Slalom.Steve

In my specific case, I can usually run 6 at 30mph, but sometimes better and sometimes worse. I want to pick it up to 32mph to chase a “new accomplishment,” but I’m wondering if I should just stay at 30mph until I feel like I’ve “mastered” it (where it’s easy and I always feel comfortable and consistent). Or I’ve considered going back and forth, perhaps even mixing in 28mph again, doing a set something like 28,30,30,32,30,28. (only possible other factor is I have a 2016 Radar Vapor, not really designed for such slow speed, so part of me wants to get to 34 just so the ski can do its thing lol).

I’ve seen some thoughts on this idea pop up here and there, especially in @twhisper 's training threads (love if you can chime in here Terry!), but figured it’d be nice to centralize the discussion and see what everyone has to say: What is the best way manage your progress as a skier in terms of when you increase difficultly (shorter rope or faster speed) and when you decrease difficulty (longer rope or slower speed)? I am no expert skier (first year in course, 15off 30mph), but I am what most would call an expert drummer, and also teach drum lessons and have studied a bit of practice/performance theory, and I’m trying to apply what I’ve learned there to my skiing. What I often find is that drums students (and myself) want to progress too quickly. Obviously there’s a desire to be able to do more and more, but if a student doesn’t have a particular pattern thoroughly learned and they try to play it faster and faster, it isn’t really beneficial to their progress. Even if they can sort of "pull it off," its sloppy, it’s not convincing, and it can’t be relied upon for a performance because it might work, might not. It’s better to truly master a pattern before trying to improve on it. I was encouraged by a teacher that when you’re learning something new, play it as slow as you need to play it right, even if it’s painfully/awkwardly slow, because “every time you play something wrong, you’re creating muscle memory of doing it wrong, you’re building a habit of playing it wrong, you’re teaching yourself to play it wrong.” Once you can play it right, you can speed it up, but then again wait at that speed until it’s mastered there before going faster again. There can be some value in occasionally playing it a bit faster than you can, just to get the feel of what it will be like to kick it up, but then right away you go back to where you can play it right. And in broad terms, my teacher would identify times when he felt like my playing in general hit “a plateau” and I wasn’t making much progress. At those times we’d drop all the complicated stuff and go back to the very basics - breaking things down to the foundation, improving the quality/solidity of that foundation, and then re-building the complex concepts. Does the same thing apply to skiing? Should we be patient with increasing our difficulty? Do we build bad habits by upping our difficulty too soon? Should we sometimes break it down and “start over” at easier speeds/lengths and slowly build back up again? Or are music and skiing not really a great comparison? One difference I can see is that in drumming, I can “isolate” one very specific part of a difficult pattern and just practice that. That seems harder to do with skiing (ie, isolating just your offside turn and spending 10 minutes only working on that), given how interconnected every part of a ski pass is, and particularly if you’re on a small ski lake without much distance to “mess around” working on one specific thing, or if you’re paying per set at a ski club. I’d like to hear your thoughts from your own experiences as skiers and ski teachers. Thanks!

Shoot, missed this year. @skiinxs , any mailing list I can be on to get notified if/when 2020 happens?

@6balls - Considering a thinner/comp vest. Mine kinda gets in the way when I'm in lean position and get my arms straight (like I have to pinch the sides in and the chest "bubbles" up).

Hoping to get a good price on something used :)

Hey all, new slalom addict here. I live just outside Chicago and am wondering where to get gear (gloves, vests, handles, etc). I know there's Munson Marine in Round Lake but they're more a boat dealer, right? There's West Marine in the city but seems like they may be more "Lake Michigan" focused (boating/sailing)? Any local recommendations? Or for buying online, seems like MiamiNautique.com and PerfSki.com are the heavy hitters. Any recommendation between the two, or somewhere else? I imagine the owners of both sites are probably on BOS lol, so feel free to PM me if you want to keep anything private. Thank you!

It seems to me that defending the conditions in Malaysia by arguing that water skiing is dangerous and that injuries happen even in perfect conditions is like saying there's no point in creating/enforcing speed limits for cars. 1. Driving is dangerous (it is) - Skiing is dangerous (it is) 2. Accidents/injuries happen even when people are driving only 40mph (they do) - Accidents/injuries happen even when skiing in perfect conditions (they do) 3. So there's no point in trying to mitigate the risk by having speed limits (wait what?) - So there's no point in trying to mitigate the risk by finding safer skiing conditions (wait what?) And even if one says, "well these people are choosing to compete in a dangerous sport, whereas driving is almost a necessity of life", then just flip the argument to something like football. Just because it's inherently dangerous doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to mitigate the risk by improving the quality of helmets, for example. Arguing that other sports like alpine skiing are also often at the mercy of uncontrollable conditions is closer to a good argument, but I still doesn't think it really holds up. To have a downhill comp, you need 1.5-3 horizontal miles of snow, with up to 3,200 ft of vertical elevation - not exactly something that's all over the place. To have a water ski comp, you just need 0.4 miles of water, which is everywhere. In downhill, there's really nothing you can do about the weather or deteriorating snow. In water ski, you can find ideal conditions fairly easily by having a small lake with wind protection and at least by ensuring there's no other boats out there. The alpine comparison to Malaysia would like like having a downhill competition on a mountain with a ton of wind exposure even though there's a much calmer mountain right over there, and there's also some amateur skiers going down the course at random times that some skiers have to ski around and others don't. Again, doesn't really hold up as validation for Malaysia, IMHO.

I would do all those things! (...depends how many windows we talkin lol ;))

Hey everyone, I'm a beginner course skier (28mph 15off, though I got that on only my 3rd day in the course), and I live in Schaumburg, IL (NW suburbs of Chicago). Being in the course has given me the ski bug real bad, but I don't have consistent access to water time, so I'm looking for as many local ski buddies and skiing opportunities as I can find! Does anyone have any suggestions or leads in the area? Even if you don't have a connection to water time but live nearby, I'd love to connect just as a fellow local ski enthusiast. I'm 6balls's nephew, if that mattes to anyone lol. Thanks! - Steve

This is my first season ever in the course, and have completed a couple 15'off passes at 28mph. However, due to the kindness of my uncle giving me a great deal on his old ski, I'm skiing a 2016 Radar Vapor, certainly beyond where I'm at. It's been suggested to me by several people that I remove the wing at least until I'm skiing at speed and shortening the rope. Thoughts? My only hesitation is that the ski and fin were likely designed to perform in conjunction with the wing, and wondering if it would throw anything out of whack.

I'm a beginner course skier, 15'off 30mph, so in some sense this question doesn't personally matter too much (yet:), but curious either way: Let's say you have 3 different boats, from worst to best for slalom skiing. A wakeboard boat, a decent older ski boat, and a brand-new top-of-the-line ski boat. As you step up the 3 levels, what are the advantages for the skier? The obvious one is a smaller and smaller wake... but is that really it? Or is there something else? If so, can it be articulated, or does it just "feel" better somehow? Thanks!