Ideal Gate Turn In - non advanced

[gregy]

From @Horton thread. Andy Mapple had a similar gate turn so does Will Asher (as Chris Rossi). I ski LFF and it always seem to go bad for me when I get off the front of the ski on the gate turn in. Must be something to it.

 

[ScarletArrow]

Just for comparison... here is Seth.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

@ScarletArrow , I love that vid. I would love to be able to ski a lot more like that than I currently do.

[RazorRoss3]

i find a lot of skiers do a "hit and hope" gate. In other words pull very hard in one burst and hope you magically glide to the right place at the right speed. With varying wind, water, and so on all I can say is a wish you the best of luck and look forward to your OTF.

 

What I try to do is spot the left hand orange before I pull out and keep my eyes in it. Pull out smooth and controlled you you are pulling all the way out to width. Once I'm at width make sure my hips are pointed down course and keep my handle close to my body which maintains a slight outbound edge si you maintain your width/height and speed. When you do that you can turn in wherever you want. The key about looking at the gate is that if you know where you currently are and known where you are trying to go, the brain is exceptionally good at getting you there.

[DefectiveDave]

I know Nate Smith isn't an obvious example of what we're discussing here, given that he seems to be pretty forward on the ski during the glide, but check out this video from 2013 at 4m10s:

 

 

It seems to me that one of his first moves during gate turn-in is to lean back. The upper body stays aligned but the knees bend and he falls backwards. I chose this video because the angle is just right to see it (it's not apparent from video inside the boat).

 

So even though he is forward before the turn-in, I would suspect he is just as far back as Asher, Rossi, or Mapple after that dynamic movement. They very likely lean back in the same way if we had video from those angles, but maybe they just start back a little further due to habit/technique/comfort or whatever. Maybe starting further back makes it more natural/easier to execute. It's an interesting possibility and I'm glad @Horton made the observation.

[Texas6]

@DefectiveDave - I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the notion that he is falling back. Watch where the water is breaking off his ski during his glide. He's up on his front foot, and you then see his turn initiated from that weighted front foot, lead by his inside hip coming under the rope. Backward movement during your glide needs to be mitigated if at all possible

[gregy]

Whether you tail ride or get up on the front of the ski the end result has to be pretty much the same in my opinion. If a person is running 39off you have to be properly balanced on the across coarse cutting phase. The tail ride glide seems to make for larger radius turn in the gates.

[MillerTime38]

@gregy i am LFF and on my gate I try to get my weight onto my front foot as I glide for the gates and keep my ski tip down. Having the weight forward (hips must be up) allows me to control the turn in for the gates because I am centered on ski and this will keep your ski tip down and you will generate more angle on your roll in without needing to load the line. Also I aim for the middle of the gates, this allows me to drive through both wakes with less "am I gonna hit my gate" stress.

[DefectiveDave]

@Texa6,

 

I respectfully agree with you on all points. :-)

 

Perhaps calling it "falling back" isn't accurate and I should elaborate. Lately, I feel like I've been too long winded and people ignore me so I was trying to be more concise. In that vein I tried to make an brief observation and didn't really dig into it too much.

 

Nate is still very much on his front foot, and I totally agree it is necessary to load through the front foot in order to efficiently approach the first wake. What I see in the above video is the initial movement towards the gate (just subtly getting free of the boat), followed by the more intense leaning phase (where I said he is falling back). It's almost like there are two gears, and it's more obvious (especially the 1st gear) in this video:

 

 

Anyway, I do believe Nate's COM is moving backwards (down-course) while the ski is moving forward (up-course), but his load stays through the front foot because it is a dynamic event. For example, were I standing in place on land with my right foot in front of my left (RFF) and I wanted to move my COM backwards, I would need to push off of my right, front foot. I believe this to be the reason that Nate is able to keep the water breaking at the front foot during this motion, he is pushing is COM back and loading through the front foot. So maybe calling it "actively leaning back" is more accurate since I would argue that it is likely an active movement on Nate's part.

 

However, at some point the dynamic motion reaches equilibrium as the boat really starts to load the rope. In this case the boat will load through the rope, moving the skier towards the front of the ski and keeping the skiers weight on the front foot (assuming they have the right body position). I believe that the boat starts to significantly load Nate at some point after the initiation of the 2nd gear, but after he has bitten off a significant chunk of, if not all of, his lean.

 

My reason for believing this is that once the boat has picked you up, it is extremely difficult to get into a better body position and increase the lean angle. Also, one important characteristic of the lean angle (needed to generate cross-course angle) is that the ski is further up course than the skier's COM. Therefore, it follows that moving the ski up-course relative to the COM is difficult after being loaded by the boat. So it makes sense to me (at least hypothetically) that leaning back before being picked up by the boat is an efficient way to quickly generate lean angle because it moves the ski up-course while moving the COM down-course.

 

Mapple, Asher, and Rossi seem to start a little further back than Nate, but each of them is loading through their front foot as they start approaching the center line. My theory is that they are leaning back still further from where they start and by doing so loading through their front foots as they initiate the turns. In particularly, Mapple and Asher to me always look like they have crazy lean angles. So, maybe it is better to start further forward like Nate does, but it appears as though you can still get in excellent body position even if you don't.

 

Anyway, I don't assume that I'm correct here. I'm been wrong many times before. I'm just hypothesizing a mechanism to get stacked during the gate initiation based on something @Horton said and a video I saw. I could be totally off base, but it at least seems like a rational possibility to me. I'm gonna give it a try the next time I'm out on the water to see if it is a) actionable and b) effective.

 

Of course, acting on anything @Horton says (even indirectly) is probably inadvisable, but I'm feeling adventurous.

[gregy]

@MillerTime38 what your describing is what I try to do on my gate turn-in. What are you keys for starting the turn-in? What kind of speed relative to the boat do you shoot for? I'm trying to learn 32off and I usually fall at one or get to 3 or 4. It totally depends on how I do at the gates. I'm finding the more I load the line it causes me to come into one narrow and get slack.

[MillerTime38]

@gregy the first thing I try to do is get wide on my pull out. Sometimes as a LFF I get lazy and don't pull out aggressively for gates and this will cause me to load heavy through gate and run pass narrow. I am trying to be equal to the boy speed when I begin to roll in. The wider you can get on your gate will allow more room for error in my opinion. once I roll in a state directly in middle of gates, I used to watch right hand gate buoy but found I would miss early, I switched to looking dead center of gates and I hit them every time

[DefectiveDave]

I still haven't had a chance to get on the water since last time, but here's another video of a pro-skier (April Coble Eller) who doesn't really load the front foot during the gate glide and maybe even during the turn-in. She still get's excellent body position through the gate. Looks very similar to Rossi's gate in some respects:

 

Go to 24 seconds or so if the video doesn't automatically start there.

 

 

[matthewbrown]

the most important aspect of the gate turn or any turn for that matter is that your body stay inside the turning arc of the ski until the load comes. if you lean back out of the turn to take on the load earlier, your feet get out in front of your knees/hips/shoulders and your acceleration phase is over, thus causing you to pull longer. you might be nice and stacked, but you are on a later line with more load. so even though you see pro skiers leaning back, it is not ideal. doesn't mean it doesn't work, and for most of us maybe it is just easier to apply, but it is not the most efficient way to ski. nate does it better than anyone, he is leaning in toward the wakes so aggressively on his cuts that he stays ahead of the load allowing him to create great speed and is able to let his ski swing through much earlier for the edgechange. standing tall and balanced at the gates, and falling in toward the wakes while maintaining a stacked position is the ideal gate. thinking front foot in the turn is not relevant in my opinion, however thinking front foot when the load comes and on your way to the first wake is.