2tracmind

Your picture looks like the mirrors on many golf carts. $17.50 on amazon, 5 Panel Mirror For Golf Carts Fits EZGO, Club Cars and Precedent Carts.

I do not use a strap. I do alter my rtp's by sanding the footbed a little to get the right fit as well as putting a block or shoe horn in the rtp to stretch it out. I keep the block in the rtp when not skiing.

Wetsuit Spray Leg is fine,,, it is just the PINK neoprene skirt that needs to be worn with it that is the deal breaker.

Hi Dave, I am a big fan of the 10-11 to 1-2 oclock. As it relates to your comment : "It could be that my hip clock is what is causing me to lose the width so early; in fact I would say it is almost certainly a contributor if not the primary reason." I respectfully disagree, holding the hips point to 10 should maintain your width by keeping you on the left edge of the ski until your point to 2 oclock. Your drifting in more probably be the result on being more on the back foot and hips behind. Good Luck

I do think the "edge out right before the gate shot " is significant to getting the ski pointed across the course. Two things, 1. It is significantly easier to move to the right edge of the ski on the gate turn in by initiating from the left edge vs being on a flat ski and trying to roll to the right edge. 2. The magic for me on this 11 to 1 technique is that it results in ski angle from the lower body without upper body rotation and it avoids loading the ski too early. DefectiveDave and Wish, I think i did initiate the 11-1 pointer. Really happy to see it helping, anything to make the difficult and technical gate simple is great.

Got a pair this spring. I found them to have significantly better grip than my Old Favorites, Tail 41. I was expecting sore hands etc, due to the thinness of them. No problems, I did not wear liners all year and my Tail 41's did not get a set in. Ski buddies tried them, open minded ones liked them for grip, closed minded did not like them because they felt thin and assumed they would cause hand problems. Our mind is like a parachute, it only works if it is open.

As a big guy you (me too) , push a lot of water. When I am at 220 I am told to get more weight on my front foot in my gate glide, little do they know that my back heel is off the ski and ALL on my weight is on my front foot. When I weigh 205, it looks great. Fin adjustment might help. My suggestions: 1. Get every ounce you can on your front foot in your gate, tall over the foot, aligned, stacked. Slow turn in. Chest up. 2. Onside and Offside Turns -you are losing your chest in the preturn. Chest up and look down course. From one big guy to another.

My first slalom ski was the O'Brien Competitor, the year Andy won his first world championship. I stayed on a RTP because Andy wore a RTP, "there must be a reason" I thought. We hosted Andy, his mother and sister for a 3 day camp in beautiful British Columbia, Canada in 2010 or 2011 on his first Mapple Tour. On his trip summary he thanked our group organizer for a trip of a life time. Feeling extremely grateful that we provided a trip of a life time for Andy, his mother and sister. On my first set his feedback was that my free arm was swinging wildly during my offside turn. I said " I am just waving to the fans" Andy replied " wait until Six ball, that's where the fat chicks hang out". "Game ON" for a great three days of laughter and a Bucket List experience. Andy Mapple was a World Champion at everything I witnessed him do. Honored to have had some of his time.

I am a RTP skier. A little movement is required of the rear foot in order to get up on the ski in the preturn and not have the hips dragging behind. Most intermediate skiers on a double boot have too much weight on the rear foot resulting in poor body position. The rtp must fit, if it is too tight to get your foot all the way in try trimming or sanding the foot bed to allow your foot to fit all the way in. If only your toes are fitting in the rtp, I am sure if would feel insecure !!

From a training perspective does it not make sense to have variables that challenge you ? Changing speed, both faster and slower,and line length can improve your ability to adapt. Do we go home and not train with a head wind and tail wind ? PP AND Zero make the speed perfect but is it limiting our ability to adjust to variables ? When coaching other sports I have inserted variables to make athletes adapt. IMHO , if I were a waterski coach I would often throw variables in to train the athlete to adapt.

A skier at my lake borrowed a ski with Connelly bindings with the two buckles. Was told to undo both buckles before pulling his foot out. Did not listen and ...... TORN ACHILLES TENDON ... he must be the winner or I mean loser of the stupidest injury.

1.How is your hip flexibility ? Limited flexibility can limit our ability to get our hips in the proper position on the offside. 2. Feel the load in your trailing arm (dead straight too) as to progress to the wakes. Too much load in the lead arm on the offside will buckle you.

We skiers are unique in our obsession with the sport, technique and desire to improve. What is your opinion on in any given set what percentage of our passes should we make ? How often and how many attempts should we make at our hardest pass in a set ? You 38 off skiers, how often and how many attempts do you make at 39 ? My stubborn preference is to practice making balls not missing them so my average is above 80% , progress is slow but steady. My ski partners who are a 1 or 1.5 passes ahead think i should shorten quicker and that more cracks at my harder passes. Thanks

@Razorskier1 - I love the numbers and then interpreting them. How many attempts did you have at 38 this year vs last ? Percentage of completed attempts At 38 this year vs last ? From a coaching perspective, what did you figure out ? Has your practice and tournament PB changed ?

When i switched back to a RTP I did have some adjustments to make on the offside turn. My opinion is we often push the ski around with the rear boot when skiing on a double boot. My offside is consistently better now. A ski buddy who pushes the ski around on his offside could not make a turn on his offside due to this poor habit. Focus on your front foot pressure.

You mentioned you are working on posture. How tight is your back boot ? Many skiers at your level are limited in their ability to stand forward on the front foot with the hips up because their rear foot is not able to move. I was unable to improve my posture until I changed my back boot (one size larger than my front) allowing some movement of my rear heel that resulted in my hips moving forward. A Horton tip is to straigthen the back leg so it matches the flex in the front which moves the hip forward (hope I got that right)

Thanks for posting your video and I look forward to your personal assessment. I agree with what has been said, my other observations are; Gate - Yes you could have more width but your turn in is inconsistent, sometimes your are drifting in and then going hard with handle control issues resulting. I believe your best gate was on one of your 38 attempts where you held more more width before your turn in and then progressively built speed with a centered pull at the wakes.

I watched the video three times and my opinion is that your first 32 was your best pass of the bunch. Your pull was centred on your gate on that 32 pass and as a result your stack was maintained and your best direction into one. 1 -2 pull was centered and your transition occurred earlier giving your best two of the whole set. As others have said, you can't be too wide for your gate. Your stack is solid when you load in the right spot and direction/handle control can be achieved. Rhythm and timing, rhytn

It is not so much that Rhythm and timing are more important than form but look at the relationship. Does the "form Break" happen in all the time or does is show up when a r & t mistake occurs. Ski racing is a great example, great turns when free skiing get lost when racing in the gates if the skier does not match the rhythm of the course set.

Great ski tuning advice and well beyond me. My favorite coach at a clinic said if your buddies are coaching you and it does not relate to "rhythm and timing" stop listening. While your body positions my not be perfect, I think you may be long pulling to 2-4-6. Try transitioning sooner out to 2. As you have not been skiing as well this year you may be a little anxious and trying a little to hard. Trust.

Great thread and perfect timing for me. After gutting out the odd 32 and 50-50 on 28's I spent the last two years rebuilding, focusing on my stack with success. Multiple ski partner's have consistently stated the my pulling position is excellent, however i have been unable to convert this to shortline. I am now convinced it is "timing and rhythm ", I can have great starts and 2-3 great buoys but then lose it. Last weekend I focused on not long pulling and it started to clean things up. 10 days of vacation at the lake - focus - early change and handle low and in !!! Thanks

The gate pointer that I received this year that seems similar is as follows. Gently pull out wide for the gate, during your glide keep your width by pointing your hips to 11 o'clock, when it is time to turn in- point your hips to 1 o'clock. When I do this correctly I stay wide and then by only aiming my hips at 1 o'clock I do not over rotate my body and the ski turns gradually but builds effortless angle. When done properly it feels like magic.

You asked some good questions, re - increasing buoy count with a binding switch to hard shells. When CP beat Andy's world record (on soft boots) he was on Wiley's, 1.5 at 43, i believe. We now have a pending with Nate at 2.0 at 43 with soft boots. There is a lack of evidence at the highest levels that a hard boot results in greater performances, not only that, with the dominance of the the men's division, 4 of 5 are on RTP's ! There appears to be a growing Preference for hard boots, but that is not evidence. I have a snow ski racing background also. Lateral stiffness is great but we need to be able to flex the boot and if you have experienced a great boot fitting then we/you know what a huge difference it makes. On the safety side there is also little evidence or tracking of waterski binding safety and the release mechanisms we currently have in water-skiing are truly systems for the early 1970's of the snow skiing world.

We have been lucky over the last 4 or so years with very little wind at our lake, however this year is different. For the life of me I can not remember what adjustments to make. What are your 1-3 key points for skiing the tailwind ? Feel free to share headwind secrets too !

@ctsmith - great discussions. You have mentioned your flexibility limitations to your ankles and Achilles, what about your hips, this is often over looked. Tight hips make it difficult to maintain a balanced position on anything never mind standing with one foot in front of the other on a water ski. Visualize the cowboy with wranglers that are too tight,,, ok don't visualize it but you cant move well in tight jeans,, and you can't move athletically with tight hips. Search the web and youtube for hip mobility exercises, i think this will help allow you to stay stacked.