Any coaching or tips??

[Ilivetoski]

 

Thanks!

[ColeGiacopuzzi]

Hey Nick good skiing! I think if you really focus on a couple things it will really help you.

 

1. It looks like your pulling out for your gates too early, and getting sucked back in. This will especially hurt you on the shorter line lengths because your forced to pull long to get out one ball and you will already be late.

 

Think about focusing on pulling out for your gates a little later and staying wider; you will end up wider and earlier at one ball which will set you up for the whole course.

 

2. On your onside turn 1,3,5, right after you edge change think about moving your center of mass foward, which will help eliminate you falling back at the finish of the turn. Whatever you do in the begging of the turn depicts the end, forward in the beginning means you will finish more on the tip of the ski and will have better angle and speed to the next ball.

 

Good luck and keep at!!!

[ToddL]

@Colebrah is right on both points.

 

Gates - At your harder passes, you are already behind and playing catch-up coming into 1 ball. When you exit 1-ball already late and down course, you have no room for dealing with small mistakes later in the pass. If you can backside 1 ball with ease, you will be in better position into 2 ball and thus exit it with ease. Thus, the "goodness" just builds upon itself throughout the pass. If a mistake happens say at 5 ball, you have enough "goodness" built up to easily deal with it and still run the pass.

 

 

The solution is a wider gate. Take time to really play around with your gate (don't worry if you don't get past 3 ball) and practice Gate-1-2. Here's something to think about for the gate:

Pull out approx when the nose of the boat gets to the 55s. Look at the boat as you pull out (not down the 2-4-6 line). Focus on getting "up on the boat" vs. wide. Then, start a gentler, wider turn at about the time when the nose to pylon goes through the entrance gates. It will feel late. Just trust it. (Remember this is learning and practice, who cares if you miss the gates once or twice while learning something new.) You should generate more speed in a cross-course direction and thus have more space before 1 ball. This allows you to "backside" 1 ball at your harder passes, giving you a head start to completing the pass. As noted above, a perfect exit out of 1 ball gives you a better stack and lean to 2 ball, giving you space to 2, allowing you to backside it, and so on.

 

COM Forward - When you have space before 1 ball because of your new awesome gate, you will have time to assess your weight distribution coming into the ball. Thus, you will have time to think about moving your COM forward. Please note, your hips and core are what you want to think about, not shoulders. When I do this correctly, I am thinking, "move my hips up and over my front foot toes" as I glide toward the turn. When this happens, the ski will turn easier on a tighter line making the exit out of the ball smoother with better stack.

 

 

One additional idea... You need to keep your shoulders up throughout your offside turn. When you are ready to get the ski to turn, think about your front (left) knee as the trigger to getting the ski to some around. First, because of the additional COM forward position, this will not be as necessary. However, when you do feel the need to give input to the ski on the offside, simply think about pointing the front knee where you want to get going. Off side turns are a torso twist a bit. You want your shoulders to stay up and open, but you need the ski to come around and point across course. Thus, think about twisting, pointing the front knee to get the ski to come around at the finish of the turn.

 

 

[Ilivetoski]

Thanks @Colebrah and @ToddL that makes a lot of sense. @ToddL the shoulders on the offside was the thing that I really noticed when watching.