What's yours??

[Ryota]

Waterskiing community in Japan is not as big as other foreign country.There are 10 college waterski team in Japan and some adult skiers. I think it's about 500 water skiers in total.

but Japan is not a flat country so it is difficult to set up the courses or find a place to ski.

90% of skiers start waterskiing after entering college team. I was too.

and most of them quite/leave from waterskiing as they graduate college.

That makes us difficult to learn or coaching advanced technique (short line, Flying far, Flips,ski lines etc) because nobody can do them.

 

So it is always exciting to see many different skis or learn from high level skiers when we training in foreign countries like US.

Many college kids do part time job like crazy to make money for this. We stay 4-6 weeks every year during February and March. My home ski site Bennett's having around 30 japanese skiers every year!

 

I am very curious how you guys customize your ski to improve response, to make comfortable to ski etc. !

For example, I'm using thick soft can koozie to protect my shin and covering front bar with oil pipe to adjusting for my white slalom boots.

 

What's yours? Please comment if have something unique!

 

 

[Ryota]

 

[dchristman]

@Ryota I'm with you on the shin banging from the release. Your pictures caused me to take another look at the release unit. I'm sure someone will chime in insisting that you're kicking yourself with the boot upon release, but I have indisputable evidence to the contrary. I wear a piece of wetsuit leg with a hard plastic patch to spread the impact. I have tried covering the release with foam like you, but it tends to fall off and impact is still a bit painful. I never considered why it was always a bloody event until I took another look today. Note the sharp edges circled in red. Look at the scratches in my plastic shield. Aha!

I think I'm going to do some filing :) .

 

 

[bigskieridaho]

One of my buddies that I ski with uses a plastic bag wrapped around his front foot so he releases out of his Profile boot. He had an ankle injury because he didn’t release. Pretty funny to see, but hey it works!