Does mentally accepting that your opener is your easiest pass make it easier??

[Ilivetoski]

So idea- my opener is 34, 22 off. Nate Smiths opener is 36, 32. A couple of my friends are starting at 36,22. After watching a ton of videos of Nate, myself, and my friends, I have noticed that most people can run their opener about the same. Turning the buoy extremely tight, not absolutley killing it behind the boat, and just skiing a lot calmer as opposed to passes farther down the line. Where I am going with this, is if I am trying to run 32, I am giving it a very hard pull behind the boat and turning the buoys pretty hard. Watching Nate, or any big dawg, you can see that when they are running 32 they are just kinda warming up. Proving that when someone like myself is trying to run 32, we are probably over skiing it. The only thing I can think of that makes sense (other than they are just better skiers) is that when they get in the water to start the set they are mentally saying "ok this is my opener. I know I am not going to miss this" and people generally dont miss their openers.

Dont know how much sense this made....

[Razorskier1]

@Ilivetoski Try to ski all passes with a similar level of intensity. To my way of thinking "overskiing" a pass means load-unload, load-unload, load-unload, etc. Convince yourself to ski 28 and 32 (and 35 for that matter) with the same level of line tension and see what happens.

[A_B]

Mentally accept that it takes a lot of work at every pass, and you will be successful.

[Skoot1123]

I think the biggest difference is actually what is percieved vs what is reality. The thing about the pros is that they make it LOOK easy. If we were to measure their exertion effort I'm sure we would find it fairly high (at their opener). Even when I run an easy -22, when I drop at the end I am still breathing deeply - I feel like I have done some work. No matter what line length we are working on, resisting 325 to 425 hp boats is hard work. Oh yeah - they always win.........

[MattP]

I speak from experience. Treat your opening pass the same mentally as your hardest pass and it will "feel easy". I have missed my fare share of openiers and I would say most times is because I got complacent mentally cause I know I can run my openier 22/36 blind folded. Yes some times there is a fluke and you are in the drink around 3 ball when you know you had the pass made.

[Horton]

One of the new ideas I am teaching this year is to make every pass look boring. This is not exactly what @Ilivetoski‌ is asking but let me say this.

 

You want to make every pass look or feel as easy as possible. If you are working hard when the pass is not challenging you are going to ski even harder when the rope is shorter. You want to be wide and early on your early passes but you should NOT be working hard.

[Waternut]

I'd say mental capacity is only small part of it. The fact that the pro's have significantly better technique than I do is the rest of it.

 

When I first started trying to learn the course, I was the best skier I had ever seen outside of youtube so there was no doubt in my mind that I could run the course. I mean...I was awesome. The guy who was driving suggested that I do the mini course to start off and that just reinforced that I was awesome. Then he suggested I skip the gates. I decided to just humor both of us and agreed. I made a nice strong cut out to 1 ball and a couple second later, it became very clear that 2 ball was not in the cards and it remained that way for the first two sets.

 

My point is...you can have all the confidence in the world with incredible athleticism but those things don't take the place of skill and technique and I feel like skill and technique start playing a significant role at 32 off. Now if your confidence can help you overcome your fears that are causing mistakes then that is a completely different beast.

[jhughes]

Considering the amount of openers I blow, I'd say no.

 

 

[6balls]

If a skier blows a lot of openers...maybe it's the wrong opener.

[MISkier]

@6balls, I adjusted my opener this season for the very reason you mentioned. Tournament jitters made my original opener too iffy last year. Funny thing happened when I did that. So far, the jitters diminished greatly and I am much more positive going off the dock. I may still be a bit cold and less than smooth on that first pass, but I'm not missing it - even when I laid about 35 feet of rope on the water after a poor turn. Second pass (old opener) has been very strong.

 

I'll admit it was an ego smasher to admit the change was necessary. But, that change, along with some lower speed volume sets, has made my consistency and subsequent confidence improve. My scores are just as good as when I tried the more impressive opener - except that I have significantly less rounds with single digits.

 

Footnote: the new Prostar is helping. I have good confidence skiing behind that boat at a tournament. I think that has also reduced the jitters. I was even able to allow family members to watch a tournament round recently and put up a respectable score.

[MISkier]

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[Stevie Boy]

@Horton if you make your early passes look boring, are you in danger of not being switched on, for those harder passes, to quote World Champion AM, when asked when he leaves the dock out of 10 what sort of effort is he giving it, the reply was

" I give it a 10 , because I do not want to caught out later on my harder passes "

 

 

[Horton]

@Stevie Boy‌

I want to ski my opening passes as wide & early as possible. At the same time I think it's critical that they be as smooth as possible and that i not put any more energy into the rope than is necessary.

[6balls]

@MIskier in practice I may miss my tourney opening pass once per season on a fluke of some sort. Knocking on wood have never missed a tourney opener...even going back to my 30 mph, 15 off opening days. I did come really close once @MS tourney...first one on ZO and no ZO experience. B2 stunk!

I've always had the opener 4-5 passes earlier than the pass I'm not likely to run but could on my best days.

It's tougher for those just trying to run a pass at slower speeds...they can't really go much slower as they can't back it up that far and make it any easier on themselves...would be back there snorkeling. Much more likely to miss their openers. I think important to give mulligans for those folks so they get enough passes to make it fun and allow them to get lots of good advice from other skiers, the driver, boat judge etc.

[oneski]

Maybe it's just me, but my second pass is my easiest and most comfortable. 22' off is usually my opener......I get through it and use it to help loosen up. 28' off is where I feel confident and start to find a good rythm.

[Moggie]

Of the 5 tournaments I competed in last season I missed an opening pass in 3 of them. I don't think making the opener harder will help.

[Horton]

@oneski‌ maybe that is because 22 is a bad length. Slalom starts to make sense at 28 and 32.

[schafer]

@oneski‌ I am right there with you. But I'm not consistent enough at 32 yet to ditch that 22 pass. So I am keeping it around for now

[6balls]

@moggie make the opener easier, not harder.