Teaching kids to ski

[bojans]

For the first time my son is really excited about skiing. He is 7 years old and has been behind the boat on 45" shaped trainers that are tied together at the tip and tail for the last 2 years. On his first set of the season yesterday he looked much more comfortable, stronger and skied for longer than he ever has before.

 

My question is about how to help him advance. I am guessing before having him cross the wakes I need to untie the skis? I also have a set of 58" combos that are not shaped, when do I think about trasitioning him to those? Any advise for helping him progress quickly?

 

Thanks in advance.

Scott

[crashman]

If you have a boom that's a great tool to use. My oldest (8 at the time) went directly from the tied together trainers to skiing once on the boom with 1 ski to deep water starts on one ski with the deep-V handle. This was not how I intended for him to progress but he really wanted to try a slalom ski so I let him do it. For him one ski is easier than trying to control 2 skis.

[Intheday]

Our experience remove the front bar on the doubles leaving the skis joined at the back. Once the are comfortable remove the back connection.

 

We then used the shaped ski (part of the doubles) and long v and held them and got them to try deep water starts

 

Amazing how fast they progress under their own steam particularly if there are other children involved skiing two up is more fun. If you can ride a trick ski, doubles even a kneeboard next to them the smile on both of your faces makes it all worth while

[Bruce_Butterfield]

I've found that the shaped skis work much better than the traditional combos. Since he will be going really slow (10-12mph), the wakes are huge and the traditional skis can nosedive crossing the wakes.

 

I would untie both front and rear and let him get after it! I would keep him on 2 as long as he can stand it and have him learn to cross the wakes and get really wide on both sides. Once he's comfortable with that, he can start running the full course on the wide trainers. Its much easier to learn the concepts of running the course on 2 and run lots of passes instead of struggling to slalom too soon.

[bishop8950]

That's great he is showing interest. Hopefully (for you) it stays. Some really good advice above and nothing to add there.

 

I am disappointed in the quality if the trainer skis and especially the bindings. I know market is small and cost conscious. The worst part is the bindings. Can you imagine even skiing straight behind he boat with that little connection to the ski? Last year I bought the smallest Wiley high wraps I could find and mounted them to the tied together trainers. The kids love the extra support and have so much more control and success. Don't worry, they are still plenty big that 4-7 year olds will pop right out when they fall and I see very little increased chance of injury. When they grow and are getting tight in the bindings I will reassess.

 

I have many thoughts in my head in how to build better/lighter trainers as well but will likely never get around to it.

[CaleBurdick]

I would suggest keeping him on the 45" untied for now and let him get the hang of controlling them while just floating in the water waiting for the boat to tighten the line and such. Nothing worse than him getting frustrated with keeping large buoyant skis under control before he even starts trying to ski.

[GOODESkier]

Don't mean to hijack the thread at all, and this is lengthy so feel free to stop reading anytime......., but I want to share my experience teaching kids to ski in an effort to shed a little light on the possibilities.

 

First, I worked at a summer camp in Northern NY for 10 years when I was in college and first out of college running a waterski program of 5 ski boats that skied 150 - 180 kids daily. Teaching kids to ski is very different and each kid needs his own IEP (Teacher lingo for Individualized Education Program) based on where they are at and capable of starting and progressing.

 

While MOST kids will transition from a toboggan like trainer, to trainers, to jr skiis, to a slalom ski, through the use of the boom as a teaching aid, you really need to start where they are at and progress from there based on their drive, perseverance, and desire. Don't be afraid to let them do more than you think they can do, believe me. Here are the steps we have taken as a family that have proven to be as much fun as skiing myself and have really worked for us!

 

1. I had both my kids on a toboggan-like shark trainer as soon as they could stand up and balance. We towed them around the lawn, first by hand, then with a golf cart. CPS might have had an issue with that, but there are few pictures or video to incriminate us........ probably should have used helmets, ah guess I will try that with grand kids someday. Then I pulled them around our pool on the shark trainer. Then I ran down the beach while dragging them behind. Then tied the trainer to the boom so they could be right there beside the boat. Then moved them to a 15' rope behind the boat with a beach like start. Short duration to build confidence and keep it fun.

2. Then we used a tube to "dock start" them on a set of traditional trainer skis that were tied together and attached to the trainer rope. We would have them go thru the entrance gates and just ski around the boat guides on the correct sides. The tube is partially cause our water is between 39 degrees and low 60's. So to ski in April and May, you do what you gotta do to stay warm. This is where my 4 year old daughter is currently working. She can hold her edge and almost get outside the wakes. My son was actually able to run the jr balls on this set up at age 5 and developed some serious angle for having skis all tied together and a rope that was held by a spotter in the boat. My daughter likes to hunt the balls and run them over, totally fine with me, she is having a blast!

3. Then we taught my son to get up on a regular rope with the skis still all tied together. At this point he took a step back and worked on just skiing around the boat guides again. Wasn't long and he was running the jr balls on a real rope, skis still tied together. He went from toboggan to trainers to real rope and running the jr balls in about 3 weeks.

4. At this point I wanted to untie the trainer skis, but he would have none of that. I thought we would work on the boom with him, but he would have nothing to do with it either. He decided one day that he was going to ski on one ski. His exact words were "Dad, I watch you and Mom and all of your friends ski on a slalom ski, that boom is not how it works." I argued with him for about 2 days, before I gave in and said fine, you can try getting up on a slalom ski behind the boat................ against my plans for him and with the anticipation he would just fail anyway and we could go back to what I thought was the next step.

5. Little bugger got up on a slalom ski and surprised the crap out of me at 5 years old. Same as all other steps, he took a step back and just stayed behind the boat for while, then he would cross one wake at a time, then both wakes in a single continuous cut, and then almost got thru the jr balls on a slalom before winter caught up with us in WA. This was all in about 6 weeks from toboggan to slalom. It really opened my eyes to what was possible if there was a desire and perseverance!

6. This summer he has a much more aggressive slalom ski, and we started back at just riding behind the boat. In the past few weeks he has built back up to crossing both wakes. I am sure he will be chasing buoys soon enough.

 

My point with that long story is, if you can capture their interest, create a bit of desire (getting them skiing with other kids who are older than them -PRICELESS), and your kid has some perseverance to fight and hang on thru the series of step back learning opportunities, THEY CAN PROGRESS SO FAST! My daughter is way ahead of where my son was, actually about an entire summer ahead, purely cause she wants to ski every time we are out now as well and won't let her brother get too far ahead of her! Her desire got boosted by my son's success. Now I have the entire family skiing AWSA this summer. Kids and wife will ski grass roots and I get to ski in the regular tournament! WIN WIN WIN for ME!

 

One thing to remember, kids want to have fun! As much as I HATE fishing, if they want to fish after we ski, I do, and I smile the entire time. I bought remote control boats to tool around with while we aren't skiing, they love it. They just want to have fun! Capture their interest where they are at, create positive moments frequently, and if they want to catch frogs in the swamp after they ski, or count the turtles with @Deanoski why not? We all just want to have fun. Make it only skiing and nothing else, and you are sure to lose them. This is hard for me to remember as I want to ski and train without all the 4 and 6 year old distractions........

 

While I have video of all the steps we did with our kids, here is just the video starting with my son getting up on a slalom ski at 5 years old last summer and his progression in about 3 weeks.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgxapO-lQtU

[ALPJr]

HO Blast 63 w/ removable training bar are very helpful. We taught many kids to ski with these. Buoyant, wide and tracking channels with good beginner bindings. A quick dry land or floor of boat demonstration of how the pull up feels, in water - knees to the chest, arms straight, look at the pylon when up - easy up on the throttle, when up cruise at 16 to 18mph.

[lpskier]

Don't forget to teach the fun stuff. Riding a disc or an aquaplane/zip sled, skiing double with friends, learning to do dock starts and beach starts, being towed behind the boat with no skis (just bouncing on your back or stomach) all teach skills in an indirect or direct way while the participant is just having fun. When the kid stops having fun, the kid's interest in the activity terminates.

 

Which leads me to another point. Lots of kids, including my own, "discovered" skiing in college. I hear the same story over and over from lots of these kids: " My parents skied but I hated it. Then I got to college and realized it was a lot of fun." I think the issue with all these kids is that however the activity was being presented, it wasn't fun. That is a failure of the parent, not the kid. So...

 

Make sure that whatever your kid is doing, he or she is smiling.

 

 

[MrJones]

This may not be possible, but works great. As soon as ours went behind the boat they were on some very old Kidder kids jumpers. Guessing there are about 56" long. I puts rope to connect front and rear. I also had some lead weights that I attached to the tail to sink them while they were floating. We also had good (if way oversize) pro wraps on them. Our kids went from learning to skiing their first regionals on these skis. They tried some shaped skis and hated them. Said they felt crazy unstable and of course the adjustable bindings probably didn't help.

 

Again. You may not have access, but little jumpers work great.

[bojans]

Thanks for the advise everyone. His enthusiasm has not stopped but his cautious nature has reared it's head. Another set with the skis tied together and the next one (he says) will be without the cross bar.

Bishop, thanks for the idea of the Wiley's. I agree not being properly connected to the skis is a big concern. Have a set of xs jump bindings available that we will give a try.

[Chef23]

@bojans the jump bindings can be hard to get in and out of so be prepared with plenty of soap. I started my kids behind the boat because we didn't have a boom and they learned just fine. I wouldn't rush with taking the bar off as long as your son is having fun. My son never skied on a pair of skis without the bar until he learned to jump. Similar to @GOODESkier's son my son wanted to try one ski and was able to get up.

 

Also let them do different stuff. I had a rule that they had to ski before tubing or wakeboarding but my kids kneeboarded, wakeboarded, wakeskate and even tube. Plus they skied doubles, had one on tricks and one on a wakeboard. It is all good as long as they are on the water and having fun.