Plans for 2024

[Horton]

Do you have a plan? If so what is it?

[MISkier]

You needed one more choice - I know what I need to work on, but have no plan.

For me, it is working on the gate items that Trent mentioned during a session I had last year.  The big things were my gate turn in and timing it so that I was turning in on a tight line at the same moment I was about to drop back on the boat due to deceleration (but before I actually become slower than the boat).  I was able to hit it a few times during the season, but it's not consistent and I'm not sure how to make it so.  I don't have any drills or biofeedback cues to make sure I am doing it correctly.

I guess the best thing I could do for a plan is keep taking and reviewing video - and more coaching sessions.

I did buy a new ski, so I've got that going for me.

[Dano]

I need to stay leveraged longer and improve my movements cl to ball.  I know what it should look like thanks to TWTW.   Who provided  some ideas on how to improve.  Would like to ski in a few more tournaments than I did last year.   It’s gonna be a fun summer. 

[Drago]

Loose some weight.

Go back to a one-handed gate.

[101driver]

• SKI LESS
• Make every pass really count, PLAN, FOCUS, EVALUATE, ADJUST
• Step 1 Get back into Grove, check video, go see coach and check work I did last year is still correct. (Last year focus was to slow down and correct fundamental flaws took all year)
• Step2 start to go up speeds, check video, go see coach. Do what he says
• Ski lots of different places, 1) I like it and 2) I meet loads of interesting people 3) I had so many ahh moments when talking to different people about skiing at other sites last year.
• SKI LESS......do anything else to stop me being slalom obsessive.
• Trick more only started last year really like it
• Jump for first time, I have fixed the jump, bolted my binding on jump ski at an angle so I can now ski straight or sort of both ski's nearly in same direction so jump training and jump.
• DEFINETLY NEED TO SKI LESS 

[LeonL]

Having  experienced some injuries that caused me to regress, my plan is to ski more with the goal of getting back to where I was 2 years ago.  Ambitious,  but doable I think.

[Horton]

@101driver 

Ok now you have to explain about skiing less. What is the story? 

[101driver]

Ok, So friends and family have been saying it for years. The stats have been telling me this. I ski too much and my skiing suffers. 

It was explained on this forum very well in some posts last year. Perfect practice.

My normal strategy of skiing back to back passes until my body gives in in the vain hope of correcting a fault isn't working it just reinforced badly muscle memory.

Last year I dropped to just under 1200 passes this year my target is to stay below 800 but make every one count. 

The comments Horton made about practicing just below max in an excellent post a few weeks ago fits well with this year's strategy. For all the reasons explained by people who know more than me.

I plan on planning less and just seeing coach more. Trust in him, go away practice. Go back check in that I am doing it right. If he says go up then I will.

In the past few years I have had great fun skiing with a range of people but the pull I have got off different boats and drivers has really not helped. I can't adapt to different pulls and correct my faults at the same time. If I was better........but I am not so to progress I need to be more selective and do what will help me progress. That means I will not be skiing with some people boats this year so ski less. I will just trick or practice on jump skis and have fun. Save my slalom practice for consistent pulls and really focus on what coach has said

[o2bnMaine]

(1) I'll be working on my off-side turn. When I watch the video, I can see how much more smoothly/faster my exit is on my on-side. 
(2) I will be less shy about running into -35 even if my -32's aren't stellar.

[2Valve]

1. Resolve the issue of lower back pain when doing multiple deep water starts each day.
   1. New workout routine should help. Zero lower back pain issues last year until last day at Ski school where the last start did me in.
2. Lots of new people on the lake who want to ski our course, so make a point to interact with them in the Spring to get them involved.

[MitchellM]

Finally have my own boat.  I plan on becoming a better boat driver and learning about boat maintenance.  I also need to figure out how this old Perfect Pass works.

[101driver]

@MitchellM Great to hear you have your own boat, if you are unsure about anything maintenance wise  there are lots of helpful knowledgeable people on here so just reach out. Perfect pass is a bit of a hot subject with some ballers. I drive a lot of different boats some ZO some PP.  The ZO are dead easy and can make a mediocre driver look good IMPO. The PP really vary depending on boat, PP version and driver. That said I run PP on my MC190 and I set it up to be as close as I can pull wise to ZO on SN200 @A2 and it's pretty close at the speeds me and my main crew run. You just have to play around with it and I would say don't rush into anything but consider all options and maybe an upgrade to a later PP might be worth evaluating. Quite a few boats on my home lake have upgraded the PP on their boats and for not much money it has transformed their experience by making the boat good enough for their needs. 

[escmanaze]

I'll never forget the day when Scot Chipman was nice enough to invite me out to Stillwater one nice September day to ski with him.  I'm on the deck, ski on, handle in hand and he says "Alright, what are you working on?"  

In my head I was like.  "Bro, I ain't workin on nuttin!!  I just ski for fun!"  But my mind knew that was probably not the right answer so I said something like I was working on my stacked position or something - which certainly is true to some extent, but probably not to the extent that it would be for most of y'all crazies on here.   

That was the day I realized I'm actually quite a misfit in this sport.  The poll results above seem to bear that out.  3 out of 4 people on this forum are heading into the season with a solid plan to work toward improvement.  I have no other plan than to enjoy swerving lake time with my family on a hot afternoon.  

Hopefully we can still be friends?  

[GaryJanzig]

Midwest Regionals. It is held on a weekend where work will not interfere.

[Than_Bogan]

You left out the option of "I know what I could improve, but I'm probably not going to try that hard to improve it."

I guess that sorta falls under the "fun" option, but that sounds like totally ignoring results.

[skialex]

I just checked my stats, in 2023 I run 7 -35 which was an 11.8% of tries and an average of 3.8 buoys. 
So for 2024, I will need to shorten more and push myself a little harder. 
also work more on my technique and ski a little more than before. 
For startings,  I have planned a 2 week skiing trip to Florida end of February. I can’t wait for this, first time after about 15 years. I hope it will work out for me and have a great year.

[Jody_Seal]

last season was a take it easy season due to a bionic implant. going to ramp it up this season a bit. 32 mph sucks but it is what it is...

[Slaloman]

I'm going to try not to burn out the wife driving for me, I retired and am wanting to go out so much but the wife, who loves the water, has lost some interest in skiing so I have to make sure we have fun on the water mixed in with an acceptable amount of skiing for me.

This may be a fun fact for some of you who have not experienced it, if you do well and stay in shape as you get older the issue is it is very difficult to find folks who want to play...:-), I can't even get older buddies out with "you pull me and I'll teach you to wake board or 2 ski", they don't want to do it. The younger guys all want to surf, they look at slalom skiing as too much work, etc., which it is compared to surfing. The moral of the story is the good wife is allowing me to fulfill my dreams, just have to make sure I don't ruin her participation.