Free skiing isn't a prerequisite to run the course, but it should be! The free skier understands rhythm with the boat. The free skier has open vision. If you're turning orange balls all the time, chances are that's all you'll see. Opening up your vision and seeing the lake, the boat, and the whole entire course is the easiest way to make huge improvements in your slalom. Without excellent "feel" you will always be tricked by your eyes into thinking you are later than you really are. If you think you're late, you're going to be skiing differently than if you were early and ripping it. Free skiing is the best way to get the feel of the boat so you know how early you can really ski out of every single turn. There's a great article by Seth Stisher in the latest waterski magazine about running a free ski rhythm in the course. I am a huge proponent of this. If you can turn every buoy 30 feet early, and be outside of them all, you know you just ran the course. If you turn 30 feet infront of 1, but you go around 6, you lost 30 feet of time and this would have made the whole pass a lot harder on your body. If you had been turning buoys you would have taken more slack hits from the boat and in effect practiced poor technique. Chet Raley has beeen quoted for saying "Practice Makes Permanent" -- only Perfect Practice makes Perfect. If you chase the pass, you will pull harder in the wrong places and add even more downcourse-speed to an already downcourse rhythm. This is why you feel like you get later and later. The answer is in the timing of the pull and learning to allow the boat to feed you speed, rather than trying to take the speed from the boat. This is much easier to learn when you're not trying to quiver-slam a turn to "Make up Time" (?) at the buoy. If all you're doing is turning orange balls, you'll have a hard time feeling how easy slalom skiing really is. That's not to say you can't do it. I skied in the course only for the first 5 or 6 years that I skied. Then I free skied for 25 or 30 sets and learned a TON. www.proskicoach.com/slalom_articles/official_slalom_course_diagram http://www.proskicoach.com/slalom_articles/official_slalom_course_diagram/img/slalomcourse.jpg