Handle control musings

[Razorskier1]

I skied a bunch of -32s with Mitch driving the other day. First few he likes, but he says I'm giving up my handle too soon. Hmmm. I often hear people say "keep your handle longer". Thing is, you can't just keep your handle longer if you are doing something wrong before that which causes you to give up the handle. In my case, I noticed that I was progressing too deep into my lean, thus creating a bit too much load. The result . . . can't keep the handle longer because the boat is unloading you and taking it away before you want it to.

 

So to fix the "keep your handle longer" problem, I found that I just needed to be less loaded at the wakes, thus allowing me to easily keep the handle with me as I traveled outbound. That is one example of the difficulty of coaching in this sport. What I need to hear from a coach is what I'm doing to cause the problem, not for someone to tell me what the problem is. And just telling me to keep my handle longer isn't going to work unless I fix the problem that caused me to give the handle up early in the first place.

 

Musings on handle control.

[Gloersen]

Excellent topic. Certainly impediments in technique result from deficiencies one, two, even three “steps” ahead.

 

Matt Rini is excellent in this regard; identifying what’s errant leading up to the issue such as having the boat take the handle way too early. He’ll describe “lean” as on a scale of 0 – 10, 0 being vertical, 10 horizontal. If one needs to run say -35 with a lean of 5-6, then that lean is best established out wide when the load or force from the boat is least. Get the desired lean efficiently early then don’t add to it entering the centerline else wise the ZO will yank you up and out of it. Hide the back shoulder, control the reach/line tension, etc….

 

AM alludes to the same concept, establish position early, out wide, accelerate uniformly into the spray then ride that connection out to the other side, the transition to the decelerating edge then facilitated.

 

But for me it all begs the next question; how to do the above?

 

….More coaching

 

[GaryWilkinson]

Related to handle control is Seth's video on ski track vs handle track. It's on YouTube just search Seth and ipad. Seth's point is, (hope I got this right) at the point of maximum load, or should I say when the boat is at its most powerful, the ski should start to separate from the handle while keeping it in close.

 

Hard to do. The secret I've found is in the position in that my shoulders have to be back, hips aligned and knees bent allowing the start of the edge change. At this point im at a load of 7 soon to be by the 2nd wake at a 3! IMHO if your legs are too straight with a load around 6-7 at the 2nd wake, something's got to give and its usually 1 of 2 places, handle away from body, or in my case too often, it's breaking forward at the waist which is another popular topic !

 

Oh to be supple and have great timing. Nate smith does this better than anyone on the planet. My 54 yr old body has a tough time doing it unfortunately, but when it does, the load is lighter, angle is better, I'm ahead of the course and life is good!

[LeonL]

@Gloersen, hide your back shoulder?? I used to do that and people have been trying to get me out of that for years now, and when I do open up it sure works better.

[Gloersen]

@LeonL, semantics always muddy the water. Basically hide the back shoulder to emphasize staying open, shoulders level, 90 deg to the course across the 2nd wake as opposed to separating from the handle and letting the outside shoulder get pulled up and to the inside too soon.

 

However not synonymous with burying the outside shoulder below the inside shoulder and closed. I've been given many a pylon lesson in leaning with this closed stance as well; good for a few OTFs.

 

Open shoulders with a strong connection into the centerline is not so difficult; after that is a different matter imho

[LeonL]

Yeah, I get your drift now. Sorta misunderstood "back" duh on me.

[Razorskier1]

I sometimes think about just "letting the boat have my shoulder" rather than pulling my shoulder away from the boat. So when I go from 2 to 3 ball, I let my right shoulder be closer to the boat rather than pulling it away from the boat. Same result -- I stay more open.