skispray

@Than_Bogan what are your thoughts on the Radar Vapor boots compared to the T-Factors?

@Horton well I'm screwed then! :D

@Horton I also think people are losing the forest for the trees in all of these recent threads. A while back, @AdamCord did a post explaining that there are two distinct pressure points while you're in your lean: there's pressure that you're exerting on the rope and there's pressure you're exerting on the ski, and they are different. In my reading of things, it seems like the true fundamental requirement to have an optimal edge change is to release pressure on the ski while maintaining pressure on the rope. This allows you to ride the line around the pylon and arc up high on the boat and turn with a tight line. It seems to me that this is really the essence of what the Denali guys are trying to explain. Now, I have read @adamhcaldwell saying you want to be tall through the edge change, but it seems like the benefits of having the perfect leg flexibility/stiffness are entirely secondary to the more crucial requirement that you get pressure off the ski while maintaining swing pressure through the handle. It seems to me that whatever leg movements get you doing that are what a skier should strive for. And sure, once you've got that working perfectly you could probably get additional benefits from optimizing what your legs do. What I struggle with through the edge change is keeping pressure on the rope when I'm releasing pressure from the ski - as my ski changes edges my shoulders rise up and are not resisting the rope as much (they tend to tip in towards the boat). When I try to keep my back shoulder from doing this I tend to end up just over-pulling/blocking the edge change. In that case I find that thinking about staying on it through the 2nd white wash while letting my legs be a bit flexible allows me to stay on the handle better while still letting the ski change edges. It's not that I'm trying to retract my legs, but I do think about taking pressure out of my legs while trying to maintain my pull. Maybe that's backwards and I should stop, but that's what seems to help me at the moment. It seems like good slalom requires your upper and lower body to do two separate things: you want to be leaning against (away) from the rope with your upper body, you want your lower body to be positioned such that the ski is on its inside edge. And you want to be tall while doing this, which seems to make the aforementioned upper body/lower body goals harder to achieve. Athletically, all of that seems pretty hard to do.

@UWSkier I think it’s more likely that the person filming shifted in the seat so that the Bimini strap wasn’t blocking the view of his turn.

@jercrane 5-7 sets a week is a lot. I ski 3 sets per week and it's possible to improve with that much skiing. Have you been skiing 5-7 sets every week since the start of the season? If so, take a break!

Does anyone use a shock tube with a Ski Doc Orbit? I'd like to but not sure any have enough space between the tube and the pylon to make it work. Thanks.

@bsmith I don’t think you’ll end up needing more time to bag 34 mph if you ski at 15 off.

@eleeski you should be able to see them all here: https://instagram.com/waterski_nation?igshid=57tj3cixz8pk

It’s a cool thought. Honestly it seems like the top skiers can do almost any trick with no wake, so combining that with the current system of assigned point values for each trick might just lead to entire runs being wake-less. It seems like the no restrictions plus winner-by-popular vote combination is really what’s driving the creative and innovative runs being put together. I think it’s really cool. It’d be nice to have some contests that are just this format. It’s the kind of thing that Red Bull does a lot - one-off contests with non-traditional rules that foster a lot of innovation. I’m loving it!

And for what it's worth, the data I'm seeing suggests the fatality rate is under 1% - probably about 0.9% but maybe as low as 0.6%. That is way below the fatality rate based on current confirmed cases, so there is a large under count of how many people have already contracted this virus. However, 0.6% is 6X deadlier than the flu and 0.9% is 9X more deadly. These doctors claimed 0.3%, which you can only get if you make the kind of logical errors they made. Also, I’m not wanting to be rude here. I just saw your discussion about the video and those were my reactions so I wanted to share.

@escmanaze @MarkM @Orlando76 @dthate @Than_Bogan I posted my thoughts on that video (as much of it as I watched) on another thread. I'm reposting here since you're talking about the same video: I got 5 minutes into this video and noticed one of the most glaringly incorrect chains of logic that I’ve ever heard in my life, so bad that it immediately makes me alarmed about these doctors. Maybe the rest isn’t as bad as this, but in the first five minutes of the video they say: - We tested about 280k people so far in CA - Of the people we tested, about 33,000 were positive - That’s a 12% positive rate among people tested - So 12% of the entire population has this already - If 12% of the entire population has the thing, then the death rate is not higher than the flu My jaw is on the floor. 12% positive rate among those tested. There is a good reason to believe that the people being tested are not representative of the population as a whole. If a doctor decides you need to get tested then you are already much more likely to have covid than those that don’t get a test. The idea that the prevalence in the general population is the same as in the tested population is ludicrous. The fact that this doctor makes exactly that assumption and sees nothing wrong should cause alarms bells to go off for anyone watching this. And he uses that “fact” - that the virus is already widespread in the general population - as the premise for his arguments. Since his premise is wrong, I’m not sure anything he says next can be logically correct. The idea that the death rate for those with covid is the same as the flu is also based on this generalization and so is, of course, also completely inaccurate. Again, I haven’t watched more yet. After I realized what he did in the first five minutes I was in too much disbelief to continue, and frankly I’m going to have a hard time trusting anything else in this video. From a second post: another thing. That doctor either doesn’t understand the models that predicted millions of deaths originally, or is being vague about what he means. He rejects the models because they estimated millions of deaths when in reality we haven’t seen anything close to that. But as least with the Imperial College model the scenarios ran in the models that were associated with millions of deaths were scenarios in which there was no public response to the virus, or minimal response (social distancing but all businesses stay open). Those scenarios were never supposed to predict what would happen under lockdowns, etc! The lockdown scenarios in those models predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths, and that looks to be where we’re headed. Models aren’t perfect, but to an order of magnitude that one seems pretty good so far. He may be talking about other models I’m not as familiar with but he doesn’t specify.

@scoke another thing. That doctor either doesn’t understand the models that predicted millions of deaths originally, or is being vague about what he means. He rejects the models because they estimated millions of deaths when in reality we haven’t seen anything close to that. But as least with the Imperial College model the scenarios ran in the models that were associated with millions of deaths were scenarios in which there was no public response to the virus, or minimal response (social distancing but all businesses stay open). Those scenarios were never supposed to predict what would happen under lockdowns, etc! The lockdown scenarios in those models predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths, and that looks to be where we’re headed. Models aren’t perfect, but to an order of magnitude that one seems pretty good so far. He may be talking about other models I’m not as familiar with but he doesn’t specify.

@scoke I got 5 minutes into this video and noticed one of the most glaringly incorrect chains of logic that I’ve ever heard in my life, so bad that it immediately makes me alarmed about these doctors. Maybe the rest isn’t as bad as this, but in the first five minutes of the video they say: - We tested about 280k people so far in CA - Of the people we tested, about 33,000 were positive - That’s a 12% positive rate among people tested - So 12% of the entire population has this already - If 12% of the entire population has the thing, then the death rate is not higher than the flu My jaw is on the floor. 12% positive rate among those tested. There is a good reason to believe that the people being tested are not representative of the population as a whole. If a doctor decides you need to get tested then you are already much more likely to have covid than those that don’t get a test. The idea that the prevalence in the general population is the same as in the tested population is ludicrous. The fact that this doctor makes exactly that assumption and sees nothing wrong should cause alarms bells to go off for anyone watching this. And he uses that “fact” - that the virus is already widespread in the general population - as the premise for his arguments. Since his premise is wrong, I’m not sure anything he says next can be logically correct. The idea that the death rate for those with covid is the same as the flu is also based on this generalization and so is, of course, also completely inaccurate. Again, I haven’t watched more yet. After I realized what he did in the first five minutes I was in too much disbelief to continue, and frankly I’m going to have a hard time trusting anything else in this video.

Skiing is a relatively low risk activity for spread, but that is in no way the most important factor. To illustrate let me ask, would any of you feel comfortable going to a ski tournament in New York City right now? How about if it were held in Utah? Those are very, very different circumstances. We all live across the country (and world). It will be safe to hold tournaments in some places and not others. Why wouldn’t USA water ski just say: We will follow the guidance of local governments? If the governor in your state deems that it’s safe to open gyms and so forth, then why shouldn’t ski tournaments be held? But if your state has to shut down again because they opened up prematurely, then stop ski tournaments too. Be adaptable to the situation as it evolves, because the only thing I can say for certain about it is that conditions will evolve.

@BraceMaker @mmosley899 thanks for the info. Good to see there is some research that suggests good news in that regard. Hopefully the results hold up and it is significant enough to matter for the situation.

@mmosley899 @BraceMaker @Horton do you have a source? Not sure what press conference you’re referring to but it’d be good to see some data. I’ve read plenty of credible sources saying there’s no evidence that heat/humidity have an impact. I understand the theory and concede that we may learn this is true in time but unless you’re sharing evidence or... something, then how is this not just wishful thinking?

@Horton "there is a theory that sunlight and heat we'll make the virus much less contagious / drastically shortened its ability to live on surfaces and in the air." Where is the evidence for that?

@Horton ask again in 3-6 months.

I am not skiing. The club I belong to is insured through USAWS and my understanding is that with no sanction we have no insurance. I think I would likely ski if I had access to my own boat, but only if I was doing it exclusively with people in the same household as myself. If you are meeting others to ski and don’t stay more than 6 feet away from them at all times, then I don’t see the difference between that and many other social activities that most people here are likely avoiding. We need to not let our love of this sport cloud our judgment and do anything selfish, that puts others in harms way. I’m not saying everyone should stop skiing, but what I see on social media is lots of people riding in the boat with a driver, meeting others to ski, etc. It’s not clear if that activity is being done in a way that is responsible. That’s not to say it can’t be done in a reasonable way, but if you’re going to post videos of yourself skiing I think you should also include in those videos information about all of the measures you’re taking to be responsible. People do take their cues from others, and we need to be leading by example.

@Luzz this version is also pretty compelling. It seems crazy, but this is exponential growth in action.

This podcast is excellent. Really enjoying the content

Athletic ability, money, and time on the water, especially as a child. There are exceptions to the latter. I don’t believe there are any exceptions to the first item. If people tell you they’re an exception they’re probably being modest. If there are any exceptions, then they have enough time and money to be getting excellent skiing and coaching opportunities consistently. This probably isn’t what you’re looking to hear but we all need a minimum of one of these things in order to move up.

Again, how is this not conclusive evidence that a score of 4.5 was not achieved? https://www.instagram.com/p/B5JGsWLhCaT/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

@aspski I'm in the same boat as you - technically I'm not a vegan. When I cook at home I follow a whole foods, plant based (WFPB) diet and when I eat out I typically eat differently. Sometimes it's sometimes healthy meat options like a chicken burrito bowl without dairy, and sometimes there is no regard (e.g. pizza and burgers). In regards to eating WFPB at home, I don't like tofu or vegan food that's meant to be 'fake' or 'replacement' meat. Here's some of the stuff I've found. https://www.rawtillwhenever.com/better-than-chipotle-vegan-burrito/ https://buildyourbite.com/vegan-chickpea-stirfry-bowl/ https://minimalistbaker.com/1-pot-red-lentil-chili/#_a5y_p=5130998 https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/cauliflower-potato-and-pea-curry https://runningonrealfood.com/chickpea-veggie-burgers/ http://www.tabsandtidbits.com/slow-cooker-split-pea-soup/ https://runningonrealfood.com/kale-and-cauliflower-soup/ https://thekitchengirl.com/vegan-thai-coconut-vegetable-curry/ https://www.thegardengrazer.com/2013/07/vegetable-lo-mein.html https://www.tasteloveandnourish.com/vegetable-jambalaya/ https://veganyackattack.com/2014/01/22/quinoa-cauliflower-bowl-with-almond-sriracha-sauce/ https://www.liveeatlearn.com/slow-cooker-cauliflower-soup/ https://www.thissavoryvegan.com/spicy-potato-kale-bowls-with-mustard-tahini-dressing/?fbclid=IwAR1SDNAqe85A-1encCCWLvWGaaLglcSufzufnkHCzGvysh6ye0sHz2yqCm0 https://minimalistbaker.com/sweet-potato-chickpea-buddha-bowl/#_a5y_p=4808791

@wilecoyote thanks for the links, I'll check them out. I'm definitely learning from this discussion as well.