Late summer slump

My work computer plays sketchy video so I'm missing most of the stuff near the buoys. The one thing that jumps out to me is body alignment behind the boat and also in that still picture above. I'm thinking that maybe you aren't letting the ski finish before you load, or loading too soon or too hard. Maybe you aren't following the handle enough (letting go too soon). For whatever reason the core is trailing. Trailing arm pressure and/or being open tends to provide better alignment.

Even being off where you have been you're still way up from last year, right?

The great contradiction in skiing is that speeding up our movements slows us down (or makes us inefficient).

If it makes you feel any better, I'm a little off my in my skiing as well. 

Without a doubt, alignment out of 1/3/5 is my biggest problem and it's so bad that I almost can't stand looking at the videos. I would love to fix it but I don't know if it's behind the boat or in the turn or preturn that the problem lies. Could be in either of those areas. FWIW I feel like my gates are wide and free with solid progressive turn-in and everything so now I'm thinking it's preturn or turn related. Or vision. Could be vision.

Either way, the S2 used to still pull me through this problem with amazing consistency but some of the pixie dust must have rubbed off. A few weeks ago I'd come out of 1/3/5  a little misaligned but not "broken".

As you said, either way- I'm way better on a "terrible" set today than I was at any point last year. Shit, on a terrible set I still run 15/34 reasonably well. Not too shabby.

Joel, I'm seeing the same thing I saw before.  You could be up on the boat a little more on the pullout. As you approach 1, you are just sort of waiting for the ball (flat), which sucks you narrow and causes you to finish down course.  When that happens you try to dump all that down course speed and cycle starts all over again.  Start wide, stay wide.  Not sure moving the binding back is going to get you where you want to go cause you look like your are already pretty far back.  I'd like to see a slower pass to see whether the stack and width are the same or better there.

I guess I just don't know how to get wide then. Look at the spray on the pullout- I'm cranking it out there pretty intensely. 

Sorry, just sayin' how I see it and that it isn't something really major.  You are pretty far down course when you finish at 1 ball, so I'm just backing up to figure out how that happened.  The setup at your site looks short too, which could factor in as well.

Deke, totally agree- I just don't know how to do it :/

Arghhh. Looking at videos from last year I'm doing the same thing then as well. Not stacked out of any off-side turn. If I can EVER figure out how to fix this, I'll be giving the Big Dawgs a run for their money! Talk about a crippling problem. I just need to FEEL a full, correct stack once. Once. Then I'll at least know what I'm shooting for. Otherwise, looking at video is not doing me much good because I can't feel how to fix it out there.

I'll work on getting even wider on the pullout without generating too much downcourse speed/slack. So, harder, longer, more outbound. Incidentially if you put your finger on your screen where the rope intersects the boat gunwhale on the pull out, notice that's exactly where the rope intersects on 2/4/6 on the video above. So, the phrase start narrow, stay narrow holds true! Will try to start wider this weekend. Hopefully all my problems are pre-wake because I don't know where to begin on fixing them post-wake.

Joel, try not to think "longer, harder, more outbound."  More like just "outbound" then where am I in relation to the boat.  This is where getting up over your front foot, tall, and falling over the edge comes in.  Almost like you're pushing the ski into the water with your front foot.  Hard to describe, but sort of screwing down into the water.  If you just lean over hard against the rope you'll just go faster and it's harder to release.  You wind up doing a lot of work but not getting that squirt. When I'm free skiing I do pullout/release drills on both sides to try and find that sweet spot where the turn out releases you out and up on the boat.  Pick a spot on the boat and see how easily you can squirt up to it with the rope.  It's good to do this without the visuals of the gates and turn balls.

Watch the Seth 15/34 video again.  Unfortunately you can't see the boat but you can see how far over the camera in panned.

Joel, I can hook you guys up with some pulls at Okeheelee. Email me and I will email you black with a contact.