JeffSurdej

@storm34 excellent work, thank you and keep it going. These are the type of programs that are really going to increase our sport

Great to meet ya and see you in your first AWSA tournament.

12 inch 1.12. Same as I always use

Nearly half of my slalom sets in the last fews weeks I have felt no power in my grip and forearms. I chalked it up to just skiing too much and not giving my self enough time to recover, but training 3 events there is not much time to waste. I recently got new miami ski nautique gloves (which I always use) and a new masterline handle at the same time. Normally new gloves and new handle give me a feeling of great grip but I noticed my gloves are black as an ace of spades from the new handle, which I think normally happens but it seems excessive this time. Yesterday I went back to old gloves, had great strength, and thought problem was solved, today same combo, gloves are turning black, and no strength at all. Yesterday I took a hard slalom and jump set and did some manual labor and woke up pretty sore but I still feel I should have enough power to hang on to the handle with a decent lean. I literally feel if I lean any harder (especially off side) the handle will come right out of my hand. So could I have a glove/handle combo causing lack of forearm strength or is my body telling me to back off?

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@Bruce_Butterfield To answer your question from before, moving the cutoff date does.... 2. the L8 score on the cutoff date is what someone has to achieve to qualify and they can do that anytime up to Nationals? This is closer to the EP model and makes a lot more sense, at least to me. @sunperch yes Neweth is at HQ now but not sure he knows SQL programming, but we just a new volunteer to help transition with Dave Clark's retirement from waterskiing so to speak so we should be in better shape over the next few years to handle more programming changes when needed @MrJones how many skiers would go to nationals with no qualifications. IDK, West palm is the only place that could handle that experiment though.

After talking to our volunteer programmers for 2 hours the other night I realize the minutia (spelling?) of stuff we are throwing on their plate. Take for example L10, on paper sounds easy...ski this score, move to elite, that's it right. Well no, there is so much more complication to it, the way scores are stored in a database or how divisions are set up, etc. There are always unintended consequences when you start throwing in overall and skiing twice etc. Then take a new rule, which I'm sure many are not aware of, that's where the top 5 from regionas go to nationals, except now, if there are L9 skiers in the top 5, we are taking more than 5, so if 2 of the top 5 are L9 now the top 7 get to go to nationals by placement. Once again sounds simply, and whats the harm, the more the better, but from a programming standpoint, its a nightmare when going from top 5 across the board to a # that we will not even know until regionals is done. So in regards to this EP idea, once again sounds awesome, and once again, why not, we would be throwing a whole new level of programming to a system that is not set up to capture EP's and figure out if a skier did it twice or once in a record and then relay that information back to all the appropriate channels that deal with qualifications. Our volunteer programmers are backed logged enough as it is and although we have a new person in place to help they are still AWSA volunteers, this is not done by a paid staff at HQ. So this brings me back to my original post, if skiers are truly not attending nationals b/c they have to wait until July 13th to find out, could we not just move the cutoff date earlier, this way all the programming is in place and it requires little rulebook changes and no programming changes. I know it doesnt have the spice of the EP chart but we can still post a L8 cutoff chart, we do have a rating system in place now, but it only exist for one month, july 13th up until nationals, and its not promoted very well, so we could move the cutoff date, announce the L8 cutoff score, (hell call it an EP) and the system will capture those that achieve it. Then with an earlier cutoff date we can take a look into the idea of opening up registration past L8 past certain dates so that the LOC gets their 750 skiers or so or whatever it is they want. West palm can handle 1000. Food for thought,

@MrJones It does

G Greenie is killing it, he taught 4 people to ski for the first time in the last 2 days

@Bruce_Butterfield I agree this needs to be simple, this is why I proposed the question of whether or not just moving the cut off date solves the issue. There is nothing more simple than that move, it would require changing 3 words in the rule book, all the programming is done, it all ties in with rankings and nationals qualifications. Adding back the EP is not the end of the world but it does require adding more to the rule book, it does require SQC to develop the EP chart each year and get it approved, and it requires programming changes if you want these skiers who achieve the EP to show up as qualified, otherwise it can be done manually where a skier can prove he achieved the EP twice by proving his score in the scorebook and showing it to the registrar at nationals or the registrar can go through all the work of tracking down scores and verifying ratings, so if we want this to work seamlessly where skiers show up as qualified in the system it would require programming work that would take some time, that's all I'm saying. I like the idea, hell it can't hurt. What I miss most about the EP was the excitement of when skiers knew they got the rating, that instant gratification is something rankings does not deliver, at least not in its present formula.

Would there be a difference if we just moved the cutoff date from 3 weeks before to 10 months before? The one difference I see there is that a skier would be able to use scores from august of say 2016 to qualify for 2018 nats, as opposed to a rating that the skier has to go out and achieve twice after nationals. But moving the cutoff date makes it as simply as possible. Remember that after the cutoff date, we then have an established rating which is the L8 cutoff score which anyone can achieve once and get to nationals, if we moved the cutoff date to 10 months before or 12, we would essential establish a EP rating for the ski year? thoughts?

@MattP Great News, let's keep this ball rolling.

Lee Wright , New AWSA member #22 #getamemberchallenge. First AWSA tournament skier #27 #tryitloveitliveit #321kampaign #usawaterski Lee won the pot. We all put in $10.00 the closest to their average wins! Lee had a PB in the tournament as well.

@MISkier will do, it''s gonna take me a bit to go through the scorebook and see who skied their first AWSA event unless you know the names, but as soon as I get that I will post them all as new AWSA tourney skiers, thanks, great event and that article is perfect. We actually have a NCWSA/AWSA liason position that just started, being spearheaded by Emily Danmeyer and Christy Kingsmill with their goal to help bridge thew gap between NCWSA and AWSA.

Kersten Cawley, New Member First tournament! from Kieth Albritton

Seth and Cydney Donovan. First year skiing. from Keith Albritton

@ALPJr Welcome back, send me a pic if you have one? First time as a member since 2006 also?

Keep the stories coming....First Tournament ever (Lex Carroll Memorial @ Adam Farm Pond in Oakham MA) for the following skiers: Chesterfield Behner B1 Carolina Trask G1 Leonardo Topa M4 #getamemberchallenge #tryitloveitliveit #321kampaign #usaws With David Allen

A good story from this weekend at our tournament in Avon CT. Bruce Hoag has not skied competitively since he skied collegiate. He is a public lake skier without a Slalom Course. Last week, he joined USA Water Ski as a new member and skied in our tournament. He had a great time and we've got him hooked. Thanks, Pat Byrne

Love getting these emails on a Monday...... Jeff, I held my annual slalom tournament on Saturday. I am pleased to inform you that I had three skiing in their first tournament. Scott Tennant - M3 Travis Stuckey - M3 David Wicker - M8 Ray Crenshaw Toccoa, GA

Level 8 as of the cutoff date which is July 13th. There are other ways to qualify both before and mainly after but the major qualification status of which you are looking for is still the same L8 at July 13th.

Thanks for posting John, we are excited for this Kampaign. Any new members that are recruited as a result of this outreach should use the promo code 321 when joining AWSA so we can track our results.

AWSA's team skiing format is back for a second consecutive year. 2016 marked the inaugural year of the exciting format in which states and areas formed three-event teams of five men, five women and five junior skiers competing in a placement-based NOPS format similar to collegiate water skiing. Last year, teams lined the shorelines sporting bibs and other spirit-award worthy gear cheering each other on. The top-two teams from each region will qualify for Nationals and all skiers of a team, regardless of ranking, can compete on their team. Last year’s regional champions were Virginia (Eastern), Florida (Southern), Central Texas (South Central), Illinois (Midwest) and Area 3/Northern California (Western Region). Florida went on to win the national title. Interested in skiing on a team? Click on the "3-event Water Skiing" link at the top of the page and find the "Team Skiing" section on the left side menu. Think you’re not good enough to make the team? Think again. The format allows everyone a chance to earn big team points.

@klindy all good points, We have found a new rankings volunteer that is going to be able to take on these type project in the near future. I am very excited about this. @Bruce_Butterfield you asked a very simply and perfect question....It really comes down to what is the problem you/we/USAWS are trying to solve? Wow that's a loaded question :) and not sure its really one answer. As you said we don't have a huge issue at Nationals, although what you don't see is how many people don't return to Nationals or get a bad taste in their mouth when they feel there is sandbagging. I got some pretty negative feedback last year when April Skied W3, got the same in 2014 when Cale Burdick skied M2S, Ellis jumping M2 back in Houston, and who knows how many G3 trickers don't go to Nationals after they see Erika and Anna tricking. (I'm just stating the feedback here that's all) just as I'm getting negative feedback from those forced into L10 now I got the same negative feedback from those on the other side of the fence). But it is perception, I certainly think nationals should be the best of the best and if age is our current divisions structure then let the best win. But when you create open and you create masters and you watch skiers ski professionally and enter big dawg all year and then "drop down" at nationals, it does send a bad taste in the non-top of our membership, a group we continue to not worry about and watch leave our organization by the dozens. Will this solve that though, we don't know until we try. I don't agree with the notion of doing this to make sure a division is won by the division 2 guy so to speak, part of the issue is the going back and forth. You can't let someone win masters and then ski in age division at Nationals, it's not only bad for the general membership but I argue its terrible for us trying to promote pro skiing. Are they pro or not? Going back to your question again, the other half is the rankings part, rankings for most our members is what they are after weekend after weekend, so we also make a bad impression on our membership when we let Nate Smith receive a m2 rankings champion certificate. Now I do realize this can be solved without a forcing of L10. There are other factors in our rule book that we have passed that also complicate this ability to solve this problem (if it is a problem), we continue to say there is no distinction between pro and amateur, and we allow age division records to be set by anyone. Throw all this together and its a tough call, all I can say is this is not the main focus of my agenda by any means, we have a lot of great things in the works, whichever way L10 goes I am fine with b/c there are bigger and better things to spend our time on. I suggest you make your voice heard to your regions, this is an option every members has no matter when the board packet comes out. L10 was proposed in 2016, voted down b/c it had juniors, so we took juniors out and it passed. This should not have been an ambush on any level. I thought the membership feedback on ZBS was great and I can promise you we will do more of that in the future when game changing rules or changes are proposed. And we will try to get packets out sooner but sometimes that is just not feasible. All of us are volunteers with very limited extra time to dedicate trying to run AWSA, putting together a 140 page board packet from many committees takes time.