DefectiveDave

I've always assumed they meant weight after a few beers.

Never let @Dirt borrow a ski? I think that is by far the most common advice on BoS.

Seems like a good idea to me: link

Haha, I wish this topic had come up sooner. I'm currently banned from skiing by my wife because I couldn't find this mythical "balance".

I would try to pick something which I considered qualitatively "average" with respect to the current crop of skis. However, given that I have only ridden maybe 5 skis, I am not the person to decide what represents "average".

@soIski , If by dropping the left shoulder you effectively mean tilting the upper body to the left (away from the desired direction of the turn), then this will indeed put the COM inside of the ski and start the ski moving towards the wake. I don't have any experience with this approach and thus can't speak from experience, but I suspect this might not be ideal during initiation. My reasoning is that the COM only gets moved slightly inside the ski by this motion due to the limits of how far we can drop our shoulder (I estimate the ski moves maybe 3-4 inches laterally with respect to the COM, but it might be a bit more for flexible folks). This means that little moment will be applied to the skier and they will fall to the inside slowly allowing the ski to catch up to them and pass inside of the COM before significant angle has been built. This would likely translate into a slow turn-in and the need to correct body position to keep building angle. However, I haven't actually tried this approach and thus everything I just said is speculation. It may work fantastically well in practice. I do know that most skiers and all advanced skiers tilt their upper body towards the outside of the turn during any given turn (including the gate) in order to maintain balance and allow the ski to pitch more aggressively for a tighter turn radius. So maybe it is a necessary part of the turn, but I hypothesize it isn't as important to the initiation phase.

@mwetskier , My language wasn't as precise as it needed to be, sorry about that. When I said "the ski turns the opposite direction of the hips when in an upright position due to conservation of angular momentum", what I should have said was "the tip of the ski changes direction counter to the direction change of the hips". In a simple example, say I'm floating the vacuum of space where there are no outside forces acting on me. When I then turn my head and upper body to my right, my lower body must respond by simultaneously changing its orientation to point to the left. Within a closed system this is necessary to conserve angular momentum as a direct consequence of Newton's first law of motion. However, when skiing we are not in a closed system and thus this motion only has a momentary effect before external forces of the water and boat become more important, but it is a critical effect. Rotating the upper body inwards towards the course causes a momentary change in the orientation of the ski to point it outbound towards the shore, thus sending it on a different trajectory which moves it to the outside of skier's COM (relative to the gates). The skier then begins to "fall" inwards toward the course. Shortly afterward falling inward, the ski's interaction with the water becomes more important and the curve of the ski causes it to bite and begin arching back towards the course. At this point it's more of a game of force equilibrium and body position to obtain optimum results. Rotating the hips towards the course serves only to get the ski outside of the skier's COM to initiate the gate turn-in. It's a critical move which I believe all of us do (at least sub-consciously), but there's definitely more to the gate if we want the best results.

@mwetskier, I believe @Wish is trying to say that you need the hips to face away from the course a bit during the glide. Then when it's time to move to the gate you rotate the hips towards the course. Conserving angular momentum your ski will then point and move outbound momentarily, which moves your COM to the inside of the ski initiating the turn towards the gates. It seems backward at first, but it's actually very similar to the concept of counter-steer on a motorcycle. Here's a good video that explains it in the context of a motorcycle. The primary differences for us are: - the hips can be thought of as the effective handle bars and the ski as the tire - the ski turns the opposite direction of the hips when in an upright position due to conservation of angular momentum

@osuskiiershea , The Lake Norman Water Ski Club starts meeting around Memorial day and it's a great place to meet people with which to ski in the area. We have weekly Thursday meeting's at the beach in Eddie's Cove (off Williamson Rd) until Labor Day. We have a submersible course for slalom and trick is also an option. There's a wide range of ski boats, but almost all are three-event boats. As for the skiing at these meetings, it's a high traffic area so the conditions can be hit-or-miss. There are also a few boats of us who ski on the public course at Lake Davidson, which tends to have the best conditions in the area for slalom and trick (i.e. fewer jet skis and recreational boaters). I'd be happy to have another ski buddy, haha. My boat is a 1992 Ski Nautique, but there are others with newer machines as well. Little Mtn is also in the area and very reachable from where you will be staying north of 150. I'm not a member there, but I do know they keep the lakes busy. Even so, it doesn't hurt to ask if you're interested. I can put you in contact with the guys out there. Other private lakes in the area are Skyview a little north of Statesville. I believe they have a guest membership program which you could inquire about. Also, @lcarnes has a beautiful lake about 1.5 hours west in the mountains at Lake Lure. I'm not sure what the situation is there for guest skiers, but you can contact her through BoS. I hope that's helpful. Contact me by PM if you need more detailed information. Good luck!

@Deanoski, Heating for longer did the trick, no need to try boiling in water. Thanks!

@adamhcaldwell, @Deanoski, or anyone else, Any clue what plastic the old white-cuff reflex binder uses? I can't even begin to guess as to the composition. I'm wondering if boiling water would be enough to soften without melting the boot. That would make it easier to shape than a heat gun and wouldn't be as risky as throwing it in an oven. I would just try it, but I seriously doubt my wife would appreciate me using the cookware, haha. I want to figure out if it's even worth trying before I make the trip to town to get a new pan/pot.

@Deanoski and @adamhcaldwell , I do not have a supershell, but it sounds like I might not have been heating it long enough (I was heating maybe 1-2 minute max). I will try heating it 5-6 minutes as Deanoski suggested before attaching to the plate and then heating the sides as it sits. I might also try to get a plate of aluminum for the bottom plate so that I can conduct some heat away from the sides to help keep the bottom of the boot warm as I heat it after clamping. Thank you both for the input!

@adamhcaldwell and @Deanoski , I've actually been working to flatten the bottom of the reflex shell with a heat gun these past two hours with virtually zero luck even slightly changing the shape. Current process is: 1) Heat bottom and sides of reflex near bottom (only where curved) 2) Clamp between two pieces of wood with C-Clamps 3) Wait I'd say it generally takes me around 20-30 seconds between steps 1 and 2, so that might be my problem. I also worry that parts of the boot cool while I'm trying to heat the rest. It is a rather large curved area. Any tips to make this process go easier?

@adamhcaldwell , I've also tried the rear foot lift by itself for probably half of the season before last. I liked it at first, but gradually grew to dislike it over time. I actually picked up some buoys when I got rid of the thing. My theory at the time was that it made it more difficult to keep weight on my front foot during dynamic motions due to the increased relative length of my rear leg. I also ended up spraining my rear ankle many times for the same reason; well that and bad technique, but it definitely exacerbated the issue. Thinking about it with a fresh set of eyes and going back to the analogy above/my opinions, it puts the feet on different planes. However, in this case we are stepping down to the front foot, relatively speaking. This makes it easier to shift COM more forward, but it forces the back leg/hip into a kind of funky non-ideal relationship as you said. I'm now thinking of it like going down stairs or running down a hill, sure gravity helps you out and does a lot of work (by definition W=F*ds), but it feels awkward and less efficient compared to walking or running on flat ground. So shifting weight dynamically when necessary may be more difficult/awkward, just a thought. Maybe it's a premature conclusion, but based on this conversation I feel that we want geometric advantage which helps us shift our COM forward as much as possible/necessary, but while maintaining an athletic/neutral relationship between your feet, legs, and hips.

My opinion is that raising the heels alone doesn't accomplish much other than pushing the knees forward a bit. I think this because effectively you put your front and rear feet on different planes. Having tried it before, to me it feels as though I readily fall onto my back foot from the higher plane of the front foot. Likewise, I might describe it as having to shift my COM uphill to get weight onto the front foot. I've tried to illustrate this in the image below: If the goal is to get our weight forward by adjusting our boot inclination, my opinion is that the better approach is to ensure both feet are on the same plane. Raising the heels is a component of this, but you also need to raise the rear foot to get it in-plane. Here is an illustration of this concept: Those images are both simple biomechanical illustrations, but the femur and fibula linkages are a constant length in both drawings. I also kept the front fibula angle constant in order to illustrate the point that the COM, as approximated by the hip connector, moves forward slightly. I haven't tested this concept yet, but it's definitely on my wacky idea list. Cool video @adamhcaldwell, keep em' coming!

I'm definitely excited! Even with the sync issue it's still informative. I'm also glad to see Trace stepping up to support our sport. After asking my wife, I hope to be ordering one this evening, haha.

Camaro Blacktec 2.0mm. It's almost like wearing nothing at all and adds 2 good months to my season. When it gets me that much more time on the water, it does more to improve my skiing than any other piece of equipment I own. It's not even close.

@ToddL has posted it a few times. Is this what you are talking about half way down the page?

Over the last 2 days we've lost ground against every other top 9 candidate: 1. 16632 2. 7206 3. 7042 4. 4759 5. 1749 6. 1531 (Regina) 7. 1435 8. 1165 9. 1153 10. 781 11. 596 12. 575 13. 407 14. 347 15. 345 16. 268 17. 124 18. 34 Should we try to play the patriotic angle in the Americas? It seems to be working well for Malawi.

I didn't bother putting names and sport, but here are the current number of votes for each placement as of this moment. Regina is currently sitting in 6th place. 5th place is easy pickings and then up to 2nd place seems doable. 1. 15041 2. 6125 3. 5783 4. 3441 5. 1630 6. 1487 (Regina) 7. 1179 8. 1113 9. 910 10. 751 11. 593 12. 558 13. 370 14. 344 15. 332 16. 227 17. 122 18. 32 We're really slacking this year. In 2013 we were able to get Regina 12570 votes!

@Zoro957, There are a couple of courses on Lake Norman which are managed by the Lake Norman Ski Club. Their website is here. Two of the courses are permanent while the others are submersible. Generally the club is active from memorial through labor day. It's a good place to meet people with which to ski.

Hmmmm.....any ways to can raise awareness in the water skiing community to help us out here? BoS is a good avenue, but there's gotta be something else we can do. I'm getting absentminded these days so I forgot to vote yesterday, haha.

Hmmmm...not much interest in this boot at the current price; or maybe just no interest in the black-cuff. Anyway, if anyone wants it just make an offer, I have no real reason to keep it.

I'm up to 4 votes a day! Home, work, cellphone, and wife's cellphone. If you have kids and spouses, don't be afraid to steal their phones for a few minutes to vote!

Yup, like @igkya said! I've voted 7 or 8 times now! Also, I found the results from 2013. Regina was in 3rd place. The top 4 standings were: Marcel Hassemeier/Germany (Life Saving) - 21871 Votes Naranbat Gankhuyag/Mongolia (Sumo) - 12744 Votes Regina Jaquess/USA (Water Skiing) - 12570 Votes Matthias Kyburz/Switzerland (Orienterring) - 7121 Votes So she was nearly second place, but still about 9,000 votes away from first place (reference is here). Seems very doable to me.