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This is another one of Lane Bowers' videos that shows what I mean. Notice that he can be sitting down being pulled indefinitely as long as he is in the right position. He's got his feet wide and knees touching. That's your goal before you ever have the driver pull hard enough for you to stand. Before about 1:10 he shows you all the mistakes people make. Then after that he shows you what you should be doing: just being relaxed squatting in what he calls a 3-point stance. When you stand up, your knees come apart of course, but he can then squat back down, putting his knees together again.

I just wanted to add a couple of things. There are two things I always tell people trying to get up on two skis. The last person got up on his first try and all subsequent tries after. 1. There's a trick I never see mentioned. I first saw it on a video by a FL instruction, Lane Dawg Bowers I think was his name. At that point I was trying to learn to get up on one ski and I had no problems at all getting up on two. But I remembered it and the next time I needed to get up on two and drop a ski for whatever reason, I tried it. It made getting up on two so much easier, so now I do it every time when I need to do a two-ski start. The magic trick is this: When you're getting into position in the water, put your knees together so that they are touching, and your feet wide. This creates a very stable triangle shape. When you do this you don't have to think about keeping your skis parallel, etc. They just stay in the right position effortlessly. It's the same thing as trying to put on a shoe by balancing on one foot vs. leaning against a wall. When you brace against something, in this case your knees bracing against each other, it takes away you having to keep your feet into the right position consciously. Found it: (Incidentally, I don't agree with what he says about the meat hook. Yes for slalom but no for two skis. You want to be centered on two skis with your knees slightly bent like you're about to sit on a couch, not have your hips forward as you would on one ski). 2. The other thing I tell people is to pretend they are made of stone. "Knees together, feet wide, stone statue." When the boat starts to pull, you have to think of yourself as made of stone. That means you don't move. You don't bend at the waist, you don't push with your legs, you don't try to stand. From what I've read above, you're overthinking it. You're thinking about getting up on plane, etc. Which probably means you're trying to compensate somehow for the boat pull. Don't. As long as you wait in the right position with your ski tips out of the water and at about a 45 degree angle like Position 1 in the drawing from a post above, your knees touching and feet wide, and your arms extended, that's all you need to do. Then just think stone statue. When the boat starts to pull, don't do anything different. You don't have to do anything to plane. The boat should do it all. It's like it pulls you up a ramp. Then wait before standing up. You can count to 10, you can do "My favorite food is ____" that April Coble tells her beginner skiers, etc. You should be able to never stand if you want and just get pulled indefinitely in your squatting position. That's how stable it should feel before you stand. I personally like to have new skiers get pulled by a very, very slow boat to start, not even enough to pull them up, but enough to give them the feeling of being in the right position. Then stop and do it again. After a few times when they feel comfortable with that sensation, then the boat can give a progressively harder pull and they can stand after waiting. Of course without gloves there are only so many times you can do the practice pull before getting tired, but 2 or 3 times should be fine. Troubleshooting: If you're just plowing water without feeling like you're cutting through the water in a wedge, it probably means you started with your legs too perpendicular to the water, like in position 2 from the drawing above. Of course if your knees were touching and your feet were wide, I think it's impossible to get into position 2. If you get pulled over the front of the skis, it probably means you're bending at the waist at the boat pulls. Stone statue. It could also mean the boat is yanking you with too hard a pull at the start. The pull should start out soft which gets your body rising just because of the position of the skis. Then the pull can get progressively harder once you're starting to rise up. But again, it's all something the boat does. The skier shouldn't do anything except stay still in exactly the same position they waited in.

"You must rotate or you won't be pointing across course." True, but the question is more do you rotate the ski by rotating your hips vs. do you rotate the ski by leaning and having the shape of the ski rotate itself.

True. In those videos, though, it looked like they were doing one or the other, not necessarily both. I know it's hard to lean on dry land like in the first three videos so maybe they do lean to initiate the turn when they're actually skiing.

@OldboyII That makes total sense.

Yup, I've already been to Cobles twice. I didn't say I was a beginner, I said I was a novice.

@Andre So it sounds like you're saying #2 is correct, lean rather than rotate.

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I'm pretty novice to skiing and I'm trying to get a handle on some basic concepts, one of which is the correct technique to turn the ski. It seems that I've heard two different things. 1. Rotate your hips, such as these videos (for some reason this forum isn't retaining the starting time stamp from the link): At 21:53; AT 5:08 At 3:49 2. Lean with your hips into the turn, such as: At :13 At :11 So which is the best way? I'm just trying to develop good habits from the start. Thanks.