RazorRoss3

If you are reaching for the handle rather than skiing to the handle it suggests to me that you are off balance. If I start tipping in/falling in during the pre turn I'm going to grasp for the handle to keep from falling over. Try staying taller on the ski, with both hands on the handle for longer as you come into the buoy/head and shoulders level, two hands on the handle. If you're more balanced coming into the ball, you won't feel the need to grasp for the handle.

PB 1.5@38 36mph The entire travel distance ball to ball I’m trying to stay tall and balanced and maintain my control over the handle. The goal is to maximize my leverage through the pull and then ride a tight line in a balanced position out to the ball and avoid tipping in and falling to the inside of the turn.

Off season: in the gym 7 days a week, 4 strength training 3 cardio On season: tournament set to start every set, then work on technique at my money pass and/or the pass before it. 8-12 passes/set... sometimes more Currently in off season, trying to lose about 5lbs while subsequently building strength and endurance.

I lift heavy stuff... and for cardio I lift heavy stuff faster.

I was commenting that I think that is technically very good skiing. Some of the coaching that I try to carry with me through every set is that I should be "on top of my ski, with 2 hands on the handle, 20ft early of the ball" (coach will remain unnamed so they don't get pulled into this thread if they don't want to be). "on top of the ski" meaning my weight supported by the ski, not falling in, or back or what have you. The body position she is coming into the buoy with is largely what I am trying to do. So I guess I would lean heavily to "awesome" and not at all to weird I still think that the lighting for the picture happens to be good and that the pictures where the skier is reflected in the water are always cool As an addendum, outside of the "skier face" which we all make, and mine is particularly bad, I was and am in no way trying to comment on the skiers appearance, objectifying our athletes is lacking in class and not good for the sport.

I guess I'd say awesome picture with a bit of a scrunched up, getting after it face. Skier is early, riding the ski well, handle is close. Lighting and conditions look good, those "reflection in the water" pics are always cool. I can't fairly judge others ski faces, mine aren’t pretty either.

devaluing a class C is bad for the sport. "hey neighbor, you should really join USA waterski and come to tournaments, oh, by the way, your score is going to get discounted by 20% because it's class C..." I can see membership spiking already... #SarcasmFont I am also not a fan of overly complicated weighting systems... the three score average certainly isn't perfect since it isn't a true average but I'm not sure there is a good way to incorporate "consistency" into the system without overcomplicating it. You would certainly like the guy who put up score X in every tournament he skied to be ranked better than the guy who had three scores of score X and 10 scores ranging from missed openers to Score X-1 but that gets confusing and weird really fast.

It's a little weird to artificially inflate a score in my eyes. Like, if I put up 100 buoys (4@35 36) it shouldn't magically turn into 103 buoys (1@38 36) because I did it at nationals. I don't care if you did it at nationals or at a backyard event, 4@35 is not the same game as getting out the end gates. It might be better to do something like a general populace rankings list (what we have right now) and then an "elite" rankings list where you need to have participated in regionals or nationals to be included. The general populace one would allow skiers like myself who have never been to regionals or nationals to see how they would stack up against the skier who tend to go. You could be top 30 in the general populace but if only the top 15 go to nationals you could find yourself top 10 in the "elite" list because you are willing to commit the time to chase down the "elite" (regionals and nationals) events.

Is it possible that a good way to baseline how many of each age/event makes sense on a team would be to look at the proportion of each in the rankings list? More slalom skiers than jumpers, so maybe teams have more available slots for slalom than jump. Just a thought as far as having team distributions across events more closely mirror population distribution across events. Probably works better in some regions than others... maybe doesn't work at all.

Thanks @JeffSurdej, yeah, in Minnesota I'm looking around and I'm certain I'm not a top 5 talent in any of the three events so if there is only 1 team in the state I'd be out of luck. I can understand why teams would want to merge together to be more competitive but like you I think it would work better/be more fun with higher volume. Again, thanks for the update on that.

How has the AWSA level Team Skiing worked out the last couple of years? I remember it was something like teams of 5 men, 5 women, and 5 juniors... I like the idea of brining team skiing out of collegiate and into the AWSA world but I haven't really heard anything about it in a long time.

That requires making a tournament a truly fun endeavor again. A version of this came up in the state of the sport thread. The fun part of a tournament is the day at the lake with friends. Obviously if you go and ski your brains out with a PB or close to then you had a lot of fun as well but that doesn't happen at every event and it would be more fun with friends around so back to the original point. To me, changing the sport should mean shifting more focus to what is happening on shore as well as what is happening on the water. Doing something to get more people interacting with each other on the shoreline to make the vast majority of the day when you aren't skiing more fun.

At the end of it the promo guy should be able to walk away cash neutral. Hours based depreciation on the boat Miles Depreciation on truck and trailer Room and board within reason If they are skiing, a person could see their way to a free entry as well... hard to have an event without a boat. They voluntarily joined the promo program so they know they're going to be out money on the turnover to a new boat YoY but they shouldn't be out anything for getting the boat to an event.

@Leonl, so you're saying I need to tell all of my friends that if they want to ski after they graduate they should move to Kentucky? To be fair, at an hour commute you are probably lookin at a 4 hour ski day for 2 skiers between drive out, get ready, ski 2 sets a piece, clean up, drive back. It's a real commitment, but I know plenty of people who would be willing to make the trek once or twice during the work week and then make good use of it over the weekend.

@Horton, I really hope you're just testing that out... the panda is better, much better.

@Skid, more M1 than M2 and M3 is because collegiate is growing, and all 4 years of college most of us are M/W1 skiers. I don't think that bubble proves the sport is doing well so much as it proves that once skiers graduate they don't stick around. Either by a function of affordability, accessibility, or that when they couldn't ski with their friends they didn't care to ski. I'm 25, I've been competing since I was 14. This year I skied 1 tournament, 1. The only reason I went is because it was Alumni Regionals and I knew I was going to have the chance to see a bunch of old friends from college. I skied, and I enjoyed my set, but I enjoyed my time on shore equally if not more so. Without that event, I wouldn't have skied a single tournament this year. If there isn't something similar next year, I may not ski an event in 2019. I guess you could say that collegiate skiing ruined me for AWSA, because unless I can enjoy a day at the lake with a bunch of friends and ski a tournament on the side, I just not very interested in skiing a tournament.

Collegiate is growing, and that's great, but it doesn't transfer well to the rest of the ski world. Who doesn't want to ski when access is easy, access is cheap, and you're at the site with 20 of your best friends. Once access is hard, and expensive, well... you'd rather find something else to do with your closest friends. Out of every graduating class, I'd expect the sport keeps no more than 10% of skiers who weren't involved pre college and I think 10% is generous. There are other ways to spend time and money and the best part of collegiate skiing, isn't skiing, it's who you're skiing with. That's why the energy is so great, and that's why the people tricking on kneeboards are having just as much fun as the people standing on the podiums. AWSA just doesn't have the same atmosphere.

Tests, injuries, and surgeries, least sets I’ve taken in a season my entire time with the sport.

@MS I will yield that the engine change can be funky for sure, I don’t know if my scores change but I like the feel of the stronger engine. So your not as much against settings, you’re against the idea that the same setting feels different on different boats?

@MS should we all ride the same ski with the same bindings too? Don’t get me wrong, I think we currently have a little too much going on in the boat with 9 settings with + variants getting you to 18, but I don’t have an issue with some level of flexibility. At the end of the day I think the number 1 factor is the skier, followed by getting the set up within reason of appropriate and having a good driver. Once those are squared away the setting might have an impact, and maybe it has a modest impact before that as well.

I don't know of a great solution for hands, ski gloves are only so good and I don't like using neoprene gloves to ski. my front foot usually stays pretty warm in my Vapor binding, my back foot turns into a block of ice in my RTP but again, I have not found a solution. A headband or fleece hat can go a long way for covering your ears and forehead though which makes a big difference.

D1 has 5 teams that aren’t sponsored, have no scholarships, and on a good day have 1 person who 3 event skied pre-college. They aren’t going to be scoring into 39 off D2 is entirely those kinds of teams, and they were slaloming in a 20mph head wind off the dock, running an opener in that is an accomplishment for most. Great event, a lot of the kids I coached on the Texas team skied great and they broke there perennial record of last place with 9th this year so I know they are super excited

@UWSkier you saying he needs to make it full blown Team Midwest colors? #Black&Pink

@6balls, I only put in 40 hrs a week while president of the Iowa team, and that was 40 hrs of work not including skiing/coaching. While I was down in Texas and coaching the UT team I probably coached them 4-7 days a week depending on the weather and while some weeks might have hit 40 hours, it was all play. Couple sets of skiing and the rest of the time sitting in a boat watching PBs and some great crashes... hard to imagine a better way to spend a Saturday. UT is competing this weekend in D2 by the way, already with some great jump scores. Top men's jumper with a 98, all 5 men landing, 4 of 5 women riding away as well. Sitting in 7th at the end of day 1. I'm pulling for them to hit the top 6 this year! Hook 'Em!

Member of the Iowa team fall 2011- spring 2015 President of the Iowa team fall 2013-fall 2014 My experience skiing with them is 100% positive, without question the best decision I made in college. I just attended a ski wedding with two of my friends from the team getting married. My experience as President was ungodly stressful. I spent 40 hours a week thr entire year making or budget work because of how difficult it is to work the finances. Manage all the equipment. Liaison with the university, sponsors, marinas, members, officers, and everything else. That 40 was in addition to the 40 hours a week at my internship during the summer and my 30 hours a week of class during the semester. I wouldn’t change any of that, my previous manager told me when I recently changed jobs that part of why he hired me was for my experience managing the collegiate team, so I’m some ways I owe my career to collegiate skiing. Best part of college by a wide margin