My daughter is wheelchair using water skier, she currently uses liquid access equipment. I've been around the water my whole life, but have never skied. She's been working on slalom for 2 years now and is getting around 2 balls on the disabled course pretty reliably (skipping the gate for now) and occasionally getting a third.
I'm attempting to coach her, I've taken a coaching class and they talked about positioning, and 'engaging the shovel' whatever that is, sometimes followed up with a comment about how that wouldn't work for my daughter due to her ability level, size, strength.....
So, I'm trying to get back to basics so I can help her improve and qualify for nationals (minimum qualification in slalom is a full pass at 15 off at any competition speed, whatever that is).
What actually makes a water ski turn, is it weight shift, center of pressure vs center of lift, is it the shape of the ski vs the position of the skier.... A disabled skier has much less control of some of those things and my daughter even less than most (she's an MP2 on a scale from MP1-MP5 where 5 is the most able seated skier).
All the online tutorials are more structured towards improving a standing skier's performance and are hard for someone like me who 1: has never skied, and 2: is trying to translate this into disabled skiing.
We ski with an 82 mastercraft power slot, she likes to run the course at around 19mph (the speedometer on the 82 reads 17 where she likes to run, but by 'feel' it's similar to 19 mph on a zero off equipped boat she has skied behind so I think the speedo on the mastercraft reads low).
a confused parent
James