gator1

@Horton: A dislike, a panda, and a Python, all in one day. Does this count as a PB for me, or were these only practice rounds? I'm sure, if you were working with me, first time you said "get your back leg straight, you are dragging your ass", and I did it and went hammering ribs first into the foam on the other side of the wake while gatormod saved me yet again, once we got the binding back on the ski, you'd say, "ok, you literal dumba$$ engineer, I meant get your back leg a little straighter in relation to your front leg". Unfortunately, you weren't here. And, I can, and do, defeat the tip. The idea doesn't lack nuance. The written word, for me, wasn't saying anywhere near what you meant. The explanation lacked clarity. @Stevie Boy: Although I think "get centered" is part of it, I don't think it is a particularly useful tip. I think "do whatever it takes to get the TAIL of the ski as shallow as you can" is the critical variable. Video yourself. Anything that gets the ski more parallel to the surface of the water in your hardest lean is good. Anything that points the ski at the sky is bad.

@horton. There s the problem. If the galactic leader tells me "straight leg" my effing leg WILL be straight as I'm trying the tip. And you'll get me hurt. If you say "a few less degrees bend in the rear relative to front" then we're on the same page. When you say "the simple fact......" When it's not a fact , well then we're gonna disagree.

@horton. Do his hips need to go forward?

@horton. Yes. Forward.

@skijay I completely agree that almost all data shows getting the knees straighter in the turn and preturn is good. Plus, my tests over last year showed it works for me. However, the statement made by Horton in the opener of this post: "The simple fact is that if your back knee is bent more than your front knee, your hips will be behind you......." is clearly disproved by the picture of Rossi. Unless, I guess, we want to tell Rossi to quit dragging his ass.

With their inhuman athletic abilities, just think how good Jeff Rogers and Dave Miller would be if they learned to ski right. I can't see where Nate is conventionally "stacked" on his strong side. Looks like his ass is way behind his shoulders. I can definitely see where he is stacked on his weak side. I can't see where Nate is practicing conventional "handle control", or keeping a "tight line". I've read the quotes from Nate where he debunks the recently fashionable "light on the line" preachings. He sure as hell is on the center of the ski, though. See Rossi photo above: front ankle less than 90 degrees, front knee bent about 30 degrees, rear knee about 110 degrees. Just think how good he'd be if he'd only get that back knee straighter. With so many examples that disprove the current maxims, I, who was fooled once with "hips up, rotate the shoulders towards the wake" in the 80's, am equally dubious of many of today's fashionable absolutes in ski technique dogma. I don't believe we have yet captured the essence of what accomplishes 41 off. Because what we say is required to do it is disproved by those who actually do it. Maybe, instead of cat like reflexes, strength, and do or die attitude, there is something in what these outliers are doing that points to the essence of what makes 41 off possible.

@ShaneH: I was with you all the way up till your Miller comment. I was cleaning out a stack of magazines, and came across a bunch of old ski mags..Started reading the improvement articles, and was struck by the vast contradictions in recommended form as compared to today's understanding of what is "right", accompanied by photo sequences of studs of the day supposedly doing what was "right". Pretty frustrating to think about all the hours I spent trying to emulate the "right" way which is now considered the wrong way. Knowing what I know now, I can look at the old photos and see that Bob or Kris were not doing what the accepted wisdom said they were doing. Meanwhile, there are two types of facts in higher mathematics. One is the kind that has been proved, and the other is the kind that has yet to be DISproved. All it takes is some really smart bastard to come along and show one exception to the latter type of fact, and the fact becomes a falsehood. We have a bunch of theories today describing the critical aspects required to run 41. And yet, we have Dave Miller, the oil patch worker who just switched to AM, and to a lesser but just as important extent, Nate. They disprove those theories. Therefore, the math guys would say: theories are wrong. To me, writing them off as freaks is the same as saying I can't get my head around something. To me, figuring out what they are doing is like linking quantumm mechanics to relativity. Until we do, we don't know for sure that our theories are right

@londonskier: Me either. Pretty much the opposite of a straight back leg......Those boys are Terry Winter deep in the knee by the time they get to the wake. I was confused by @Ed_Johnson reference to Horton, just as I'm confused by the straight leg concept. But, since I'm never going to try straight legging again anyway, I'm just gonna give up on this thread.

And, besides, I want to look like Nate, not a stork.

@shaneH: I didn't WANT to. I was focused on keeping my back leg straight. Still had my shoulders rounded, so the only way to survive was to tilt my hips. Lizard brain took over and tilted my hips. @Horton: Maybe I'm the bad kind of 1%. "don't worry Mr. Gates, less than 1% have issues with a vascectomy". "Don't worry Mr. Gates, less than 1% have permanent numbness after wisdom teeth removal". "Gee, we can't understand how you ruptured your Achilles AND dislocated your peroneal tendon. We've never seen that, that's why we didn't check the peroneal when we fixed your Achilles, we can get you in for follow up surgery next month" "in 45 years on planet earth........". Come on up to Spokane and I'll show you my apparently unique, unfortunate ability to negate a skiing tip. And it must run in the family, because the straight leg tip hasn't worked for any of us.

@shaneH: Imagine the hottest girl you know, walking away from you. As she walks, her hips tilt side to side. That sway is her pelvis tilting on the end of her spine. When her right foot hits and travels back the right side of her pelvis begins to lift as the left side begins to drop. Effectively shortening her right leg and lengthening her left as her butt sways to the right. Um, excuse me. I'll be in my bunk.

@Horton: I do think so. Lock both knees, foot in front of foot like on a ski. Whichever foot is in front, tilt your hips so the corresponding front hip joint is closer to the ground than the hip joint hooked to the rear leg. I can move my CG almost 1.8' front to rear while keeping both knees locked. In fact, I can get almost all my weight off my front foot with both knees locked by tilting my hips. If your legs were joined to a single point at your crotch your theory would hold. You'd have a perfect triangle. They are not. There is almost 1.3' between the attachment points. I tried the back leg straight tip to get off my ass. Didn't work. Hip and IT band got sore as hell though. My lizard brain found a way to defeat that tip in order to keep me safe.

@leonL Yessir. Exactomundo. Ya. Da. Si. Oui.

@Ilivetoski: It's likely that your back leg is bent too much because you're back too far. It's likely that you are back because your "lizard brain" (that part of your brain that subconsciously keeps you alive by overiding conscious decisions to do things that have harmed you in the past) is overiding the part of your brain that already knows you are too damn far back. A couple of tries on the front of the ski that result in headers into the wake or worse is all it takes for lizard boy to say "NYET! to that bullshet". How do these studs get on the front of the ski and survive the wake? I've found the key variable is where your shoulders are in relation to your spine during your pull and wake impact. Terrry Winters is squatted on the damn ski. Nate is at about 90 degree knee angle on both legs at the wake. TP is almost straight at pine tree. Straight back leg is clearly not a requirement for studliness. But, all of them have their shoulders behind their spine. If you round your shoulders forward during the pull, your center of pull is in front of your spine. Given a sudden impact (wake) all the load serves to lever your spine forward from the hips. Your center of gravity shifts suddenly forward, and OTF you go. If your shoulders are squared back behind your spine, the sudden load actually serves to lessen the strain on your lower back, straightening you up a bit at impact. Your CG shifts back a tad, the ski comes off edge and voila! you are changing edges right where you wanted to. More importantly, lizard brain is not bitch slapping conscious brain anymore. Instead of getting closer to wishing you had a gatormod every time you try to get your weight balanced on both feet, each wake you hit with your shoulders behind your spine is calming the lizard. And note none of this has anything to do with hips up or back. That'll come if you can quit forcing a drastic CG change at the wake. Your lizard brain runs them back now, because you need to be able to survive a half foot more CG change to the front. A MAJOR NOTE OF CAUTION: If you start out with a badass hole shot, and shoulders squared, but panic at the sudden ungodly acceleration, you may freak right before the wake and round your shoulders. Really bad move. So, start this slow. You'll be amazed at how samll of a bite you have to take to generate speed. So, that's a lot of advice probably worth less than you paid for it, and it was free. And, it contradicts a lot of what is emphasized by most people. But, its the only explanation I can find for the success of everybody from the squatters like TW to the pine trees like CP.

Here's what I did: watch Nate and Regina vids a couple thousand times. Compare them to vids of yourself and your hardest pass. Compile a list of form faults you se in yourself. Rank them in degree of theorized importance. Select the easiest pas you can't run. Over the period of an entire summer, modify each form fault, take 4 tries at the pass once you believe you've fixed the fault. Record affect of form modification on score. Don't worry that your former best pass becomes unrunable as you hack away at your form. Compile results in full DOE methodology. Determine red x and pink x form fault, along with interaction effects of form faults. Attempt to incorporate selected fault fixes. Discover heretofore unidentified form fault not obvious from vid comparison. Modify holy grail fault. It's winter. Hurt knee on last set of year. Apologize to ski buds for infinite falls at unrunable pass and bizarre sets with off the dock rope length at goal length. Dream of last set w/ holy grail variable fixed. Agonize over retirement vs surgery. Sarcasm aside, this approach may have worked. Certainly, the accepted process of running down the line to my best pass over and over with one or two tries at my goal pass was getting me nowhere.

@Stevie Boy‌ Talk to Regenex. They seemed pretty above board to me, want your MRI and other scans you've had. $200 they'll give you a phone conf with a doc, decide if they can help you or not. My surgeon is flying to CO with me if I go that route, he had researched them and decided they were best path if my scope didn't work, or if my scope can be augmented with Stem. He's a very conservative guy, has done considerable research of medical journals, and is convinced stem is helping a big enough percentage of patients that it is worth the effort, cost and risk. Regenex told us to leave all tissue that was not "in the way", even if it would have normally been scoped out. Said much easier to grow with something to start with. So maybe your little bit of cartilage is enough. It was going to be $5k or so for the US allowed concentration of stem in CO, and about $15k for unlimited stem in Cayman islands. I have no axe to grind on pushing stem, just passing on what I "learned" so far.

@skijay I hope so. Talked with regenex guys before scope. They had specific recommendation on scope procedure and antibiotics to enable stem treatment. Doc followed their recs during scope. Also drilled bunch of holes in my kneecap to get marrow bleeding into joint. Hurt like a bitch since inter joint painkiller off the approved list for stem. Aging gracefully not for pansies.

@ral, Ya, that would be the ultimate in frustration. when I was in college in 1980 I started to go bald, and my knee started to hurt. I figured they'd have a cure for both of those by now. And, on top of that, no flying car yet. everything I read and hear says metal knee only when you can't walk anymore, and no more fun after you get one.

@stevieboy, Best I can tell about conformis is that it is a better knee implant, in that it has a better chance of working correctly due to being custom sized to your knee. Bespoke in limey terms. But it still has all the drawbacks of a metal knee. Did you find something different? @rfa, thanks.

Well, it didn't work. I have chronic jumper's knee, and chondromalacia (someday I should learn to spell that). Tried blood injections, PRP injections, kept getting worse to the point of throwing in the towel and becoming a "normal" (watch TV, drink and go shopping with the wife). Got pretty far down the path toward stem cells and Regenex, which is discussed elswhere on BOS. But an additional symptom stopped me: when the jumpers knee was relatively calm I could snow ski as long as my knee stayed bent more than 40 degrees. But the first bend past 40 was agony. Skiing a whole run in a full squat position great on the thighs, but not too great on jumpers knee. Going down stairs was a one legged affair, as was walking down a hill. So, my surgeon buddy scoped it Monday. Dug a big chunk of scar tissue out from behind my pattelar tendon, and found a flap of cartilage that was folding back and getting pinched every time knee bent more than 30 degrees. He gave me video, cartilage looked like a piece of string cheese split halfway. So he trimmed that off. And the flap was fragmenting and shedding chunks throughout the rest of the joint. So those all got vacuumed out. Chondromalacia looked better than he expected. I think the PRP was fixing the Chondro------, but it couldn't stick the string cheese back together, and obviously couldn't dissolve scar tissue. Two days in, I feel like somebody took a rock out of my shoe after a loooong hike. Hope this keeps up, I might get to be abnormal again.

One way to do this would be pretty cool, and@defectivedave you've done the hard part already. Mount two load cells 90 degrees from each other at the base of the pylon where it attaches to the hull of the boat. Take your readings from there, calculate the mech advantage from the lever arm above the floor, resolve the readings from both cells into a direction vector and Boom! Load and skier position. Make a little cartridge with the two loads cells we can buy and plug onto the bilge end of our pylons along with your signal conditioning gear and I bet quite a few of us freaks would buy it

Never thought about this until Rossi's note on being inside the buoy line when on a short rope. That comment linked with AM's raised perspective video of gates. Seen from partially above, Andy seemed to ski almost a straight line from edge change to buoy. As do the other gods and goddesses, once I went back and looked. Straight line indicated from normal perspective video as: they are standing almost straight up, looking relaxed and studly, instead of banked in looking frantic and late. A bank would indicate a curved path. We have to get ourselves close to parallel to the water to maximize our reach around the ball, but we can't approach that full tipover AND avoid falling in the water without some angular velocity to create centripetal force to counteract gravity. You can't drive around the top of a NASCAR bank at 5 mph. (maybe you can, but you get my point). The tighter the curve, and the farther the curve arcs around the compass, the more centripetal force we can generate. If we do a gentle curve from edge change to buoy, then toss the ski out around the ball, we have "wasted" that centripetal force, using it to support our lean from edge to ball. Then, when we really need it to support our extension lean around the ball, it is gone. So, when we toss the ski out around the ball, we end up falling towards the water. The only way to survive is to crank an abrupt turn, with a sharper radius than we need to establish the pull, in order to create enough centripetal force to arrest our decent towards the water. Then, the ski stops and things go to hell. Stud mode is to conserve potential angular velocity until they need it. Ski straight until the last possible instant, then surge the CG and ski out around the ball, and start to turn back immediately. The centripetal force is thus concentrated, supporting a higher angle lean during the turn and longer extension, allowing a more consistent radius turn, a less violent change in ski attitude, and less speed lost. I did that once. It felt weird. I couldn't hammer the boat and get a good hole shot towards the wake (ex-jumper). So, I quit. Maybe I'll try it again. Gonna be hard to stand there and relax for all that time though. Probably get boring.

Data is GOOD

Aye captain.

A number of ballers have asked me to make mods for their Stealths. I've made enough now that making them is really boring, and I don't have time to mess with them and work on the Powershell mod. So, I'm turning the design over to a machine shop in town. The more they make in one run, the less set up they are going to charge me. Reason for the post: Are there any ballers out there who want to buy a Stealth mod, cost about $160, who HAVE NOT YET contacted me? BTW, whatever I charge will be the cost to me. I'm not trying to make money off these. If you HAVE contacted me, drop me a pm and let me know the $160 is ok with you. Or, if you have access to a machine shop (band saw, mill, drill press and dremel tool are all you need), keep in mind prints are available. @HOrton, if using BOS this way is not in your designs for the site let me know.