The video evidence

[Than_Bogan]

This is the first set in which I tried to incorporate some of Jamie's advice. I can't really tell that I was doing it, but my results were better than typical. All comments welcome. Don't feel you need to have a better score than I to give me ideas.

 

I usually open at -28, but sometimes in a second set I start at -32, as I did here:

http://youtu.be/jZE-Xt_zd4A

 

On to -35. This one is about "typical" for me right now: Little ugly but got through.

http://youtu.be/bTrbD5SaHm0

 

My first shot at -38:

http://youtu.be/714LmFNoVx4

 

Then I tried -39. First time I ever got to 2:

http://youtu.be/qvbZ1fx0sRs

 

Back to -38. Furthest I've ever gotten at this time of year. Btw, somebody has to tell me how to do that zig zag thing to kill speed and get the full buoy! I don't know why I can't do that, but I can't.

http://youtu.be/kuSMrkMc_G8

 

And then -35 again. Boy did this one feel easy, but I don't look nearly as early as I felt!

http://youtu.be/j2Ea3q7g-R4

[Than_Bogan]

Weirdest part of seeing myself: I really don't look like I'm working very much. I feel like I'm giving everything I have out there!!

 

I also always forget how friggin' bowlegged I am.

 

And I can definitely see why Olivia Myers (age 9) compared me to a swan, with all the positive and negative connotations associated.

 

Toenails belong to ski partner's daughter; voices belong to my two!

[sunvalleylaw]

Nice!

[thager]

@ Than Bowlegged smo-legged. I feel for ya! I've got the same problem.

[Than_Bogan]

Team Bowlegs for the win!!!!

[danbirch]

That 35 looked EASY! Great job.

[SkiJay]

@Than_Bogan Okay, I'll take the bait. First off, very nice skiing, buddy. You have my respect ... and you have a really endearing crew in the boat!

I have been watching videos of Nate, Seth, Chris, and Terry Winter every day, morning and evening for a couple of years now. What stood out as being different in your videos is that you are pulling longer than this list of pros. This tendency is most pronounced skiing towards 2,4,6 and gets slightly more pronounced as the rope gets shorter. This may even relate to Jamie's edge change related comments.

 

[bogboy]

Than: nice skiing. Great interior color combo on your s/n. I have a 02 blue & white.

[Than_Bogan]

@skijay I tend to agree, and I do think that relates to jamies points. Trouble is, I gotta figure out how to get nate-like angle and speed off the ball to be able to make it all work. Still, baby steps.

[SkiJay]

@Than Bogan For what it’s worth, I’ve spent a lot of time with Drew Ross, working on an earlier edge change, and after 50+ sets with him, it’s finally coming together (great coach ... slow learner). It seems that when he is happiest with what I am doing, there is hardly any time spent “cutting” at all. In fact, it feels like the turn at the ball is followed by a longer more sweeping turn all the way into the edge change, with only a short hard lean into it for a brief moment as the ski passes under the rope, for an extra spurt of outbound speed. Hmmmmm, it’s just about as hard to describe as it is for me to execute.

 

I’m skiing with Nate on Tuesday and want to talk to him about this. He has this move mastered:

 

 

[ForrestGump]

One thing that stands out in your vids is your head position. Compare it to Nate's in the video that @SkiJay posted. Or Seth's in the 15 off video on here. You look like you fall into the turns because when your head doesn't stay upright, you have less balance. Your body will always go where your head goes and with your head effectively leaning down as you extend, you fall into the turn, only to be caught by the ski and rope at the finish. Also, behind the boat when your head is upright you end up falling into a more natural lean against both arms. With few exceptions, the Elite skiers all have upright heads the entire length of the course, and their body just rotates underneath it.

[Than_Bogan]

Fascinating observation Shane. I'll have to examine that more closely!

 

Thanks!

 

The more I think about it, the more significant that observation seems. I've always had a weird "fall-in" problem, and nobody before has connected that with my head. But what you're saying makes a ton of sense.

 

Wow, I am eager to get out there and explore that a bit. That fall-in, which sometimes results in breifly being on the wrong edge or biting off way more than I can hold, is something that has held back both my consistency and my top end. I wonder how hard it will be to try to change that? Doesn't sound that hard ... ;)

[GregHind]

Skijay is that how Nate seriously skis or was he just showing off? I mean it was awesome but is it really how he would tacke harder passes? He stopped pulling before the first wake! awesome and I wish I could get away with that. Watching my recent videos that is what I thought I was doing wrong to stop me running -28!

 

Than you invited posts from hacks so I'll comment. Please critique my comments tho as I'm interested to learn.

 

In your favorite 35 pass video you really seemed to be on time for 1 ball.

 

All the others, to me, you seemed very late at 1.

 

In all passes you seem to start wide, drift in then sometimes drift in again. You start to seriously pull only about 2 meters before the white water beside the wash.

 

Nate seems to do all his work before the wake, you seem to be starting to get hooked up there.

 

I have to say - awesome skiing. I'd like to finish 28 off this season so you are miles ahead of me. If you are ever in Australia look me up! Im assuming your gates are intentional so I'd love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts.

[ForrestGump]

@GregHind There's a big difference in the angle a novice takes into the first wake in comparison to an Elite skier like Nate. When you can take that angle and intensity to the first wake, the ski will naturally start it's swing out from under you just before centerline. Go watch Seth's 15 off/30mph video and you'll see the same thing.

[Than_Bogan]

@GregHind. Yep, Shane nailed it again. (I'm getting tired of agreeing with you, btw, @ShaneH!) Personally I can't really do an early edge change per se, because I don't even know when I edge change. But the edge change automatically moves earlier when you've built up enough speed and angle. A big thing I'm trying to learn now is to get the most out of whatever I have managed to get, by riding the proper arc after the centerline. It's very much a work in progress.

 

But if you watch Nate (or Jamie or most other who have a shot at -41), you'll see that "early edge change" at every line length, so I would definitely NOT say that he is "just showing off." I think that's the real way the pros do it. But it's very hard to immitate until you're doing a LOT of other stuff almost perfectly. I feel somewhat proud that I have recently crossed into the territory where I can even start thinking about it!

 

My gates are nothing to be proud of -- indeed I consider my entry among my biggest liabilities in trying to figure out -38 and -39. But you wouldn't believe how much better they are then they were about a year ago. I've been really focusing on getting much higher and making sure the ski is at the proper angle before I begin to load it. I don't yet know how to start in hard the way Nate does without getting way too much speed -- yet not enough angle -- and losing control.

 

So what I'm doing there is "sort of" intentional. It's a step toward better. And since I haven't even dialed in this "baby step" I'm probably not ready for anything more significant there. Someday, though!

 

I *think* the appearance of lateness at 1 is largely a coincidence of this particular sample. I wouldn't say I was late on the opening -32 nor the last -35. The first -35 I had a screwy 1 (which my boat driver claims was partly his fault). And then there's -38/-39/-38, where a) I'm beyond my current skill level and b) the geometry forces turns to occur almost entirely after the ball, which can look very late.

[ForrestGump]

My ski partner once told me that there's no such thing as an early 38 or 39. They're all just varying degrees of late. lol What he meant was that because of where the apex has to happen at the ultra short line lengths, the appearance of even an early line is that the skier is downcourse.

[SkiJay]

@Greghind Nate skies all of his passes like this. And apparenty the key is NOT to take a lot of angle off the ball. The angle needs to be progressive, like a good gate, with the intensity and max angle occurring in the first whitewash. More importantly, the outbound connection and technique has to match this intensity.

[SkiJay]

@ShaneH Great call on the leaning with the head thing. This is critical for superbike and car racing for the same reason. If you watch videos of high performance animals like birds or cheetahs, you'll see them keep their heads perpendicular while turning too. Here's a good demonstration for any doubters. I learned this trick at a fighter pilot training facility.

Pick any object across the room then turn 180 degrees away from it so it's behind you. Stand up straight with your head perpendicular to the ground, then quickly spin around 180 degrees and see how quickly you can lock in your focus on the object. Now do the same thing, only before you spin around to look at the object, tilt your head as close to your shoulder as you can and keep it tilted while you spin around. Notice how everything kind of swims around for a second before it gets processed. Apparently this is a combination of the inner ear causing temporary vertigo and the brain reorienting the picture to horizontal before processing; non of which helps our balance or performance.

[Than_Bogan]

@SkiJay @ShaneH Yeah, I am skiing tomorrow morning and super-curious to begin playing with my head position. I'm both wondering a) how hard it's going to be to change [probably been wrong for 36 years] and b) how much of my fall-ing and wrong-edge-finishing problem will be corrected by it.

 

For some reason I forgot to Awesome his observation -- an error which I just corrected.

[ktm300]

We have to pull longer at 34 so, 36 mph representations of how long to pull don't apply. This is my humble opinion. Mapple said the same thing when asked what the he considered to be the main difference between the two speeds.

[matthewbrown]

you don't have to pull longer at 34 then you do at 36...physics are physics....the edge change needs to take place in the same exact spot, however, the edgechange at 34 should take much longer. Good observations @shaneh and @greghind.....not nearly enough speed through the gates, which causes the line to pull the shoulders to the inside in the preturn, which causes the head to dip in as well. I would start with keeping your width on your gates, you pull out wide enough and then loose 5 or 6 feet of width for no apparent reason. Keep your width, lean inside the ski arc and get that bad boy moving....then you can work on an earlier much slower edge change which will make it that much easier to not tip the head/shoulders in the turns.

[Than_Bogan]

MUCH THANKS TO ALL!

 

This morning I played around with a few things, mainly related to my head position. I considered this a bit of an "exploration" more than having a precise idea of what I wanted to accomplish.

 

My preliminary conclusions are:

a) I really do need to make some changes in my head position. At times, I was able to get really fast but controlled turns. I even had a real nice pass-saving 4-ball, which is rare for me (despite that supposedly being my on-side turn). There was a noticeable reduction in "fall-ins" and "wrong-edge-finishes".

b) This is not going to be easy. There's a pretty substantial change in visuals and balance point. I was especially confused about what to be looking at, since my perspective was rather different.

 

Basically, after a few passes of falling all over the place, I settled in to:

-28: Feels amazing. I felt like I was doing a photo shoot with a great-feeling wide turn at every ball.

-32: Feels very good. Slightly challenging to focus on it, but clearly works very, very well.

-35: Tough. Things happen fast here and I have less time to think about what I'm doing. At times my gate completely went away because I had to put so much mindshare into thinking about what I was going to do with my head. Other times I completely mistimed something or ran right into a ball.

-38: Can't think about it at all yet.

 

Nevertheless, I had some excellent passes sprinkled in there, including a -38 I feel I would have run if I hadn't been so toast at the end of 2 long sets. Came out of 3 early and in perfect position, but just couldn't give it anything. Meter on E. Still, just getting to 4 on my first early morning set of the year is already pretty good for me.

 

My Practice Plan going foward is to try to focus on head position at -28 and -32, with the hope of making it instinct over time. Then at -35 and -38 I'll focus on the gate and arc-riding advice that Jamie/Matthew have given me. I hope this will work pretty well to eventually incorporate both, without taking too drastic of a step backwards in the short term.

[GaryWilkinson]

Than,

 

I too have been working on head position in that I have a very poor posture with my head forward pulling my shoulders forward and down. This produces the death grip reach too far forward and drop of head, shoulders, arm and ski "bite". Been struggling with this for 30+ years.

 

I think a lot of it has to to do with where our focus is, specifically where our eyes are looking. I've been told sooooo many places to look and am now very confused except for the advice of NOT looking at the buoy. It makes sense to look at the boat when completing the turn and going across the boat wakes but in the pre-turm and at the ball the advice varies.

 

So where do you look and what do you have in mind at different stages of the turn, cut, and cross? Im interested in what you thin and have heard. I'm only 12 sets into this season and all of a sudden the wheels have fallen off where I'm struggling at 22 when last week I was going deep into 32! I hope to have embarrassing video evidence of my poor form Monday. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on head and eyes at different parts of the course?

 

And I humbly disagree with mr brown, I used to ski at 36 and in IMHO 36 is a lot faster (on the ski) that 34. We do same distances in less time and my ski rode a lot lighter and quicker at 36.

 

Time for some free skiing sets to clear my head and get back into form I guess.