sunvalleylaw

Also, what do you guys think of the 1990 and early 90's Malibu Euro f3's?

Thanks again guys for sharing your thoughts. Though I am nowhere near where you guys are, you are giving me a lot to consider as I re-attack this thing.

Bump. Come on, show me some pics of where you love to ski. :-)

Thanks guys. What do you guys consider to be low hours, or more properly, how many hours would cause you to pass on a boat?

Say you have a buddy who is a strong free skier who wants to get into the course, or just improve his skiing. What top tips would you give him? Don't worry about bad habits because this guy is hypothetical. Just what are the key fundamental things associated with strong skiing? Thoughts?

Ok, I am marking this discussion to come back and read later. More good stuff!

Cold enough to wear my ancient pink and grey skiworm 4 mil suit. Man I am a fashion plate.

I am in the same boat (so to speak) except with a D3 Nomad RCX. I liked my brother's 2006 Nomad, and am liking this 69 RCX I found all right, but now that I have it, I wonder whether I might like a 67. I am just going to ski on this one a while and see. If I find a 67 to try, I may just to see the difference. But I bet I would have to caliper the fins to even all that out to make it a fair test.

Ok, modifying my query. I have looked at a couple boats while up at the lake this weekend, and we as a family are actually considering a purchase as a goal. That said, our budget is going to be more in the range of a 90's boat. Realistically, mid 90's. So I am looking at a SNOB, a MC (but I am not sure about a 205, was there a 190 OB model?) or similar era Malibu. Thoughts? Saw a nice '94 SNOB across from where we ate tonight. Went up and looked, not for sale, but still. (drool). @travnews, thanks. I will give those guys a call.

This is really great!! I am really enjoying this discussion. Transitions in board sports (whether two or one involved) are so key. I was able to ski quite a bit this weekend (open water only, see my pic of where you ski thread), and I tried to play with what I understood about this discussion. This was before Seth's explanation. I figured out a couple things. 1), in the years I have spent just freeskiing a few times a year, I forgot all about handle control and keeping control in the transition. 2), Trying to keep the knees bent and together helps with a much stronger core move. I am not strong enough to do it properly, and keep as much handle control as I want, but I can see a path to pursue. For me at my level, it was less about where my upper body was pointing, and keeping open down course somewhat seemed to work. It was more about my core and knees and handle control. At least at this point where I am. I am excited to get a look at how the great skiers are approaching transition as opposed to my 90's understanding. 3), working on this stuff immediately got me working my ski better. I had so much fun! Now I can't wait to try out what Seth was saying. Thank all of you, and thank you @Seth, for this great discussion!

Let's see it. Where do you spend most of your time skiing? Here is where I have skied most the last several years. I did get an invite to a private ski lake with a course next week, so I hope to start spending some time there, but this place doesn't suck for free skiing if you get up before the other boats. This is Redfish Lake, near Stanley, Idaho. About and hour from where I live. @Oldskeer, this is where most of those comp boats you saw in Hailey go, though some go to the other mountain lakes nearby. This is the jewel though. You are looking at the bay we ski into. From about here, way back in there, then back out. Pretty good wind shadow, and usually less boat traffic, though after 11 on a weekend day, time to break out the tubes and the wakeboard. http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/redfish.jpg Water is pretty dang clear. (Yes, that is my old outboard I currently ski behind) When we first moved, I felt almost bad about putting in here it is such a nice mountain lake. Named "Redfish" as salmon have always come back to spawn here. The native runs are struggling, due to dams on the lower snake and columbia and other factors, but some make it back. http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/IMG_0735.jpg Boys having fun! http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/Derek.jpg http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/dane.jpg It makes me very happy to ski here with my family. Where is your place?

@Razorskier1, It is interesting that modern moves in alpine snow skiing are more core oriented and involve very active and flexed core muscles. Good idea for us late 40-something skiers to keep up the core work.

@Razorskier1, thanks for the answer in the other thread. As I said there, I probably need to focus on finding my fundamentals and rhythm before getting too fired up about what the Big Dawgs are doing at 39.5 off. But then again, maybe not. Maybe it will be good to start figuring it out as a re-start this whole thing. I will have to experiment with the open shoulders vs. what I am seeing in the pics above. In the past, if I closed my shoulders, it was more behind the boat as I leveraged away to create speed, hopefully progressively before I let off before the edge change. I might have to re-think all that. I hopefully will get some decent open water time this weekend to experiment. Main thought there is going to be to clean up my release and keep control of the handle a whole lot better than I was remembering to do free skiing a few times a year the last few years.

Thanks! I am basically starting over at this point, but I find this fascinating. At least I got an invite to a private ski lake for next Friday! Hopefully will get some good water, and will get in the course for the first time in a long time. Will be fun to start playing with stuff again, especially behind a good boat and decent conditions. I better start off with good fundamentals before I get too worried about what the BigDawgs are doing. but then again, maybe not. Might as well shoot for the good stuff as I am starting over I suppose.

@Razorskier1, how'd imitating those positions go? What did you notice? did you try to work more the knees or the chest/sternum/shoulders, or all of it? How did your edge change go? And about pulling, yeah, right? I always had a good strong pull. I wish it was that easy. Now I am starting over basically after years of just getting a few freeski pulls a year. At least I got an invite to one of the private lakes with a course next week. If that works out, maybe I will be back in the course more regularly. :-)

@Razorskier1, moved question over to the other thread. More on topic there.

I will say that I prefer a bit of wind chop to boat rollers any day. That was one of the benefits of skiing in the bays of puget sound at mid tide, boat rollers died on the flat beaches. No lakeshore or bulkhead reverb. In fact, when I was skiing a lot, I almost preferred just a bit of wind ripple on the water to absolute glass. I said almost.

These pics also highlight to me how important a bullet proof, bomber core is to modern skiing. To move in a controlled manner from that knees together chair position must take a ton of strength in the core.

Thanks. Hoping to get back into some course skiing this year and next, and focus a bit more again. I may find my way onto one of the purpose built lakes yet. And yes, it is about fun! Right now, I am glad to get to go to the lake with my wife and kids. If I get a good ski run in, all the better!

I hope you have a great time! We are taking the family boat up to camp at one of the northern lakes this weekend. BTW, I have not seen the course put in at Magic this year yet, though I have been down there a couple/few times. I wish I had a hook up for you for one of the private lakes, but I am still working on that. :-) Have fun in the SV area! Where do you normally ski?

@oldskeer, I am just a free skier at this point on Magic Res, or up at the lakes north of town. I am pulling the family boat up there (at one of the lakes north if we can find a spot to camp) this weekend hoping to have some fun. The boys are getting into driving the boat, and can pull me in a straight line now. They are learning to ski and wakeboard. There are two private lakes in the area, but I have no good connection to hook you up with. See my other response about your question on comp boats. Lots of them here for sure. Most are not used for competitive or course based skiing.

@Oldskeer, are you in Hailey, or visiting the area? In any case, I agree there are a lot of comp boats in this area. There is a private ski lake south of Bellevue, and another private lake down near Shoshone on the way to Twin Falls. There is often a course or sometimes two in Magic Reservoir off of Highway 20. No other courses I am aware of. The rest of the comp boats are used for open water or free skiing, wakeboarding, and often surfing up at Redfish Lake, Alturas Lake, and to a lesser extent, Petit Lake and Stanley lake up past Galena summit. Maybe someone puts in a temporary course up there sometimes, but I don't remember ever seeing one. The lakes are pretty deep, especially at the mountain ends where the glaciers carved them out. Due to the elevation, comp boats do a lot better job of pulling up there. My old outboard that pulled pretty well for a family boat at sea level, struggles quite a bit up at Redfish. It is a little better at Magic, which is over a 1000 feet lower in elevation.

I have that problem up in the mountains of Idaho too. Better chance at good conditions early in the morning, but you never know until you get there. Probably a third to half the time I get to the lake and find not ideal conditions. But if I pulled the boat up there, I am almost always going to try and ski, even on the Aussie conditions days.

@eleeski, Eric, Dude, just so you know, I am the best skier on the mountain! GNAR. I agree about the common traits or threads, and that specific techniques differ. Dynamic balance, good body position (in which I think there are differences between the sports), and good flow from turn to turn without being hard on the edge(s) at any point, but most commonly at the end of the turn, rather letting the skis flow from one turn to the next.

Newb here trying to figure this out. @Horton said: "See how far he is from the centerline => see where the ski is in relation to his shoulders => notice his spine angle => notice his connection to the boat => notice where is sternum is pointing" These last two pics, the edge has not changed much yet. First pic it has. I guess that is related to ski relative to shoulders. The other thing i notice is how his shoulders are closed to the boat and sternum is pointed out not down course. I guess this is related to centerline, spine angle and where sternum is pointing. This is different from the consistent down course shoulders and chest suggested by some. Connection to the boat, the only thing I can come up with is his arms are fairly in, and he does not seem to be getting pulled into the boat. Newb comments only as I try to figure this stuff out.