Vapor getting slack at 3 ball

[cragginshred]

I have been on the Vapor for about 3 weeks now and like it a lot! It whips around and sets ups up nicely across the wake. I have been bumping the boat speed .1 closer to 34.2 proper and today was making passes at -.2 for an even 34mph at -19. My goal is getting settled at 34.2 then -22 within in a week or two. I am now able to ski 3x a week. I noticed I got slack at 3ball which caused me to crouch more than my usual bad offside pull. Wondering if I have too much line for the angle I had into the ball and need to start -22 asap?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJeufzj54_g&list=UUYiMWvp9JpTT_c45P9W1Jsg

[Waternut]

I'm not really the best person to critique others so take what I say with a grain of salt. However, if you pause a few times between the exit of 1 ball and the wake, you are curled up in a ball and riding flat before even hitting the wake. I think that needs to be priority one. You're already getting down course before 3 ball. My thoughts are you're loading the line heavy out of the ball and can't maintain it. If you ease off a little after the ball and hold that edge longer, you'll be earlier and slower going into the next ball will help you keep a tight line.

 

Definitely try 22 off. Even if it's at 30 or 32mph. Shortening the rope before reaching max speed really helped me learn more efficient skiing and made the process easier.

[bigtex2011]

The gate looks pretty good. As you come into and exit 1,2,3,4,5 your arms are away from your core which makes it difficult to make space. It's kinda like being drug thru the course. Try to maintain that position you have going thru the gate outbound on both sides. Step 2 would be to slow your handle bring back speed to match your turn speed. this will aid in keep a little better body alignment and keep the line tighter.

 

it's the perfect time of year to work on this

 

good luck and good times

[TravisNW]

The finish of two probably felt great because you finished with lots of angle and load, however this sent you into 3 with tons of speed hense the slack. If you wanna try a fin adjust I suggest shallowing it up and making it longer... Not sure your current settings but I think this setting will help you initiate your turns sooner and enable the tail to slide the finish better aiding if your late or have slack and preventing to much lean lock or really hard finishes. It ought to help out especially at these longer lines.

[mwetskier]

my opinion is in your pull out and first part of the turn in you were fairly stacked but there wasnt a moment of stacked body position in the entire pass after that. you got the perfect body position for greco roman wrestling but that wont work at all for slalom. horton has a couple of articles on body position and staying stacked and you need to find them and study them. then find a drill that will help you pound the right stacked position into your sub conscious muscle memory before you waste time skiing around one more ball.

[cragginshred]

Making so much progress so fast has been amazing with obvious work to do. Early in the season so I am psyched. Thanks for the positive and encouraging thoughts guys!

[mwetskier]

interesting that the op gave me a ' dislike ' for an honest evaluation but ive watched his video frame by frame and his problem has nothing to do with the vapor ski. get your hips forward and your shoulders back don and develop some kind of body alignment that allows you to maintain your angle and stay on your pulling edge. if you cant do that you can figure your pretty near your ball count ceiling at this point.

[cragginshred]

Two weeks ago I was at -.7 from 34.2mph, yesterday this was taken the very first time skiing at this speed (34.2 minus .2). I should not have filmed this so soon. A month ago I started the season at 32 mph, so the rapid progress is super encouraging! The stacked position is slowly coming together. I just learned I have been skiing with my Radar boots internally rotated when the front should be straight and the rear should be one click out (per Matt Rini's response this am). The walls are coming down, stay tuned!

[34mph]

Agree with @mwetskier and @Rico more a forum thing then a ski set up , I sometimes have same problems if not stacked and to flexed in posture

[mwetskier]

@OB -anyone has a right to dislike any ones opinion but you gotta admit asking for advise and then shooting a negative mark at an honest response is a bit petty. in my opinion glowing praise needs to be earned not just blindly expected so in the spirit of honesty there will be no dislike for you today.

[Chris Rossi]

Looks to me like you turned two so well that you overloaded out of the turn and pulled the boat over that way. Then the extra load/speed sent you wide/fast into 3 and the driver may have had to correct at the same time to get boat back to center causing the slack. I would focus on skiing your outside hip to the handle at the finish of the turn (not pulling the handle to your outside hip) and then settling into a lean position vs a loaded position (one where you are trying to pull the boat backward).

[mwetskier]

@OB -counting dislikes and awesomes like @Than_Bogan? no way -he counts using differential equations and i dont even know what those are.

[cragginshred]

Thank you Chris!

[Waternut]

There seems to be common buzz words that the skiing community uses that make sense to most but there are others, like myself, that clearly just don't speak the buzz. Things like stack, hips up, handle to hips, etc. just weren't clicking for me. I might as well have had someone in the boat tell me to let go of the rope so they could pull me up easier....there was just a massive disconnect between their words and how to actually accomplish what they were telling me to do.

 

Maybe this will help. This is a thread I started a while back on different ways to accomplish the same goal of getting into a better skiing position. It wasn't the end all but it really helped me figure out how to make my muscles do the right things. http://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/6034/hips-up-advice

[SkiJay]

@mwetskier‌ Your question about slack at three has little to do with the ski and much to do with the well populated crossroads you've arrived at in your skiing.

 

Most of us learn at lower speeds to pull long and hard to get out to the ball. Our body position is based mostly on what "feels" safe and stable. As we get better at pulling long and even harder, we can get to about -22 and sometimes -28, but that's the end of the road for this technique. Working even harder will not get you any further down the rope. Now you have to make a few difficult changes to your well engrained habits, and changing old habits can be so difficult, it's almost like relearning how to ski.

 

Now you have to learn how to go faster from ball to wakes, and decelerate more from wakes to ball so you can turn into a tight line. The only way you are going to generate enough speed from ball to wakes is to develop killer leverage right out of the ball on both sides of the course.

 

This is where getting well stacked comes in. You have to do whatever it takes to learn how to ski out of each turn in a powerfully stacked position. Some guys stack their shoulders over their hips over their feet while standing tall, and some do it with deeply bent legs; but nobody can do it with the hips behind the shoulders and feet—which is the stage you are at right now.

 

When you discover how to get leaned over into a leveraged position where your skeleton is stacked shoulders over hips over feet, your arms and shoulders are in line with the rope, and your hips and handle are nearly touching, you won't believe how much speed you will generate from ball to wakes; and it requires less strength than you are using now. Then you have to learn what to do with all this speed after the wakes.

 

You'll have to relearn when to change edges. It has to be quite a bit earlier than your current habit, and this change is not easy either. Your edge-change needs to be roughly behind the boat, and you have to stay down in your leveraged position throughout the edge-change. Standing up behind the boat kills your ability to carry your momentum up beside the boat as the rope gets shorter.

 

Another necessary skill is keeping the handle in tight to your body nearly out to the buoy line. This adds energy in the down-course direction allowing you to move up on the boat and up over top of your ski setting you up wide in the course, at a perfect speed, and in good body position for a turn into a tight rope.

 

This is not an easy transition and it's why there are a lot more -22 skiers than -32 skiers. Perfecting this movement is what makes -39 possible, and it explains why a -39 skier can ski -28 like a walk in the park, and not visa versa. It's all timing and technique.

 

And the adventure starts with exiting the ball in a powerfully leveraged stacked position. IMHO, this is your new job-one. You can't learn the rest without first adding more speed into the wakes efficiently.

[mwetskier]

@Skijay -i think you meant your comment for @cragginshred.

[SkiJay]

Oops! Thanks @mwetskier‌. I did mean it for @cragginshred‌.

[cragginshred]

@SkiJay well put! The Only reason I put Vapor in the title is to get interest in the thread. We had the early edge change discussion at Sunpray Sunday and most agreed it was a 36mph short line method, however, what you said makes total sense. This video was taken way too early (2nd pass at this speed) and only meant to see what the Vapor looked like.

 

[SkiJay]

It is totally more of a 36 mph short line method @cragginshred‌. But you mostly see it there because it is the only way you can run shortline at 36mph. On the other hand, it also makes running 22 off orders of magnitude easier. In fact, Seth Stisher proves that it works at 15 off and 32 mph in this video. Note how he changes edges so early that he's on his next turning edge by the second wake. He wouldn't make it to the next ball if he wasn't able to generate enough ball-to-wake speed first, then keep the handle in tight until the release.

 

[cragginshred]

Well put once again, I will study this!

[GaryWilkinson]

Craig your pullout and 1 ball finish we're great but your body position deteriorates from then on. Your turn at 2 ball was great and you came out with a stacked position and that, along with the great ski sent you across the wakes early in fine form, then, the bad thoughts enter the noggin,... "Wow!, look how ahead I am,." = flat ski waiting to carry wide and coast through the turn way ahead.

 

A soft (slow moving) turn at too much speed gives slack line and pow, good body position gets lost and your ski falls behind and under your body for the rest of the pass, never really getting back into a good stacked position like you had athe start. I know, I do his way too much myself.

 

Andy told me many seasons ago, (blatant name drop) that you have to stay intense at ball 3,4,5 as you were at 1 and 2. He even encourages to work the same intensity at early, easier passes as the harder ones.

 

So go for a good cut for 1ball, a good turn, and a good angle and body position at 1 and STAY ahead at 2,3,4 etc. you can see yours ski go flat a early In the pass which as I said, allows your body, hips and legs, to fall behind and you're then having to work harder to get it back and never really do.

 

Visualize your stacked position, feel how it feels when it's right and repeat.

Sounds easy eh?

I still struggle with it after 30+ yrs at this game.

Good luck bud.

[skier2788]

@GaryWilkinson‌ Andy told me last year that the two most important balls in the whole course are 3 and 4. He stressed to always make them the best turns no matter how late or early you are in the pass. Glad I am not the only one that got that advise.

[hammerski]

Forearms closer to the vest is another item that should help out. Have fun!