrestGump]

I struggled with this. Breaking at the waist as soon as I got back on the handle on my on side.  My coach told me this week that I was bringing my outside hand back to the handle before my hips. Once I focused on rotating that outside hip back into the handle..........voila......... problem went away.  Not only that but in concentrating on that on my onside, it made the drop in at the finish of the turn better on both sides.  I bet it closed the gap between the handle and my hip 6-8" or more.