Big strong guy, my little chicken arms are touched!!  ;-)

That's one of the things I find hard, waiting for the pull.

bren, did you mean front knee?  I thought the back knee looked pretty good.

The "lean away with less angle" is hard to understand b/c I feel like if I did that, I'd be leaning back and the ski.  I'm trying to stay off the tail now.

Maybe I'll have more pics or video after tomorrow night.

Woops, that first post was not quite what I wanted.

http://www.proskicoach.com/slalom_artic … e_diagram/


Your perspective is 100% off when you are on the water. You get tricked into thinking that you need to point the ski 90 degrees and get over there as fast as possible. It's counterintuitive but if you take less angle out of the buoy, then it will be easier to maintain your outbound direction. Even the pros get pulled fast and narrow if they turn too far and load up the rope. One of the things you can do to prevent yourself from overturning is to pick up the next buoy: as you are finishing your turn, visually find the next buoy.

wlrottge,
I did not think your angle look excessive. Posting a video would be more helpful by showing more.

EdJohnson wrote:

One general point on legs. The best advice I ever got was years ago from Chet Raley who told me "Ski like a one legged skier." By this he meant, MAKE BOTH LEGS WORK AS ONE.

This makes a lot of sense.  I keep hearing, "more bend in the front knee" and "should have almost no weight on the back leg".

It seems impossible that you can get the ski out in front of you AND not have much weight on the back leg.

In my search for examples, I looked at the Radar site to see how the ski rides in the water with a pro on it.  I think Jason McClintock's position is interesting.  Not a lot of knee bend but really keeps his hips up and core engaged.

I'm not a ski coach by any stretch of the imagination, but watching your video I think your current problem is very obvious.  In my opinion it's 100% your gate, and here's proof:



In the above composite image - made up of screen captures from your video - you can see two sequences, one of your gate and one of the last half of your two ball.  By comparing the wake position and rope angle you might notice that each pair of screen caps was taken at very close to the same part the turn-in and pull.

As the gate photos show, you are stopping your turn-in before you've achieved any sort of  efficient angle (frame 1).  Once you've loaded the rope you can forget about building any more angle, so you've got no speed and no angle through the gate (frame 2).  To compound things, you're changing edges right in the middle of the wake, guaranteeing a late, narrow one-ball that you barely squeak around.  Bear in mind that at -15' the handle itself can easily swing more than 20 feet outside the buoy line!  Meanwhile, you don't actually carry the handle outside the one-ball buoy line at all.

Now look at the two-ball photos.  Because you're committed to a more complete turn in toward the wake (frame 1) you're practically guaranteed to finish with better speed and angle at the wake (frame 2), which allows you to carry speed and angle through the second wake (frame 3).  If your gate was even 50% as good as your two-ball you'd easily run this pass (and more).

I'm not going to presume to tell you how to fix your gate - that job belongs to competent coaches  such as our host Wade Williams.  But I can give you an experiment to try that may prove what I'm talking about here.  Next time you ski, instead of including the gate in your pass, make the two-ball your starting point.

Ride next to the left-hand wake, just as if you were waiting for your pull out for the gates - but don't pull out until you pass the entrance gates (red balls) by about 20 - 30 feet.  At that point pull out with enough momentum to ski well outside the two-ball, trying to "backside" the buoy as you head for the three-ball.  Essentially, that three-ball becomes your "one-ball" for this pass, and you'll only be able to ski around four buoys - which is exactly what you accomplished in the video.  But what you should start to feel is the tremendous advantage you'll have with good angle and an early line into the one-ball.

Fix that gate and you'll run this pass, probably wondering why you ever thought it was hard at all.

TW

Last edited by Thomas Wayne (Tue, Aug 10, 2010 3:13 PM)

Oh, I know the gates are a major issue for me.  I've been working on them and have read the articles written by Schnitz, Rossi and others.  I do find myself skiing to the ball out of the gate.... I need to work on that....

Problem that I've been having is WAY too much speed through the gate and at one-ball.  That in turn makes it hard for me to keep the line taught, make a nice carve.... soo.... I end up even later out of one.  I've got a ton more speed but I'm having to learn to go slower b/c I can't use it b/c it makes me WAY late out of the balls.  I'm trying to slow down a little and backside one better.  I keep thinking that if I can fix the gate that -15 will fall and I'll start making "progress".  My coach thinks I'm progressing quickly and says that I'll be surprised where I'm at a year from now.

I thought my hips were better in that pass than they were.  I didn't watch it frame by frame but I could tell that I needed to come up even more, didn't realize they were that bad.  I'm looking forward to being able to shorten up and get into a nicer wake zone.

More water time tomorrow.  This is getting more and more addictive every time I get another ball.

Last edited by wlrottge (Tue, Aug 10, 2010 2:23 AM)

wlrottge wrote:

Oh, I know the gates are a major issue for me.  I've been working on them and have read the articles written by Schnitz, Rossi and others.  I do find myself skiing to the ball out of the gate.... I need to work on that....

Problem that I've been having is WAY too much speed through the gate [...]

At -15' there's no such thing as "way too much speed through the gate" - UNLESS you have terrible angle and are skiing straight at the one ball.... which is exactly what you're doing in the video you posted.

The gate sets up the angle and rhythm for the rest of the course.  Because you are skiing directly at the one-ball (and barely getting around it) you're not actually finishing the turn until at least 20 feet past the buoy.  At the two-ball you finish a good 30 feet past the ball, 40 - 45 feet past the three-ball and 50 - 60 feet past the 4-ball.  After that you simply don't have enough room left to squeak around the 5-ball.

In that video you do NOT have too much speed through the gate... you have way too little angle.

I took a few moments to create a CAD drawing that pretty closely illustrates the line you're skiing, which is represented by the green path below (everything is to scale except the ball diameters, made larger so you can see them).  Notice how you finish your turn later and later until finally you can't get around the five ball.

Now look at the purple skier path.  Not only do you get around the five-ball, you're probably going to make the entire course -  a result that I sense interests you.



Here's the interesting part: both skier paths are IDENTICAL - if you superimpose the purple path over the top of the green path they will line up exactly.  I didn't make you ski wider, earlier, or give you tighter turns on your purple pass.  The ONLY thing I did was give you a gate with a marginally better angle - about 1 1/2 degrees better.  That's all it takes: better angle.

Now you can choose to believe that or not, but I'm telling you right now if you had the same angle and duration of pull through the gate that you have from the two-ball to the three-ball you'd be running this pass with ease.

TW

Deke wrote:

TW is absolutely on the money.  Only thing missing here is HOW to get a better gate.  This is where you could use some pro coaching.  You have video, why not bite the bullet and submit it for some Virtual Coaching?  [...]

Absolutely.  You can get on track to fixing your gate TODAY for way cheaper than traveling to some ski school for coaching - not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Put together a couple of videos, spend ~ $75 with PayPal for video coaching, and start running this pass while there's still some summer left.  Here's a well-regarded "Virtual Coach" who could easily help you get over the hump: http://www.proskicoach.com/pros/wade_williams/

The -35' guys you ski with have done a fine job of getting you where you are now, but if they had ALL the answers you'd be running this pass.  $75 is enough gas money for two or three ski days - OR you could spend it to quickly get truly expert coaching from the comfort of your own home... today.

TW

Ok, worked on gates and hips/elbows tonight.

I decided that the "slow/easy" gate just wasn't getting me where I needed to be and when.  I figured I'd put more fire into it and see how things worked out.  My coach thought I was too hot, but it was easier for me to get to the buoy line ~20' before the ball.  I burned the paint off the back side of that thing several times.  I still had some that weren't so hot but I was trying to find my "departure point".  We agreed that what I was doing, albeit a little fast for -15 was working for me.

I had a really pretty (IMO for me) 5 ball pass around the 8th pass.  I went two more passes and was on the down hill side of the energy curve.  Last pass, I ran all 6.  It was not as pretty as some of the others but it was effective.  I was late out of one, about the same out of two but was making up time and getting earlier as the pass went on.  I got to five and thought, "don't EFF it up!".  Had a half crappy turn but still had plenty of time to six and out the gate.

During the five ball pass, I've got audio of my coach saying, "he's really looking like a skier... sh*t, he's a/b to run this pas"..... then I puked at 5.  lol

The video is bumpy b/c we didn't use the tracker and the guy hand holding zoomed in too close.  I'll probably youtube it tomorrow.

You are getting some good advice about what you need to work on.  Regarding the gates I agree with TW that you are narrow and without angle.  I would suggest pulling out earlier and much wider.  Then turn the ski into the wakes and gradually build angle and speed on the pull until you are working your hardest at the first wake. 

When you commit to the turn in and the pull go hard don't try to tip toe through the gates if you are early.  In practice if you miss the gates adjust your turn in time on the next pass.

I am not sure I agree with speeding up I didn't think you look like you are sinking much on that ski.  If you ski a better higher line you will carry plenty of speed around the turns.

One last thought on your turns.  I don't think you are countering much at the turns.  Try taking your free hand in the turn and moving it to your outside hip and keeping it there until the ski is pointing back across the course on the line you want then reach for the handle.  It will feel like you are waiting forever and will never get to the next buoy.  What will happen is that you will get much better angle out of the buoy and will be faster and earlier across the wake.

Good luck

Sorry for being absentee poster... been crazy at work with the boss gone.  Had to even skip my ski session tonight to meet our equine chiropractor b/c my wife was hammered today too.... I need a vacation!!

Thanks for all the info.

I know what you mean a/b the slow/fast sensation.  When I have a good pass it feels like I have all day to get there.  I've been trying to make my carve, picking up the rope and acceleration more gradual.  I had been locking in way too soon and developing too much speed (for my line length) too early.  I'd end up wide but having to carve too long to get a decent turn w/o just whipping the ski and taking a hit.  I can't tell you how many times I heard from my coach, "slow down, too fast for this level"... or something like it.  He's very much a proponent of efficiency and soft skiing.

With regards to my size, my ski size and speed:  I was set to buy the 69.  After some research, forum reading, discussion with a friend who has a 69 Senate, a trusted ski shop and Radar, it was decided that since I'm in the 190-195 and am skiing slower right now temporarily to get some course basics, the 67 made more sense instead of buying one ski now and another in a couple of months.  The thought was that I'm the top of the 67 range and the bottom of the 69.  The drawbacks to the 69 would be greater than the 67.  There's a guy I ski with who is 230, skies into 32 and feels his 69 HO is too big.  He wants to try the Senate and thinks the 67 will work better for him.

Apparently getting the first -15 pass might have been some sort of key to the big boys club.  I was told tonight that now that I've run one, it's time to up the speed.  IMO that's going to help my form to some extent.  Slightly smaller wake, less ski sinking in the turns (easier to not break at hips and keep knees bent since ski will ride flatter).  Since lift goes up as the square of the velocity, I expect to have a lot more tail support with an additional 3,4,5 mph under the ski.  Maybe that theory turns out to be BS, but I know that I've never liked the feel of skiing as slow as I am now.

I've not had time to mess with the video from Tues and won't till Sunday/Monday (beach trip).  After watching all the video, the nicest technique pass only got me five balls b/c I puked around five.  I can see that I was letting the ski carve and progressively pushed the ski out front and pulled my hips up as I accelerated.  The full pass started with a late one/two but I made up time 2-3-4-5.  I was survival skiing b/c I was gassed after 10 or so passes in a row.  My turns at the balls weren't as nice but my work behind the boat was better than the last video I posted.  I'm making progress very quickly right now (with help from PSC, my coach and video).  I want to give myself another 1-2 weeks to see how I do with more speed and then think a/b an online session.  Any suggestions?  I hate missing tonight b/c I won't be able to be on the water again till Sunday...  The more I do, the more motivated I get!

Slam2ball is right on with what I'm thinking.  ONe of the hardest things for a new skier to grasp is the difference between soft knees and squatting. With few exceptions, you want to be tall on the ski.  When you bend those knees, you tend to sit down like in a chair.  Then your hips go behind you, your shoulders move forward, and it's a rodeo.  Few people can get away with excessive knee bend because it makes it very difficult to resist the load as it builds. Take a look at this picture of Chad Scott from the Ski Ranch Record last weekend. This is picture perfect technique here. He is perfectly stacked on his ski. Now don't confuse me saying stand tall with locking your knees.  When you are standing on dry land, your front knee should be in the middle of your front foot. Jodi Fisher and Charles Mueller both worked with me on this. They kept hammering it into me that my knee bend was causing me to lose my hips and get seperation between the handle and core. And then one day Charles got me on land and said this is how I want you to stand. I finally started to get it and my skiing improved leaps and bounds then.