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Hips open off the second wake?


Horton
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@horton - apologies for the delay in getting this thread running, just come back to it now.

For me hips open is something I've been working on for the past few months and it has helped me get consistent at 13, through 12 and into 11m.

It's not so much a concept/theory but a how to do it approach which addresses :

"Maintaining handle connection", "light on the line", "reverse C", "trailing arm pressure - (left arm going to one)", "quick edge change" "riding the handle to width"

For all sorts of reasons all the above are almost impossible (for me anyway) to do, predictably, when trying to point the ski and hips to the shore.

"Back arm pressure - (right going to one)" and "hips to the shore" , "countering off the second wake" etc are ideas I have struggled with to some good effect but it has never looked or felt easy. Moreover when comparing my gate shots to Rossi (one or two handed) or Brooks Wilson (photos below) there is no fluidity.

"Back arm pressure" and "hips to the shore" after the midline means that you are fighting the pull of the boat to try and achieve the width - unless you are super strong, or timing is just right, the handle always separates from the hip resulting in an unbalanced (usually on the tail) position on the ski and loss of the direction you are actually aiming for. (This is always perfectly exampled when trying a new line length and going harder = get pulled up and go fast and narrow at one.)

"Hips open to the boat" means for me engaging the best stacked position at about the first white water in order to store energy in the ski which is then allowed to release as you come up, using the trailing arm connection, to cast the ski out on to its inner edge. Keeping the hips open, critically, allows you to maintain the connection with the boat which in turn pulls you to width and allows you to keep balanced in the middle of the ski, all on a sustainable angle.

 

Notes:

1. The work zone is narrowed - white water to second wake.

2. This does not mean giving anything away to the boat, or taking a narrow line, you are still leaned away during the edge change, in fact you can actually load harder with the reduced work zone as you are not fighting to stay down.

3. Speed has to be maintained through the turn - taking a "hit" changes everything.

4. The only time you can really practice this is the gate or free skiing.

5. You do "counter" only a little later once you release

6. So much easier on the body

 

I realise that this is a diametric opposite to what many many skiers are working on, but this is a friendly forum so hopefully meaningful discussion follows ?- please don't flame me outright!

Lots of you guys are much more experienced "thinkers" at this game than me and will no doubt be able to put this into better words, or rationalise why I'm wrong?

Anyway I've done my best to explain this - taken ages! Think I prefer to be a lurker.

 

Kevin

 

The photos are of Brooks:

1. Late load in the white water

2. ski releases off the second wake

3. Hips open whilst connected

4. Countered in to the turn

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The below post is either really smart or really misguided. You guys are the BallOfSpray smart guys. Comments?

 

@6balls @AB @Alvin_Neff @bishop8950 @brooks @Bruce_Butterfield @Bruce55 @Chad_Scott @chrisrossi @DaveLemons @Dirt

@Drago @DUSkier @DW @Ed_Johnson @Ham_Wallace @jdarwin @jimbrake @Klundell @MAD11 @Marco @MarcusBrown @matthewbrown @MrJones @MS @OB @ral @richarddoane @rico @ripa38 @schroed @scoke @scotchipman @Sethski

@ShaneH @skidawg @skiep @TFIN @Than_Bogan @Triplett @tsixam @twhisper @Wish

 

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I'll give it a try - as a few things come to mind when you say hips open after the second wake.

 

The most important for me is that there is a load transfer from the leading arm ( or both arms) to the trailing arm. So this is more of a pressure feeling in the hand.

 

The transfer of load to the trailing hand/arm helps open your shoulders and the hips follow. The thought process ( and I know pendulum physics are a touchy subject to many, like green 3 balls to @OB), but, when you were a kid in a swing, how did you get high? You leaned back and then transferred weight to the front to carry the momentum out to your highest point, you didn't just lean back on the swing and stay there. The concept of transferring load to the trailing arm is sort of like swinging, you want to take advantage of the inertia going out. If you stay closed, the tight rope on the leading arm pulls you up and on a narrower path. In reality, you are just switching load to use as much rope and reach to run out on.

 

The complicated part is that if you think of it, you are sort of countering before your counter into the turn, in the opposite direction. As you need to counter with level head and shoulders into the turn, which most will agree with, to have the best turn while carrying speed.

 

@Horton and I discussed this a little out here at the beginning of the season, I think in one of the advanced topic threads. It is a difficult thing to do, and I do it much better into my offside. When you watch the top guys do it, it happens pretty fast and while they are pushing the ski out in front of them, so slow motion is probably the best way to see it and appreciate it. The trailing arm comes in tighter to waist with elbow bent, then extends out for the run out to the ball.

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@AB, great point. Although (some) coaches and other skiers have told me that edging with leading arm pressure is an accelerator, and for 15 off skiers like myself that keeping the handle a little longer is good, which both do work for me, I have also been told that I have to keep the handle in the correct way, which means when it am holding on to the handle, and starting my counter, that I start to hold on to it with my trailing arm. Wow, so much to learn.
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In fairness to the discussion, without getting off topic, I petition to stop using the term "trailing arm" or "back arm". It's reference is often misunderstood and used to describe different arms depending on who you talk to (as in me, right now)... Is it possible to change this verbiage to: RH to 1 or LH to 2-4-6, something we can visualize and understand without having to confirm?

 

As I sit and type this telling me "back arm" means nothing, and even when you try to visualize skiing, your back arm changes through a wake crossing and edge change. Its confusing to say the least...

 

At any ski school I've been to I've never heard those words, only read them in articles or online. The coach always references which arm going in a certain direction, not back or trailing.

 

IE I was told by a pro to keep straight and load my LEFT arm more in my pullout or towards 2-4-6. This helps me get width and maintain line tension before turning into the gates as I was narrow, turning in with slack.

 

 

 

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Agree, back arm to some may mean the lead arm, as you are leaning away and back. Lead and Trailing arm seem to make some sense to me. Right is leading into 135 and left is trailing.

Seems redundant to spell out the arm and the balls every time..

 

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@AB -a lot of people misunderstand how a swingset works. the only way to increase your swing and get high is add energy to the system and the only way to get more energy into the system is through your hands that are holding the chains above your center of mass. your hands make a pivot point so you can move your com a head of the pivot point or behind the pivot point.

i think the load transfer between lead arm and trailing arm works on the same principle, allowing the ski to retain speed outbound after the first wake. heres a link i found that does a better job of explaining the principle. http://www.physicsinsights.org/up_in_a_swing.html

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As I considered @Deep11 's post, this is how I put it together...

 

If I picture myself in a wake crossing headed to 1-3-5 side and think about openness and arm/hand pressure at the 1st wake (right before the center-line), at that point I should be stacked, centered, and balanced - meaning that the body position is stacked and open to the boat, the pressure on my hands is equal, and the handle and rope are centered across the width of my stacked body and the ski is "theoretically" pointed as perpendicular to the boat's path as possible.

 

To illustrate impact consider this conceptual arrangement: If we take this "centered" position and slide it far towards 1 ball WITHOUT rotating the ski's vector (keeping it near perpendicular to the boat's path), then the pressure on my hands must be higher on my right arm since the rope is pointed back behind me to the left. Are you with me? Just recognize the vector of the rope force clearly puts more pressure on the right hand/arm if the skier were to be in this theoretical position.

 

Once you cross the center-line on the way to 1-ball with both hands on the rope, the pressure from moving outward puts increased load on your right hand. Therefore, we have to concentrate on our ("trailing") left hand's pressure and work to increase it to put things back into balance. If I don't think about my left hand pressure on the way to 1-ball then I do not maintain that balance. The over-loading on my right arm pulls my right shoulder up and the handle away from my body too soon.

 

Coming out of the buoy (let's stay at 1-ball), I want my ski to move into a vector which points back across the wake towards 2-ball, generating acceleration wide and early. Now, since I am still out wide near the 1-3-5 buoy line, the natural pressure on my hands will still be significantly higher on my right hand/arm. I need to establish balance, so I need to focus on my ("leading") left hand/arm pressure to transfer some of that load off the right arm. This pressure then shifts as the ski and I move toward the center-line from being unbalanced and requiring focus to re-balance to that perfect point of balance at the 1st wake.

 

Then, continuing on toward 2ball, the ski and I move out of balance as we move outbound and I have to focus again (now on the right hand/arm headed out to 2) to attempt to maintain it.

 

The key is that handle pressure varies from one hand to balanced to the other hand as you move from at width to crossing the wakes to gaining width due to the rope's force vector (angle on the boat). This transition is fluid from one hand to both to the other. Our focus in an attempt to maintain balanced pressure must also be fluid from the unloaded hand to balanced to the other unloaded hand. In the case of turn into the gates, through the gates and out to 1-ball, the focus is right hand/arm, then balanced, then left hand/arm.

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@Deep11

 

Have you read this? Counter-Rotation by Trent Finlayson

http://www.ballofspray.com/home-v16/skiers-4/trent-f/1641-counter-rotation-by-frent-finlayson

 

This whole idea does not make sense to me but I am always open to find out that I am simply missing something. The idea that my hips or sternum would be pointed to the inside* of the path that my ski is on is pretty much the opposite of how I try to ski. It seems like it would pull me to the inside and kill my outbound direction.

 

(*More that normal)

 

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@TFIN was exactly who I was thinking of with this topic. I know he and I had a conversation at Cottonwood after he rode in the boat about my hip alignment. We discussed that I was keeping my hips too open which was causing me to fall inside the arc with my upper body. It's entirely possible that I just don't completely understand what the OP'er was trying to communicate, though.
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I am with @Horton on this. The idea of having my hips pointing at the boat when I am trying to get the ski to carry out to the ball seems counter-intuitive. Granted I am a mid 35 skier but I can't wrap my brain around this concept. I am going to go back and re-read TFIN's article and see if it makes any sense to me.
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Great topic. I thought I would throw my two cents in (like it or not...). First of all, I agree about the confusion on which arm and have always tried to explain it to students like this:

Which arm are we talking about?!?-The old term for the LH to 2-4-6 and RH to 1-3-5 was based on theory 20 years ago. Back when I was told to keep my shoulder down to create power. This term SHOULD HAVE died 15 years ago when the thoughts changed. PORT, STBD, LEFT, RIGHT, LH to 2-4-6, are all god ideas, but isn't it simple enough to say "Leading Arm" and "Trailing Arm"? Heading to 2-4-6 which arm is trailing...quite simply the right arm.

 

Now, relative to rotation, arm pressure, body orientation, I am including an excerpt from a recent article I put on my site. Not because it is the simple truth (because it is still only one man's opinion...MINE), but because it is easier than typing the whole thing over again. This was a part of an article that referred to all of this confusion and more and talked about not just following the latest trends and buzz words in skiing. I hope it at least spells out my thoughts.

 

BTW, I have enjoyed reading this thread and reading all of the different ways to look at it. IT helps continually mold my perspective on it and hopefully helps me relate more to different skiers I work with. I particularly liked the phrase in the @TFIN article, "Skeletal Alignment" which I always describe is stacking your bones for structural strength versus using muscular strength when out of alignment. Cool stuff in my opinion. Also, as a quick note, if you maintain openess to the boat as you cross the centerline, the change in pressures as you cross that same centerline will cause the lower body to effectively "squirt" out from under you in the direction you are headed. You can basically use the pull of the boat to cause the transition.

 

Here is the excerpt from the article:

"Body Orientation (countered, closed, or face the tip of the ski?:

While off the handle (from the beginning of the reach to the finish of the turn), this term should make sense relative to athletics and making an athletic direction change. In athletics, direction change (while maintaining speed) is accomplished by slightly countering away from the desired direction of travel such that the athlete’s body mass maintains pressure on the inside of the turn and therefore doesn’t create force in the wrong direction.

 

While on the handle (swinging behind the boat), by aligning the spine of the athlete with the force acting on it (the boat), the athlete is best using his or her structural strength to harness the energy of the boat and most effectively transfer that energy to his or her ski.

 

The catch is that there are two moments where these two phases overlap. As you finish the turn and as your transition out into your glide, it is very easy to get confused on where your body should face. The simple answer as you finish the turn is that as long as you don’t over-rotate your body through the turn, you will ski back into a position that is both “countered” relative to the ski and the turn, and also aligned with the pull coming form the pylon of the boat. Through the transition, I believe a good rule of thumb is that you can follow the attitude of the ski. By this I mean that as long the ski is still on the cutting edge, you will continue to face the pylon, but as the ski starts to move out into the glide and therefore onto the turning edge, you will begin to counter away from the turning edge of the ski very progressively to prepare for the next turn.

Arm Pressure

Much like the body orientation, pressure on each arm changes throughout the course. In its simplest form, it follows the same basic principles as body orientation. As you hook up to the handle at the finish of the turn, you will have more pressure on your leading arm, but as you approach the center of the wakes and, in essence, get closer to being directly behind the direction of the force from the boat, you will add more and more pressure to the trailing arm, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be giving up any pressure on your leading arm. The net force on you from the boat (based on the direction your ski is pointed versus the direction the boat is heading) increases as you approach the center of the boat. The addition of pressure on the trailing arms is how you can resist the boat without getting into a position you can’t move out of. This also helps you keep your body aligned with the pylon/force that’s towing you.

 

Now, as you cross the centerline, it is important to keep pressure on the trailing arm so that the lower body can effectively swing through to allow the skier to cast/swing out past the buoy line on an early efficient path. This is also where there is a lot of confusion because there is much current buzz that suggests that you should be heavy on the leading arm during the transition. The leading arm can not give up pressure through the transition or the skier will automatically get pulled down course. In order to continue outbound, the skier must attempt to continue to ski out against the leading arm which is where the concept of leading arm pressure comes from. This still can’t be interpreted as maintaining a lean on the leading arm, however THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE NEED TO STATICALLY LEAN ON THE LEADING ARM!!! There is a transfer of pressure even through the transition such that when the outside arm (previously referred to as leading arm) is released from the handle, there is no sudden loss of connection with the boat."

 

If it is of any interest to you, you can find the entire article at http://www.sethstisher.com/2013/10/20/my-two-cents-on-some-of-the-water-ski-confusion/

 

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Great description by @Sethski!

 

My perception of hip and shoulder position are largely influenced by my 35+ years of fall line snow skiing. When skiing the fall line, my focus is to keep my upper body (from the hips up), quiet and always facing down the fall line. All the movement side to side happens with the legs. It is a very balanced and powerful position to be in.

 

Translate to water skiing, I think of the fall line as the direction the boat is traveling. Therefore, I try to keep my hips and shoulders always facing down course (as much as possible, much harder to do on the offside). Off the second wake and into the buoy, keeping the hips/shoulders down course creates a countered position relative to my lower body. I have always maintained that a good countered position at the buoy is actually just a continuation of keeping my upper body quiet and facing the same direction at the buoy as it does behind the boat. Counter rotation is not a move to make, it is a continuation of the same hip/shoulder direction you have at center line.

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Perhaps another way to think of this "Hips Open Off Second Wake" subject is relating it to downhill snow skiing. I have always been coached to keep your shoulders facing/pointing downhill as that will give you the most power and control of where you are going. Granted - we don't have a "downhill" in slalom, but we do have the boat. That boat is taking the place of the "hill" - providing the pull, like gravity does on the ski slope. When we align our shoulders and body to that pull it creates the most effecient use of the power provided by the boat. What may make this a little confusing when applying snow skiing to water skiing is that when we turn on the ski slope the turns are not near as wide (usually) (ie: slalom course wide), but I think the principles are very similar.

 

I will not attempt to break this down (ie: into separate movements) any further - @sethski has already done that very precisely. Thanks Seth for posting that excerpt!

 

Edit: I posted this before reading @marco's comments.

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The challenge becomes how to load out of the turn with chest open to the boat. I am an old timer, so I learned to rotate my shoulders with chest pointed across the wakes, but, I think it is much more efficient to rotate below the waist and stay chest open to the boat. On a good day, I think I am somewhere in between, which loads on the leading arm, with a slightly lower leading shoulder. I feel a definite load switch to my trailing arm/hand in the middle of the wake or second wake at the latest, then push my left hip forward going into 1 ball (RFF). That is my best setup for a good offside.

 

Old habits have a way of popping up when focusing on buoys, so I think a lot of younger guys don't have to break this habit, so that is why there is always some discussion on closed vs. open to the boat.

 

There are some points in skiing where you just have to hold on, throw the ski on edge, and roll the dice on how you are going to look after the second wake. I have found this past summer that with ZO, it is much better for me to throw in some type of counter move before my offside turn, even if I think I am going Mach 10 and late, which is very counter-intuitive for me. For my onside turn, I literally believe I can scream into the turn and feel like I can drop my inside hip, which feels like I am sitting on the buoy, (which wouldn't be good for the buoy at 250lbs), and then hold onto a pretty large hit and still make it.

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Hi @horton, the scientist in me is finding this thread really interesting. A bit of "null hypothesis" - you create a theory and then test it by trying to disprove it. Far more meaningful than trying to prove it which generally brings in lots of bias.

 

It's great that @sethski has contributed, as I have posted in another thread it is Seth that I have been emailing videos to over the last 2 years. As with all teaching / coaching the students do not necessarily interpret the information to the same end. This thread is interesting as rather than just spouting by rote what we have discussed, I have been explaining my interpretation based not only on our discussions but my experiences and findings (working on myself and other skiers - Cam)

 

The basis of the hips to shore for me is:

1. IF you have a tight line off the second wake AND MAINTAIN a tight line you will head out to width - you have no choice.

2. If you maintain the tight line - How far up on the boat you get depends on - how fast you are going and how much drag or resistance you impart.

3. It is of course more complicated as the boat is moving down course so tension in the line helps to maintain your outward speed.

 

So...

 

For me this translates into:

1. achieving my perfect stacked position ("indestructible" at the wake) and then

2. allowing that stored energy to chuck me out to width, connected, with a tight line.

 

This is the key for me, I can't create the same speed as Nate so being able to maintain the tight line is about the handle to hip connection which in turn is about decreasing the resistance so I can stay leaned away and let the ski move under me and still get to width. Like everything it's a balancing act.

Personally whilst I seem to be able to ski 13m any number of ways, it is the "feel" of the pass (or even a couple of bouys) which make it feel good for me. The easy pass is the one where I connect at the white water, trailing arm pressure, hips to shore off the second wake, stay connected and balanced throughout. This is the way I want to ski, just making the pass doesn't cut it any more. Much easier on the body also.

 

A last point is that the idea "hips to boat" is what works for me. I always hate it when people say that but In the thread which spawned this thread it was asked what have you learned?

I am knocking 50, 6'4, 210lbs yet still fairly flexible (P90x yoga). After a year of free skiing I found that my perfect stacked position is hips open to the boat - shoulders and hips in line. So "hips to the boat" off the second wake means maintaining what I've got ( not giving up or taking more). As Seth would confirm my problem early in the season was trying to turn my hips away off the second wake and disconnecting. For a skier who's best stacked position is more closed the mental mantra may well be "hips to the shore", but it's not going to work for me. Trailing arm pressure however will probably work for everyone.

 

Kevin

 

 

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Kevin, aka @deep11 you have really spelled this all out beautifully in my mind. The wording is different from what I always say (which is great because it is this kind of thing that helps me keep an open mind about how to deliver thoughts to others), but the idea is the same. I haven't always thought of it the way I described or the way you described. I spent many years trying too hard to manually create the edge change/transition, but the best thing I ever figured out with the help of several people's input to keep me guessing and testing was that the boat swings you out to the buoy line if you "stay behind the handle" and keep your connection balanced.

 

Man, we are all geeks huh? Love it though!

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@ShaneH -think about these 2 extremes going thru the gate 1- right after the second wake you turn immediately to your left and ski up on the boat but fast and narrow at the 1 ball. or 2- right after the second wake you turn right and head outbound even though the boat wants to drag you down course so you end up wide and slower at the 1 ball. which one do you prefer? we know if you want to turn left you counter with your left hip forward which is closed to the boat but if you want to turn right you counter with your right hip forward which is open to the boat.

so if all thats true then staying open to the boat thru the second wake should help propel your ski out bound instead of turning down course on a fast narrow path. maybe they call it counter cuz its counter intuitive.

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Maybe it's just terminology or perception. I see how @twhisper has open shoulders and hips coming into the first wake. But as he transitions his hips start to follow the vector of the ski outbound even while his shoulders continue to stay facing downcourse and the load transfers to his trailing arm. Especially on his onside(going to 1/3/5) you see his left hip start to move forward,effectively closing off to the boat.
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Shane, I don't think the hips are as important as the load on the arms/hands. I think it is a given that you shouldn't load on the leading arm past the second wake in ideal circumstances. Transferring load to the trailing arm is more important than keeping your hips open, as that lets the ski run out on the path you started opposed to getting pulled up and narrow.

 

Moving hips back and forth is probably inefficient and would start to resemble the chicken dance.

 

After the second wake, IMO, it is more important to push the ski out in front of you outside the initial path you started through the wake (at least it should feel like it), as this sets up the widest path to the ball. This is when lighter leading arm pressure is important and needed for balance. Just my 2c.

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Let's assume for a moment that this idea of maintaining a down-course posture, or always facing the fall line (@Marco) is one of the few definitive, core elements to elite levels of performance.

 

Right behind the boat (well, technically white-water to center-line, with the most significant freeze frame right at the first wake), all great skiers are trying to generate the most efficient momentum and vector to carry them wide and early to the next buoy, right? At this point, they are all "open" to the boat and stacked, with balanced load on both hands, right? Thus, if these elements are indisputable as necessary at this time when the skier is most concerned with going left or right vs. down course, then these concepts would still apply as the skier is moving outbound from center-line to the point of releasing the outside hand. So, why isn't it the same?!?!?

 

e0fa731dcc8ead204b707bac420383.gif

Just before the center-line, the rope's force is converging with the desired hip alignment of down course (or as @Marco refers to the fall line). Only at this point does the rope and fall line align. Only at this point does "open to the boat" and "facing down course" mean the exact same thing.

 

 

303618aa81293992655f4f8005cc51.gif

So, once the skier moves past the center-line and heads outbound, the force vector from the rope is no longer perfectly down course. Now, it is behind the skier. Second, the point of focus of facing down course is no longer aligned with the rope's force. At this point, the skier cannot assume that his posture should be "open" as a function of his or her position relative to the boat.

 

 

At this point, the skier's posture should be assess in comparison to the "fall line" or down course. Is the skier still "open" to the "fall line"? Is the skier still stacked with shoulders behind the hips in terms of their relation to the fall line / down course? That's why this is so difficult to discuss. We aren't clear what our reference point is when describing these elements at different points from buoy to buoy. Once we establish that the reference point is the fall line or down course vector, we can apply these agreed upon concepts and they match what we see in the elite skiers.

 

So, if you are drinking my cool aid still, what does that mean for hand/arm pressure? It means that you have to adjust that pressure to counter act the ropes' changing force vector.

 

e0fa731dcc8ead204b707bac420383.gif

Again, when the skier is "behind the boat", that force vector and the point of reference are aligned. The skier therefore is able to have balanced force across both arms. However, as the skier moves outbound those two vectors diverge and the skier should not continue to maintain equal force across both hands.

 

c7ebc0857b8e23372b758d4e2d2269.gif

Since the force vector (rope) has moved behind the reference vector (down course), the rope's force is causing a greater distribution of that force to the outside hand on the handle. If the skier is still maintaining balanced hand force, the rope will pull the skier's outside hand/arm back toward the center-line, thus the opposite of what we call counter-rotation. It would rotate the skier backward and cause their posture to no longer be aimed down course. They lose their fall line and they lose their width like this:

303618aa81293992655f4f8005cc51.gif

 

SO....

The solution is to adjust the skier's hand/arm force so as to counter-act on the rope force and maintain the skier's desired down-course posture. This is why the skier must increase the sensation of more hand/arm pressure on the trailing hand (left hand when headed to 1-ball).

e4f890db96ee9ca53a3e6760d72566.gif

 

With more force on the trailing (left hand when going to 1-ball), the skier can counter-act the rope's force vector and can maintain the skier's posture alignment with the reference vector of down course.

 

Also, you will notice that the trailing arm (left when going to 1-ball) must be closer to the body so that the leading arm (right when going to 1-ball) isn't pulled too far from the body causing too early of a release or causing the rope's force to pull the outside shoulder back toward the boat. So, keep the handle in close.

e4f890db96ee9ca53a3e6760d72566.gif

 

The elite skiers all do this transition of arm pressure so fluidly that by the time they are ready to release with the outside hand, they have transferred all of the rope's force to the trailing arm (left when headed to 1-ball) by the point where they actually release with the outside hand. That is why the handle can stay in and low after the release until the approach of the apex as the skier's body and ski move wider than the handle's path and away from the handle during the reach.

 

Finally, as the skier moves further outbound, the momentum vector of the ski is slowly moving more down course until the apex of the turn. Thus, the amount of force felt on the handle is starting to decrease as well. The ski and skier are no longer opposing the boat but are converging their momentum and vector along with the boat as they come up along side and become "free from the boat" as they approach the buoy. Thus, the amount of force from the rope is also diminishing while the skier is finishing the transition of force to fully on the inside, trailing (left hand on the way to 1-ball) arm.

 

So, yeah...

1. Stay stacked with shoulders behind the hips in relation to the fall line down course.

2. Stay open to the fall line down course.

3. Transfer arm pressure to trailing arm (left on the way to 1-ball).

4. Keep the handle in until release - which should be easier if you did the above correctly.

 

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@ToddL -nice graphics but some of the images show the ski turned at a very steep angle to the boat path maybe steeper than anyone can actually maintain but even if they could the actual path of travel is determined by the skiers sideways speed combined with the boats down course speed. many top skiers/coaches put the maximum sustainable angle of cross course travel in the 40 to 45 degree range which about matches the angle of the skiers shoulders in the second image from the top.
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@ToddL - they did do that but they seem to suggest that a skiers shoulders area always aligned with his hips from an overhead view which i dont think is the case. theres a a great view of Marcus Brown showing absolutely that the hips can be turned one way while the shoulders can be turned a different angle entirely in this video at about 2:09 -

 

 

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I know some pretty smart guys who think there is something to the this idea of opening your hips on the way out, but I do not get it.

 

We are all open through the wakes. The question is how open? Personally I ski in a natural or neutral hip and shoulder position. This means that going toward off side I am pretty open and going to on side I am much less open. The topic at hand is should there be a little more or less rotation. I am not 100% sure but I think that @SethSki and @TFIN are not suggesting a radical change.

 

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Drop a dime in the can

 

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There is definitely something to this as I have watched @Deep11 improve his tournament score by 8 buoys this season, not bad for someone pushing 50 with years of skiing behind him.

But more importantly his skiing looks slower, smoother and in control with less effort, we just don't expect him to miss a pass these days.

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