What are you going to work on for 2022?

[Horton]

After 5 months of only skiing a little it is ski season again. I worked on a lot of stuff last year so now it is time for me to consolidate what I learned in 2021 and make a plan for 2022. I am working on my plan this morning.

 

What are you working on for 2022?

 

[MISkier]

I am concentrating on two major things:

 

1. Slowing down my turn in for the gate, so that I don't load the rope too early with bad body position or while I have not yet set the correct cross course angle/direction.

2. Getting/keeping the handle closer to me after the centerline, so that there is less handle separation then and my arms are not pulled toward the boat across my body while changing edges. Some here have said a slight pull in on the handle at the wake is the approach. I'm not sure exactly how to accomplish what I want, so I will have to experiment.

 

If I do both of these correctly, it should fix my biggest problem of all - shoulders forward into the wake, especially pulling from offside turn into onside. I'll know it's working when I am not narrow into the ball and jamming the turn.

[Dano]

@MISkier I’m working on those items pretty much word for word. Some things I have found that have helped. 1) turn in for gates, try to square hips to ski in the glide (I am LFF) and initiate turn with your feet (not by moving or leaning with upper body). 2) I think about trying to advance left hip to the handle thru centre line (heading to 1). Really focusing on not letting that handle to get pulled away. If I take too much angle or create too much load Into the wakes things go bad. I can get away with it at longer lines but 35 is humbling.

[Jared]

I'm also thinking about 2 things.

 

1) Getting high enough up on the boat every turn that I'm not being pulled down course at the top of my turn. It's something I do inconsistently, which makes some turns and some passes feel rushed, while the next set the same turns, same passes can feel easy.

 

2) keeping my core very tight and still in my pull. I don't think I'm too bad at this, but it's something I want to be thinking about doing really well in practice. I think being really consistently strong there will help me approach every turn with the same speed.

[6balls]

Ski some, get your legs under you--run lots of openers, then go after last years lessons. When you are rusty, that stuff won't work and you will think to discard it as it's "not working"--wrong choice. Last years lessons were good, but it was stuff you wrote down at the end of the season when you were really cooking.

[FSSPCat]

Rehab. Dislocated the good knee two weeks ago. Should be good by ski season up hear though.

[Horton]

@FSSPCat what exactly does a dislocated knee mean?

[FSSPCat]

@Horton Knee cap came out of socket laterally (to the outside). Doesn’t look like any major ligament damage. Pretty sprained right now though. Looking really good to avoid surgery.

[ski6jones]

Gate width. All season untill I can't forget about it.

[Horton]

Last fall @rico and I were playing around to see how crazy extremely wide we could get. Might have been a contest. Ended up being funny but unhelpful.

[VONMAN]

@Horton Are you talking wide at the gate only? Or wide throughout the course?

[Horton]

Gate

[UCFskier]

gates

[Hucklefin]

Running the course for the first time!

[Adam Caldwell]

@Horton

 

Start seeing how crazy/extremely narrow you can start. Might be eye opening.

[Bruce_Butterfield]

Andy had a video years ago where he ran 39 starting barely outside the white water for his gate. Certainly not ideal, but it emphasized that when you can get leverage and speed, you can get away with narrow gates.

 

As a rule, I'm a firm believer that wider gates is better. The problem is that many skiers, me included, don't take proper advantage of the width to generate speed at the optimum spots.

[Dano]

@Horton did your contest lead to any conclusions as to how high on the boat is necessary? At -28 to -35 I hear comments to get higher or wider but it feels awkward to be out beyond the buoy line. I get it, at short lines you basically need to be high on the boat to reach buoy width. At longer lines a guy can get well beyond the ball line but doing so is a different turning point than the rest of the course . It’s a different visual and rhythm.

[jimbrake]

@Bruce_Butterfield - exactly. I get caught between the idea of starting from very high on the boat, but with a very early and very easy first move toward the gate in order to not create too much load and the idea of setting more cross-course angle early from high up on the boat, but without much in the way of lean to try to generate more speed into centerline. The latter Chris Parrish told me to do last fall. I want the speed as soon as I can get it, but not the load. So far in my first couple of sets this year, feels pretty good into one, but it's just 28/14.25.

[Drago]

Narrow with speed could quite possibly = wide without....

[Horton]

I think there's posts above that are reacting to me being unclear above. I am a proponent of a very wide gate. When @rico and I were joking around about being ridiculously wide we were trying to go 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. I think we were approaching a level of impractical. At least our technique to get out that far was impractical.

 

Narrow sucks

[rico]

I am 6'3 and on the heavy side at 220lbs. I ham focussing mainly on the gate. I am trying to do everything I can to not anger the zero off. pull out with zero shoulder and turn in without moving my center of mass. By the time the zero off wakes up my ski is already turned the right way. And you know what, it is freaking hard.

Other things include keeping my chase up and keep moving through the turn.

 

@Horton gets wider on his gate but I have a good plan to feed him enough booze to neutralize him this year.

[Horton]

@rico I am telling you that tequila you gave me Saturday is pretty good. It just finishes a little hot.

[Horton]

@Drago

Narrow with speed could quite possibly = wide without...

 

What?

[Terry Winter]

@drago does this apply... "A tautochrone or isochrone curve is the curve for which the time taken by an object sliding without friction in uniform gravity to its lowest point is independent of its starting point on the curve. The curve is a cycloid, and the time is equal to π times the square root of the radius over the acceleration of gravity."?

[Horton]

@twhisper

[Drago]

@twhisper Exactly

@Horton I'm not going to try to explain. You just won't get it

[HMan66]

Fundamentals - Balanced on the ski, handle control, good posture.

[503Kento]

Gates gates gates…specifically turn in timing and keeping weight on my front foot when turning in.

[ALPJr]

Thanks for clarifying @twhisper :)

[Terry Winter]

I have no idea. I just caught this video on YouTube and wondered if we experience some of this on the water...https://youtu.be/eBc827pwKf0

[Drago]

@twhisper Bloody right, mate.

@Horton --get it?

[swbca]

I am going to work on skiing on a stock ski for a change. My tournament PB for a "nobody" skiing deep into 35off@36mph in the mid 70's was entirely the result of a perpetual tuning/rebuilding practice. I changed skis almost every year and was always hopeful that I could buy a ski that worked. The only ski I used that didn't need work was the Obrien Mach1 I bought from Leroy Burnett when I was living and skiing in Northern California. Burnett won the Masters and set the world record on a Mach1 the same year.

 

After reading @Horton 's review of the C85, and studying his skiing video below, I bought a C85 and again I am hopeful it will work for me. I am going to work on learning to ski the C85.

 

This video confirmed the Denali selection . . . check the completion of Horton's off-side turns starting midway in this video. They happen so fast that you can't see em.

[Mastercrafter]

Basic stuff.. none of this is overly technical but it will set a good foundation for me. I have optimistic goals of running shorter line lengths this season, but I want to do it right and not just scrap them together. Last year I started at 26mph, finished up the season running passes at 36. I'd love run a -28 @ 36 this year. To do that I will work on:

 

Pre-ski warmup: Too often I end up using the first two passes to get my HR up. I need to warm up on the dock, and be ready in the water. Then, stretch a bit back at home afterwards so I dont turn into a 2X4. I also want to keep up with the diet and workout routine I've diligently stuck with all winter, so skiing isn't my only physical activity.

 

Letting the ski finish the turn, getting into position, and working behind the boat. I rush grabbing the handle, and then I either ski down course with bad angle, or hold on with OK angle and slingshot into the wakes.

 

Video: I want to be diligent with videoing sets this season so I can look back, assess, share, and learn something. This will allow me to make the most of my sets, money, and efforts throughout the season.

 

What other basic groundwork should I keep in mind?

 

 

[brody]

After years of injuries, my plan is to try to stay healthy. After listening to a Montavon pod cast, it was evident to me that a lot of my back issues were caused by poor stack/body position. End of season last year when I was able to start my season, didn't worry about anything except my stack. Made a big difference. I started painfully slow, right back to the begining. My cross course angle was so slow that i was flat and actually jumping the rooster tail just thinking stack. I was able progress to getting to max angle, still only focusing only on stack. (PB is 2@38 34) By the end of season i was able to ski at this level pain free.

[swbca]

@Mastercrafter A simple detail you may or may not already doing. In practice, always stop at the end of every slalom course pass. The time it takes for the boat get turned around and your line tight is probably enough, but 45 seconds wouldn't hurt. A lot of guys do this because their course isn't setup for a turn around at speed at each end. Even if you have the space, stopping is a benefit.

 

Otherwise, if you have run 22, then 28 and then 28 again and again without stopping, you're strength is degraded and you lose technique and end up skiing worse. This pacing will let you run more constructive passes in each practice outing with better strength and technique . . . . and ultimately more constructive passes in a season. One of biggest differences between skier's competitive success, is their access to practice. This will let you practice more and better with the same number of trips to lake.

 

And it simulates the tournament environment

[UWSkier]

Gates and controlling the load out of my good-side turn. I ran 28 yesterday for the second time in my life and both of them have been slack line at one ball rodeo rides (though yesterday's video doesn't look too bad actually).

[ballsohard]

very basic (not easy tho) but I will work on my stack this season.

[swbca]

UWSkier You mentioned "Slack line on 1" Take a look at the recent thread on getting wide on the gate.

https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/26680/define-wide-on-your-gate

 

Slack is mostly caused by two things, though many things contribute. First, Pulling after the second wake when you are slow and probably late at the wake, resulting in too much speed at the ball. The discussion above will help with angle through the gates so you have enough speed to change edges right after the second wake, giving you more distance to slow down for ball 1.

 

Second, developing skills to complete the turn very quickly, not an arc that has you skiing straight towards the boat as you round the ball.

 

There are many videos to illustrate the "snap turn". The Horton video at the top of this page is a very good illustration. Like many (or most) good skiers he is better at "backsiding" the ball on his off-side than his on-side. That's because it's more natural and necessary to engage the tip of the ski to snap it around on the off-side, creating an almost instant change of direction, so you don't get slack by skiing towards the boat with an arcing turn. Top skiers may get equal performance on their off and on side, but the attitude of ski is usually different in the process.

 

(there are 50 more things that have been said about the techniques for moving to shorter line, but these two things are the simplest description possible) Should mention, the off-side turn described above requires a ski that well do the right thing when you engage the tip.