Wow.... I suck.

[FSSPCat]

Okay, so I have been skiing for many years (24, slalom for 17). We have always open water skied as we don’t have access to a course on our lake. We usually ski at around 34mph and 15-22 off. It’s for fun, exercise and comradery. I joined a ski club this year and wow am I awful. I’m getting 3 balls at 15 off, 28mph.

 

What are the first 3 things to consider when learning how to ski the course? We don’t have a Wake Eye or any footage.

 

I really want to get better, but I am definitely out of my scope of knowledge when it comes to skiing the course.

[Fam-man]

It is very eye opening when you first start into the course. Here's some things that I did.

 

Ask someone to video you so you can visually see what you're doing and compare to what you see better skiers doing. Hand held with cell phone is good. Compare to others at 15 off instead of pros at shortline

Timing is important, learn the swing and speed required. It's better to ski inside a ball and maintain timing than to try and make the ball and screw yourself up.

Focus most on position behind the boat, be strong here and speed and width will improve.

 

4th tip - practice outside the course using drills. Great drills can be found by searching discussions and youtube.

[keithh2oskier]

I think the most important thing is to keep it fun. Skiing the course is a challenge and a very humbling experience. At the end of the day as long as your doing it for the fun, exercise and comradery then your in good shape. Just don't loose focus from that.

 

Grab an iphone and take some video and post on youtube for constructive criticism.

[nam1975]

Ski inside of all 6 balls. Work on getting 6 good turns and 6 good behind the boats, with consistency.

 

Then try the for all 6!

 

Good gates are another animal. LOL.

[RazorRoss3]

Yep, shadow the buoys helps a lot, you need to get a sense of the rhythm. From there you can start pushing wider towards the buoys and eventually be going around them.

 

Don't buoy hunt, if you come off the second wake and ski directly at the buoy you'll be carrying too much speed and get slack. You want to stay at the end of the line, not cut inside of it's natural arc by skiing to much at the buoy. Try to ski 20ft early of it instead.

 

You can try 1 ball starts, don't pull out left for the gate, wait for the boat to be entering the oranges and pull out right to go around 1 ball and ski from there, gate timing is it's own monster as stated above.

[DavidN]

Invest in some coaching!

Best $$$ spent to progress and keep it fun.

[parkerc2112]

You no longer get to turn when it’s ideal. Slalom comes down to “how fast can I get from one side to the other”

Once you’ve mastered leverage and speed, there will be time for enough to turn.

[fu_man]

I would bet that every person on this forum at some point has said "Wow....I suck".

 

 

[klindy]

a past recommendation is basically ski the course “backwards”. When you go thru the course don’t worry about the entrance gate and just ski inside buoys 1-5. Get a rhythm going. Then ski outside #6 and thru the exit gate. If that works then do the same thing but go around 5 and 6 then the exit gate. Each time getting more accustom to the width required to get around the buoys.

 

I’ve never tried the above but some swear by it. A few passes and you should be doing pretty well. Typically new course skiers get all brain tied about getting around the buoy and basically forget about skiing with good technique etc.

[FSSPCat]

Thanks all for the advice. I’ll get some video. @klindy. I’ll try that. The theory behind it makes a lot of sense.

[escmanaze]

Ha ha ha!! I love it. After 15 years of free-skiing I remember coming into the course for the first time at full line length and 32 mph as arrogant as can be. Quickly I was wondering

 

I couldn't believe how far out there those balls were!! And they came so fast!!!

 

Anyway, my opinion is this: First, just keep slowing down. Maybe you need to buy or borrow a big old 71" P6 or something and run the course at 20 mph for your first time. Fortunately, it didn't come to that for me. I was able to slow it down to 28 mph and start seeing enough progress that I didn't feel like I needed a lot slower than that. However, even that (plus the extra pounds I had put on over the years) required a new ski. I bought a 69" senate and it stayed on top of the water real nice compared to my old 67" KD 6500 that would just sink when I ran the course at 28 mph with 190 pounds on it. If you are getting balls at 28, then I bet you would have a lot of success at 26 as long as your ski is big enough to keep you on top of the water.

 

After that, I found it hard to ski the course backwards, but I found it easy to wait until you can do a pass quite well before you try to add in the gates. Get all 6 pretty consistently before you try to add gates. Gates are really tough and tricky.

 

Last but not least, here is the text of an email I send to newcomers when they get to the point where you are at.

[FSSPCat]

@escmanaze super helpful man. Thank you!

[GaryWilkinson]

@Than_Bogan could I impose on you to send the gentleman your paper on the stacked position ?

 

Best article to read for Slalomers ever.

[ScottScott]

I'll 2nd slowing it down. So many think you can't ski the course less than 30. I started at 28, once I was getting through 28 pretty consistently have been slowly bumping it up 1/2mph at a time, now having completed a couple passes at 30.4, I'm starting to get a couple balls at 32. Now skiing in tournaments I actually slowed down to 26.7 for my 1st pass so I could have an easy pass to start and found out that even at 26.7 I didn't sink.

[LeonL]

What @klindy said. You get more turns and pulls without as many falls. Just keep adding a buoy from the far end and shadow everything else.

[escmanaze]

fwiw,

, so a butterknife could go even lower. But again, I don't think you'll need to. If you are getting 3 at 28, chances are you will be really close to completing the course at 26...I think.

[Frank_MA]

Invest in coaching at a watersking school so that you do not get used to the wrong technique right at the beginning and ride a ski adapted to your speed and line length. These are the best two investment for learning the course you can do.

[ScottScott]

Everyone thinks they suck occasionally. When I start saying that I suck, what my friends tell me is......"Yep:"

[h2onhk]

@FSSPCat you don't suck.....you are just like every other free skier that tries the course for the first time.....I like to call it education. We've all been there. Look at it a different way. Say you're really good at pick-up basketball games at your local YMCA or a pretty good golfer. Doesn't mean your ready for the NBA or PGA.

 

With that said you will never forget the first time you round all 6! Its an awesome feeling!

 

 

[Fraser]

@FSSPCat trainwithterrywinter.com. @twhisper has set up a fantastic site for Q@A information, video tutorials to watch, and his personal video analysis of your skiing is awesome. Detailed and simple instruction that you can go back to over and over. I have not spoken to anyone who has been disappointed. FWIW

[skihard]

Coaching first. It doesn't have to cost you a fortune to ski in front of someone who can see you ski and tell you what you are doing wrong and what you need to focus and work on to get better. Open water skiing is a completely different form of skiing and everyone on this site who has experienced what you are experiencing will tell you the same thing. They already are. Have fun and welcome to the addiction! :)

[Than_Bogan]

@GaryWilkinson Wow thanks. Pretty sure that's a huge overstatement, but anyhow the email that @escmanaze linked also contains the link to that document.