Patient in the turn -Help! How to hardwire skiing hip to handle?

[cragginshred]

Waiting in the turn is a huge issue with my offside turn. I watch video and get excited about a better aligned stack, only to see me still snatching the handle before the ski even begins to finish it's turn. As you can see I pull the handle to my hip as opposed to skiing back to it. A couple of things stand out to me:

-As I get to 3 or 4 ball the pass speeds up and I go back to snatch the handle mode

 

-The position this pre mature hook up is less than optimal to stack. Major cause sand effect.

 

-This is big,...I can really only focus on one thing to work on and the stack has been it. How to work on stacking and be patient in the turn?

 

Ideas to fix this?

[Wish]

Unfortunately, there may be several things going on into the turn that causes this. Especially if you have had difficulties with correcting it by changing things at the finish of the turn. There's probably gonna be many suggestions which is good. There's different way's to skin this cat. One is to allow, even see, more of the ski appear out from under the line as it tracks back to the wake before reaching for it. Hips will be in better spot to receive the load with more angle out of the ball. Tough to do but if you discipline yourself, go back a line length or speed, it can help. My ski partner has been working on this and said that while skiing it seems so counter intuitive and hard to do. But once he started loading the line after the ski got between him and the boat and then let the hook up and load come, it was easy for him. So much so that we sped up the boat and he is now working higher speeds.

[cragginshred]

@Wish one of the lake owners says the same thing 'watch the ski come under the rope'.

[Wish]

It is hard to do. Every fiber of you body will want that handle way before it's supposed to happen. There's ways of making your free arm stay near your hip and away from reaching as well. I'm sure you have heard many of those. The only thing I would caisson, and have seen happen, are the guys that lock that free hand at the hip until the hip meets that handle but pay little attention to the fact that the same shoulder has made the move for the handle way to soon with almost the same result. Video would be best.

[ColeGiacopuzzi]

Everybody is guilty of this at one time or another! There's two tricks I use and share wth people that I feel hell a lot. 1. When your at the apex of the turn and your arm with the handle is fully extended, think about planting it like a ski pole and skiing back around it to it. So it never moves only your lower body. 2. Another Little visual trick is to actually use your peripheral vision and wait for the ski to cross under the rope and when you see that you know you can pull. Hope this helps! @cragginshred‌

[Waternut]

In my experience, hooking up too early on the off side turn is caused by me carrying too much speed after my onside pull. This is often because I hold my edge too long especially at long line lengths. This causes excessive speed into the buoy with a wide path around the buoy but with the apex at the buoy line. When I learned to do my pulling behind the boat, it started with allowing the ski to sweep out around the buoy. As the ski sweeps around the buoy it will begin to turn back in allowing you to ski towards the wake before the rope hooks up. However, you still can't really accomplish this with a narrow path into the ball so you need to create the angle necessary beforehand.

[A_B]

Another thing to try is leave your off hand on your hip and don't reach for the handle, but ski the hip around. Easy to do when early, but tough to hang in there when running late and hot, but exactly what you should do and when you need it most.

[gregy]

When I'm having this problem I think about Rossi's article about the triangle of power, keeping my arm straight while bringing the handle across to my outside hip. When I'm ski really well I can see the ski come under the rope like Colebrah say's but its not something I try to do it just happens.

 

http://www.slalomguru.com/articles.php?article=power

[Horton]

I just try to think about my free hand. Simply thinking about where the hand is slows down every thing more than you would expect.

[A_B]

Old article from Rini:

 

An efficient hookup is directly related to how your outside arm is brought in, or back to the handle, after the turn. The straighter your arm comes in, the tighter the ski will turn underneath you. A common pitfall is bringing the handle across your body. This stops the ski – and the rest of your body – from turning. It also leaves you “open” and in a weak position against the boat. Try to bring your elbow into your inside hip and swing your outside hip around at the same time. This will make the ski turn as soon as the rotation is initiated and result in a compact position at the finish of the turn. Delaying when your free hand comes back to the handle will allow your outside hip time to come all the way around.

 

This efficient hookup leads nicely into a strong position for the pull. Once your free hand reaches the handle, squeeze both elbows snugly into your ribs and create leverage with your back (farthest from the boat) shoulder. This technique allows you to control how hard you leave the turn. After you're locked in and start to pull, continue rotating your body. Push the buckles of your vest against your back arm – this ensures your position stays strong through the wakes.

 

[tsixam]

Keeping the free hand low on the hip and try to ski the hip to the handle. It also helps trying to bring the handle in with a straight arm.

Tsixam

[Garn]

Isn't what Rini says about pushing the buckles of your vest against your back arm directly opposite of what Terry Winter said to cragginshred about opening up to the boat?

[ForrestGump]

@Garn I don't think they contradict. Opening the shoulders doesn't preclude you from being able to squeeze your arm into your vest.

[cragginshred]

@AB I really like the article by Matt Rini. Watching my video I sure do pull it across my body. It seems to be a sub conscious method to take up slake which is really counter productive for the reasons he mentioned. Although he says it puts you open (not sure if he is LFF), but for me open works and as Shane said there is no reason this cannot be a good plan and so far it is the best strategy. At 1-3-5 see how I pull it across my body? Weds pm skiing after work I will try bringing the left elbow back to the vest and not snatching the handle across my body like you see here