Give Yourself Two On-Side Turns

We naturally have an “on-side”, and an “off-side” turn in slalom. What many skiers try to do is to overcompensate on the off-side by trying to turn, and rotate the whole body to get the ski to rotate around. This just makes the off-side worse. Why do we have an “on-side” and an “off-side” turn? It’s the stance… On our on-side turns our hips are naturally opened up, making it easier to keep the shoulders level, and get the lower body weight moving over the inside of the arc. The off-side is more difficult because our hips are closed up.

To improve this situation, what can we do? Well, think of a snow skier. They have two even, or on-side turns. By being able to move the feet individually of each other a snow skier can open equally well on both sides. Approaching a left turn, the outside foot will drop back a bit making the skier essentially a left foot forward skier. On the other side the left foot will fall behind the right foot a bit making them a right foot forward skier.

A slalom waterskier isn’t allowed to make quite as much change in stance, but we can improve our off-sides by making them more like our on-sides. As you approach your off-side turn try to mimmick that snow skier movement as much as possible. If you could you would drop that outside leg back. Well we can’t move our feet, but we can move our hips. Try taking that outside hip back as much as possible. If you’re a right foot forward skier approaching the 1 3 5 buoy side twist your hips to the right. Bring the right side of the hips back, and the left side of your hips forward. You’re trying to open up your hips so your left hip is now more over your front foot, and your right hip is brought back more to the middle of the ski. A left foot forward skier will do this on the other side of the course, on the 2 4 6 side. Bring the right side of the hips forward over that left foot, and allow the left side of the hips to trail, staying over the middle of the ski.

By opening up the hips as much as possible into and through our off-side turns we can make the ski turn equally well on both sides of the course.

 

 

Slalom Waterski Lesson by Terry Winter: Using Body Alignment for Balance and Power

A common problem I encounter when coaching a waterski lesson is the skier’s lack of proper body alignment. What I mean by body alignment is how do the head, the shoulders, the hips, and the feet line up. And, where does that put the skier’s weight over the ski?

What the skier should be striving for is perfect alignment through the body at almost all points throughout the course. If you were to draw a straight line through the skier’s body it should go through the center of the head, the shoulders, the hips and right in between the feet. This type of alignment will give the skier the strongest possible body position against the hard pull of the boat, and it will also put the skier’s weight directly over the “sweet spot” of the ski making it turn sharper, and making it faster across the course during the cuts.

The problem most skiers experience is that usually their body is out of alignment. This creates a weak body position against the pull of the boat, and inhibits the ski from performing as it should. A weak body alignment is easy to spot… The upper body is usually too far forward with a bend at the waist, and the lower body is sitting back too far towards the tail of the ski. A weak body position makes it nearly impossible to hold on to a big turn, and it makes the ski want to slide more down the course instead of being able to dig in and carve a path going across the course.

Of course, there will be some changes throughout the slalom course where the upper body moves around a bit, and the ski will swing out in front and then move behind the central balance point of the body. However, if you can learn to limit some of this movement, and focus on keeping the body more quiet and aligned you’ll find that you can increase the power of your pulling position and increase your ability to turn and carve the ski more in the direction you want to travel across the course.

 

Ski Lighter, Ski Earlier

One of the hardest things to do while slaloming is to not overdo the pulls. You always feel like you’re running just a bit behind, and pulling harder is going to get you earlier to the next turn. Problem is, it’s easy to get the angle at first, but much tougher to maintain that angle long enough to be beneficial.

Remember that with the new Zero Off boats the harder you pull against them the more gas they give you in return. What happens is you get to a point that you can no longer increase or even maintain that kind of load, and then you lose everything you had just built up including your outward direction into the next turn. It’s more important to have good direction from the second wake out to the buoy than it is to have lots of speed and angle from the buoy to the first wake.

One thing you need to experiment with is how light you can cut, and still get to the next turn in good position. Instead of coming out of the turns and immediately pulling as hard as you can, try this… think about completing the turn, and getting your best possible body position right away. Once the ski has turned and is pointing towards the wake, and you have your handle close to your hips just see if you can maintain that all the way from the finish of the turn right through the second wake. Don’t try to pull any harder than what you have from the finish of the turn, and don’t let your body change positions.

What you’ll find is that by skiing lighter you’ll be able to maintain better body position, and you’ll be skiing earlier in the course. Proper body position is much more effective than a hard pull.

 

Waterski Lesson: Counter Rotate for Leverage by Terry Winter

As I give a waterski lesson, one of my primary focuses is on a skier’s body position. There’s lots of different styles of slalom pulling positions, but whatever it looks like you have to have a strong, leveraged pulling position to get across the course effectively.
One way to increase your leverage, and therefore increase your ability to get across the course on an earlier line, is by counter-rotating. Counter-rotating means opening up your body so that your hips and shoulders are facing more down the length of the course while your ski is pointed across the course. For example, say you’re turning and cutting to the right. As your ski is arcing around to the right you’re trying to make your shoulders and hips twist a bit to the left. With a good, countered body position the observer in the boat should be able to see the fronts of both of the skier’s shoulders.
            What countering allows you to do is soften your legs better, and get your hips or center of gravity leaning away more from the boat. This will shift your body’s weight so that you have more pressure over the ski’s cutting edge, and make it possible for you to hold a better line cutting more directly across the course. This will set you up for wider, earlier turns. If you close off your hips and shoulders, making them face across rather than down the course, your legs will tend to be straighter and stiffer and your hips or body’s weight will be placed more over the center of the ski. This will lessen your ability to hold your ski on a solid edge, which leads to shallower, faster approaches to your turns.

Counter Rotate for leverage: Steps 1-5

Step1- Pre-Turn: Get yourself countered before the buoy so that when you are completing the turn you’re already set up in a good, countered position.

Step 2- Completing the Turn: As the ski is finishing the turn at the buoy keep the head and eyes looking more down the course rather than looking straight across the wakes. Keeping the eyes down course will prevent the upper body from closing off.

Step 3- Loading 50/50: As you really begin to load up the line into the wakes feel an even pressure on both hands holding the handle. Don’t try to load up your body unevenly, twisting your body more towards one arm or the other. You’re strongest dividing the load evenly throughout your shoulders and back. ( A really good time to get the feeling for this is when you’re cutting out for the gates).

Step 4- Wake Crossing: Think more about maintaining a strong body position rather than trying to increase the load. If you keep pulling harder you’ll get to a point where you can no longer hold it, and you’ll lose your position and your outward swing into the next turn. If you have come out of the turn with good direction, and you can maintain it, you’ll set yourself up nicely for the next turn. There’s no need to overdo the pulling.

Step 5- Pre-Turn: Set up the next turn by getting countered again. Think outside/free-arm shoulder back, and inside hip forward. If you’re turning to the left, bring your left hip forward, and let your right shoulder reach back a bit. Turning to the right, it’s the right hip coming forward, and the left shoulder reaching back.

Waterski Lesson: Separating the Edge Change from the Handle Release

One of the more common struggles I witness while coaching slalom skiing is how to manage control of the handle and body position throughout the edge-change process.

 Many skiers make the mistake of combining the release of the handle with the edge-change. What achieves greater results is separating the two… the edge change should occur somewhere close to the center of the wakes, while the release of the handle should be done about half way out to the width of the buoy from the center of the wakes.

What you’re looking to accomplish is maintaining a hip-to-elbows/handle relationship that stays the same all the way from the completion of the turn, through the wake crossing, and up to the release (again, about half way out to the buoy from the center of the wakes). As you complete the turn feel your hips and your handle come together. You should be able to feel your elbows pinned against the sides of your vest. If you have any gap at all between your vest and your elbows, then your position is not as strong as it could be. As you approach the wakes soften your legs, and allow the load you have built up through the cut to release the ski from its cutting edge on to its inside, turning edge. The key here is to keep your body’s core tight. Maintain your position of the hips, the handle, and the elbows. The only body position change here is in the lower body. With your ski on the inside edge, ride it out halfway to the buoy’s width. This is where you can start your handle release. Allow your self to ski out, and away from the handle.

By maintaining this strong body position through the edge change, and waiting longer to release the handle you will set yourself up for much earlier, wider turns.

 

Pre Season Slalom

I often get asked about how I start the season. Pre-season skiing is tough, especially if you’re skiing in a colder climate. Muscles are cold and stiff, and not as strong as they were in the summer. Cold hands and feet make it tough to get a good feel for the handle, and what the ski is doing underneath you. Also, the ski rides differently in the colder water, riding higher and giving a sense of less stability and more speed.

What I like to do when I start is make it as easy as possible to get back in a good rhythm, and give my body a chance to get used the strains and hard pulls again. I typically start off at a slower speed. I’ll drop it down to 34mph for a while, and go through the line lengths. This gives me more of a sense of how it usually feels when I ski, whipping up wider on the boat and making some harder turns. If I go back to my top speed too soon I usually can’t run too many line lengths, and it takes longer to get a good sense of skiing well.

When I do feel comfortable again at the slower speed I’ll go back up to my top speed, and stay at the easier line lengths for a while until I feel that I can run each one very well. I’ll run a lot of 32 off’s until I feel that I’m really dialed, and have some of my strength back. Then I’ll go shorter, and try to dial in the next pass. The point is if you’re first pass is sketchy or tough the next one is going to be worse. Give yourself some time to feel like you’re really used to your ski again, and your body position is back on point.

Give yourself plenty of time to work back into skiing. I might ski at 34 for a couple of weeks, and then go faster and stay at the longer line lengths for another couple of weeks. The more time you can spend getting your ski and body position dialed at the easier passes the faster you’re going to progress through the tougher passes.