Coach a newb.... video inside

[Kwoody51]

Was able to get some video on vacation recently. Would welcome any feedback you might have as well as 'how' to implement feedback.

 

From watching other videos, and mine, I feel like I need to

improve stack across wake - not exactly sure how to do this but understand what 'good/ great' looks like and I'm no where close :)

get more weight on front foot through turn/ not ride the tail so much - I used to be WAY worse, again would welcome guidance on how to improve more weight forward

 

Let me know what else you might see but per @Horton other thread on coaching new skiers I don't want to be overwhelmed with too much to focus on too soon. Thus let me know the 'big' things to work on so I can try to fix those and then work down the list.

 

I've been free skiing since I was a teenager but it was only once a week when access to a boat on vacation. ~5 years ago I got a proper-ish DD ski boat so ski more often but on public water and not as much as I'd like. I say proper-ish as it's a great family DD boat but as you see the hump is still pretty healthy, no where near like the '94 PS 205 I had before this!

Boat is doing 32-34mph and I'm at 15' off.

 

[mfjaegersr]

Tip #1 is for your driver: straighter is better. Don’t follow the curve of the shoreline, rather pick a point on the far shore and drive at it; at the end of that line make a turn or adjustment to pick out the next target...

 

When you’re getting slack consistently on one side, look behind at the wash trail; lonnnng banana shape is not good. If you have to follow a pattern on your lake (ie all skiers go clockwise), after one lap it’ll be a mess but you want the boat path lines to have formed a hexagon versus a circle eh?

[robmollysilverlake]

@Kwoody51 are you skiing on Blanche Lake!?! @MNshortliner and I ski there almost every day, either there or Silver Lake. Let me know if you're still around and want to ski with us!

 

[Kwoody51]

@mfjaegersr - my wife is typically my driver and I've given this feedback just a few times, sometimes not as politely as I should have :) I bite my tongue and take the pull I get vs trying to drive the boat from the end of the line ( I have a hand signal for 'straight')

 

@robmollysilverlake - Yes!!!! My family has been going to Madsen's resort for 39 years and is where I learned to ski and have done most all my skiing. We are only there once a week, in middle of July. However my sister and brother in-law built a house/ cabin immediately west of Evertt's beach on the West side of the lake. They don't ski though....

[skispray]

As @Horton said in the thread you mentioned, the number 1 priority for your level is how you stand on the ski at all times. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about your turns right now. They look fine and your position as you cut through the wakes is what needs focus.

 

Onside (going from passenger's side to driver's side):

What's good is that you're cutting all the way through the wake and changing edges at a pretty good spot

What you need to work on is getting into a stacked, standing position. Right now, as you cut into the wakes you are bent at the waist, with your hips trailing behind the rest of your body, and there's quite a bit of distance between your hips and your handle. What you want to work on is moving your hips "up" or "forward" so that they're close to the handle. The goal is to have your ankles, hips, and shoulders all in a single line on top of the ski. So if you imagine a rod sticking straight out of the top of your ski, it should go right through your whole body. Right now, it would go through your ankles and shoulders but your hips would be behind it. As you know, @Horton likes to coach this by telling the skier to stand up taller on the ski. This should naturally bring your hips up in between your ankles and shoulders. More traditionally, this was coached by having the skier try to get their hips closer to the handle while they're in the pulling position (while keeping your arms out straight). Maybe try both to see what's more effective for you.

 

Offside:

On the toeside you are standing up and stopping your cut before the wakes, and then resuming it after having crossed them

Your goal should be the same as on your onside; specifically, you want to cut all the way through the wakes on edge and then come off your edge right after

To accomplish this you'll need to get into a stacked position on this side as well. The good news is that you'll want to work on the same thing as on the onside - establishing a tall, "stacked" standing position on top of the ski by getting your hips to stop trailing your ankles and shoulders, and maintaining that position all the way through the wakes. It'll probably be harder on this side, but think about your sternum and hips facing the same direction as the ski tip, stand tall and make sure your hips are forward. Basically, as you cut your arms will be out straight, but with your hips forward they should end up running down your torso, so that your handle is near your hips in a position that's both efficient for taking load from the boat and for riding on top of your ski.

 

Note: You're probably fine at 15' but if you start working on this and run into issues where you crash and/or start to get scared of the wake, you could try 28' off or 32' off to see if it gets easier to deal with.

[robmollysilverlake]

@Kwoody51 Awesome!! My wife, Molly, is cousins with Rezin, Ambrose, and Julia! Let me know next time you come up and you can ski with us, Nick puts in the course over by Glendalough and we ski there every morning if there is a Southish wind. I live on Silver Lake, no course, but we'll free ski there if the wind doesn't work for the course. My number is 218-371-7450 - Robbie

[Kwoody51]

@skispray - thanks for all this feedback!

 

You are correct my onside and offside are very different and I 'check up' on the offside as I've had some nasty OTF crashes coming across the wake when I've tried to hit it as hard as my onside as I've caught the tip 'jumping' over the wake.

 

I think I need to shorten the rope to get to a flatter spot in the wake. In my head I thought if I can make this work with this giant hump then the rest will be easy!

 

Making excuses but I feel like my hips are back, when crossing wakes, because I'm trying to squat/ prepare for the wake. Hips forward = taller on ski = less leg bend.

[skispray]

@Kwoody51 it'll take some practice and some overcoming of fear, but ultimately it is safer to cross the wakes with your hips up/forward. That's because when they're forward they aren't really forward, they're aligned with the rest of your body, and so you're in a natural standing position that's balanced over your ski. When the ski hits the wake in this position it'll bounce a bit but the attitude of the ski won't change, it'll stay level and land off the wake in the same position it left and you just keep right on skiing.

 

When your hips are behind your shoulders you end up with all of the load from the boat in your shoulders. When this happens the ski usually ends up trailing a bit, so when you hit the wake like this it pitches you forward into an out the front fall.

[Kwoody51]

@skispray - thanks again, makes sense!

 

Perhaps over simplifying it a bit - is a goal/ starting place to try to cross wakes with legs fully extended/ as straight as possible?

 

I realize that you can pull your hips forward with bent legs but it's not super natural and if your legs are straight your hips are naturally forward.

 

Just trying to get to as simple as starting point as possible to work on.

 

Just recently, right before these videos, I have been trying to stand 'tall' on the ski and that helped the turns feel better and less load on my legs. But clearly not holding that 'tall' stance though the wake.

[ReallyGottaSki]

way too much body movement, herky jerky

 

the wake is not an issue, nor line length, stance is

 

stance. one has to fix how they ski straight, before correcting how they ski back and forth

 

gosh thats not a giant hump. consider being 14yo behind a 69 nautique, and making contact again with the water past the whitewater. one learns stack real fast or else.

wake is not an issue. its there to tell you if you got it.

[Justin_C]

Full disclosure, I did read all of the other post so there may be some repeating. The biggest things I see is that you're skiing narrow. It looks like you're rushing to make your turns. I know you're not in a course but this is setting you up for slack line as you're often going faster than the boat when you turn. I'll come back to this in a sec.

 

The other thing I see is on both sides (although more pronounced coming from your offside), you're not pulling through the wakes. If you establish your angle at the finish of your turn, work on carrying it through the wakes. Ideally you should be initiating your edge change at the centre line but just to avoid changing too early and hitting the first wake on a flat ski, I'd say pull through the second wake and then make your edge change.

 

Now I'll come back to not rushing your turn. Once you've made that edge change, let the ski carry out till you're wider on the boat. I've even heard of people taping marks on the side of their boats where the rope needs to get to at each line length to be at "buoy width".

 

I always tell people that slalom skiing isn't about the turn itself. It makes a big spray and looks impressive so people think that's the important part. In reality, the turn is just our only way to change our direction, the real work and hard part in slalom skiing is what happens behind the boat!

 

Yes, you should always be working on your body position, even when you're not making turns or in the course. Even when you're sitting in the water or just standing on your ski, however, I don't feel that I'm justified to give tips on body positioning!

[vtmecheng]

It's really hard to work on more than one or two things at a time and it takes a long time to knock out bad habits and force good ones to sink in (at least for me). I'm no coach and am a mediocre skier at best so am going to point you to the base advice from people who are coaches and top end skiers. If you listen to the spraymakers podcast, and you really should, there's three simple but BIG rules that Chris Rossi has all the kids at his school say: "Arms straight, arms straight, have fun." This is great advice for all skiers. Keeping arms straight throughout the entire time sets you up for better form everywhere. At every cut and every wake crossing just keep telling yourself, "Arms Straight." Say it out loud if you need to, that's what I did to start kicking the habit.

[Kwoody51]

@vtmecheng - this is the simple advice I need :)

 

Feel like my mission next time out is going to be arms straight and legs straight. My brain can remember those 2 things... if I do them is a whole other story!

[skispray]

@Kwoody51 I wouldn't say the goal is to take all of the bend out of your legs. Straightening your legs, especially your back leg, should help to put you into the stacked position that we're looking for, and maybe thinking about having completely straight legs will help, but I don't think you want to hit that wake with 100% rigid legs, either. You might want to try it and see if it works well or not. I think you should think about being in an aligned, tall, braced position. 100% straight legs may or may not be part of that. Ultimately, for very high end slalom I think that is the goal, but I'm not sure it's where you should be focusing right now.

 

You want to slice through the wakes on the edge of your ski but you still need to be in an athletic position that allows you to handle the forces that will be exerted on you by the wake without compromising your position. Take a look at these pictures of Nate Smith and Fred Winter. Their legs are pretty straight, their bodies are aligned really well over the top of the ski - notice their hips are not back, they're right there with the ankles and shoulders leading the charge. This allows them to very efficiently handle the load from the boat using their entire body and to stand tall over the top of the ski.

 

 

 

 

[ReallyGottaSki]

Not legs straight.

Hip open , femur-torso straight

 

[klindy]

Do this...everyday …and you'll see a dramatic improvement -

 

https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/comment/369610

[Kwoody51]

@klindy - thanks! I was just about to ask if there are drills or practice techniques I can do to help get the 'feel' of a good stack without having the wake crossing being a hurdle.

 

Messaged received on NOT straight legs crossing the wake :)

[klindy]

@Kwoody51 Stand flat footed with your knees straight. Now have someone "bump"/push one of your shoulders or the other from behind (without you knowing what's coming. You're almost guaranteed to take a step forward or bend your waist to catch your balance. Now try the same thing again with your knees/ankles flexed and quads engaged. It'll take a lot more "push" to get you to take that step.

 

Same idea as standing on a bus/train with straight, locked legs, Without hanging on to the rail, you'll easily lose your balance. Flex your legs and you can react instantaneously to the movement.

 

 

There's lots of discussion about straight or flexed legs but generally speaking engaging your muscles improves your ability to maintain your balance and react to changes.

[ReallyGottaSki]

It's challenging to find a picture that is both good form , and low intensity, suitable for where you are at

[vtmecheng]

Definitely don't go straight legs. Some bend is necessary where you bend at the knees and ankles to keep your butt/hips up. How much to bend your legs is of some debate on here but for what you are doing it doesn't matter as much.

[Jmoski]

Two quick thoughts:

 

1. To help you work on getting wider on the boat, create a visual indicator by putting a section red tape on the top sides of the boat that will tell you how wide you need to be at 15’ off to get around the buoy. Simplest way to do this is on dry land walk back from the pylon with the rope until it’s taught, and then go 19’ to the left, and put the tape where the rope crosses the side of the boat. Repeat on the other side. Now you will be able see how shallow you are.

 

2. Your double pulling as you approach your onside turn. As others have said you want to pull through the wake, especially on your offside. By not pulling through the first wake, your not building enough speed, hence you do a second pull outbound (bad) into your onside turn to make it work better, but the problem needs to be addressed further back so you don’t have to do that. Does that make sense?

 

Also, by coming out of the lean before the 1st wake the ski jumps on you when you hit it as the ski is flat, with the ski on edge it will reduce this.

 

Hope this helps.

[ToddL]

@ReallyGottaSki - There is this video. Watching Horton navigate 26 mph is what most beginners need to strive for...

 

If the wake is a concern, one could do these types of drills - the focus is on starting in the proper stance and KEEPING it while moving outward under load.

 

 

[Kwoody51]

@Jmoski - thanks!

 

Both points makes sense and I’m well aware of the double pull as well as how to fix it since it’s only happens on one side!

 

Like idea of dry land measuring the rope angle. Was thinking this would be easiest way to do this.

[ToddL]

Stance, stance, stance. This is #1. But you can't stand in a good stance if you don't also chill out at the finish of the turns.

 

To the casual observer, slalom looks like it is all about digging in at the finish of the turn. That is why nearly all recreational skiers ski back foot heavy and can't hold a lean through the wakes. Rather, consider that course slalom skiing is about efficiently getting from side to side.

 

Try not to focus on leaning so hard and fighting the boat's pull at the finish of the turn/start of the lean. Rather, try to just be ready to establish a leaning posture. As the boat's force comes onto the handle, focus on retaining this leaning posture and simply not letting the boat pull you up out of your lean. The max effort to retain your lean should occur in the zone between the white water and through the first wake. The idea that the turn ends smoothly and the effort to maintain the lean builds through the wake crossing is what is meant by a "progressive" lean. When you do this correctly, the amount you lean away from the boat is more consistent from the start of the lean until you decide to start to let up. You are in control because you built the lean progressively.

 

Conversely, cranking and digging in at the finish of the turn means you have already used up your power. When the boat comes on the handle, you do not have enough left in the tank to resist the force and stay in you lean. The boat pulls the skier out of the lean and onto a flat ski. This makes the wakes scary.

 

So chill out at the finish of the turn, reserve some intensity for maintaining the lean through the first wake.

[Kwoody51]

@ToddL - thanks for the advise on chilling out on the turns. You are correct that my focus has typically been on carving without thinking about anything else and I'm using a lot of energy there. I also used to get a TON of slack in the rope, like laying on the water slack and the waiting for the hit of the rope. Have gotten better about that :)

 

 

I'll try to worry less about the turn and focus on the stance and wake crossing.

[Fast351]

Go listen to the Spraymakers podcasts, specifically the ones relating to fundementals and open water skiing.

 

I'm not even close to a great skier, but some things that they vocalize that really help:

 

1) Arms straight. When you're pulling back to the wake, don't try to muscle the boat. You won't win and it leads to bad form.

2) Pull only through the wake. Once you're past the boat centerline, you're accelerating away from the boat. Pulling later is counterproductive. They explain this way better.

3) Time your turns. You should turn back to the boat, especially on pullout, when your speed is the same as the boat. This will prevent line slack.

 

And my personal tip. Don't use the back of the ski to turn. Shift your centerline over the ski using your hips to initiate a turn, IE shift your weight to the edge of the ski. The ski will do the work, and you'll be in a much better position to get into a stacked position.

 

[Joeprunc]

First off tell your wife she did a fabulous job driving. To me it looks like the slight curve while you were still ripping was because the shore was rapidly approaching and she gave you a pre-warning. As an open water skier help her out, pay attention to the surroundings and get behind the boat earlier so she isn't rushed into making a needed turn when you are still skiing. A loss of two turns on the river isn't a deal breaker.

 

A lot of great advice above, but I'll recommend focusing on only 2 items at a time. Put some tape on your ski and write the two items down so you can remind yourself.

 

Lastly I'd recommend taking more rests. This will allow you to think about what you did, what you want to do, and act as a reset button. It will also provide you more opportunities to tell your wife how great of a driver she is (thank me later). Also once you get to 30+ cuts your legs will not be as fresh as the first 6 which can lead to bad habits or worse...nasty falls.

 

[pregom]

Use your hips to initiate a turn, not the back of the ski. That's something I really need to work on, @Fast351