How many of you know this? How many of you regard this as a basic fundamental focal
point in your skiing? Unfortunately for me this has been bounced around to different arms
being the back arm for as long as I can remember. Joel has this right in his definition.
If you can make this and leading with your mid section a basis for everything you do
skiing wise, make it part of your "panic package" and "scramble mode" you will have a
strong foundation for skiing success. The idea behind this is put yourself in a more
balanced accelerating position. You will find that your wake crossings are much more
solid. This will allow you to "twist load" which will move your hips over your feet
(the product of opening your shoulders to the boat). With your hips over your feet
the ski attitude will be more level (more tip down). The product of more tip down is
more direction, more direction is more space at the buoy.

Okay now the catch! You need to do this by moving the mid section with level head and
shoulders. If you don't, you will have a big a$$ crash. The turn is a move...not a rotation,
If you can do this you will have more fun skiing then you ever had in your life and most of
you on here will gain anywhere from 12 to 24 buoys in short order. But you will need
to be persistent and patient to create the correct moves and then make them habits.
If you're looking for 2 buoys or 3 buoys to get thru a speed or a line length and your
trying to hack your way there, it will be a long hard road to skiing's promise land. If
you will find a speed or line you're kind of comfortable with and can work on these things
and get them right, and then repeat them over and over, you'll be rewarded. That doesn't
mean don't ever test yourself by going up the line as far as you can go. But if you do that
every set I think you're doing more harm then good, because you're trying to use
techniques that have proven themselves to be inefficient.

I am a skier that has had every crappy habit in the book, I hacked and
whacked and banged my way from running everything from 30 mph/15 off to
running thru 35 and 38 and bounced off everything in the way
along the way. I found out how to do it somewhat in 2004 and then went back thru
every bad habit again. My joints and body felt so bad that I considered giving up
skiing several times in the last several years. It started out that way this year but I
decided I would just keep trying stuff until I could find something that would get me
jump started, I read interviews of great skiers, I asked questions of people who
could run serious buoys, I daydreamed skiing a lot and did a lot of mental replays
of what I was feeling on the water after I skied (when I could slow it down). The only
thing I really haven't done is video (I always hate what I see on video, I think I try
to fix to much, to quick). I try to be a feel skier but I will probably do some soon.
The point of this rambling message is that I have boiled mine down to the 2 basics
above, I'm very confident that if you aren't currently using these they will give you
lots of buoys. And also to say if I can do this stuff you can too! Happy Skiing!

Thank you for making my point about picking up 2 whole passes and for adding that
point about a preturn, to me it makes for a long long preturn and that's part of the
problem....what to do with all that extra time before the ball. I'm assuming you have a
pretty level shouldered hip leading turn.

Yes, that's been the hardest transition. I'm finding the preturn is now longer than the turn and pull. At first I'd get out there and stand up and dick it up just because I had so much time. What made it come alive was learning some handle and hip control. Marcus pointed out that I continuously ski'd with my hips dropped. Once I started out prior to the pull out with my hips way up, standing tall over the front of my ski, and with my shoulders in almost an exagerated shrug back, I found that the back arm pressure pull just shot me off the 2nd wake into that long, long preturn into 1. Marcus really beat it into us that we needed to keep our hips up over our front foot. Another benefit of that has been that I've found my upper body is very still now.

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Shane Hill

Words from my mind, but I think it needs to coexist with a level head/shoulder "center of
mass" leading turn. If I were trying to make a living teaching slalom skiing, I would only
teach those 2 things until they were second nature. But to me they are a chicken and egg
relationship. In order for 1 to be truly effective, I think the other needs to be linked.

Even if you don't get it (trailing arm pressure) when you get your hand back on the handle,
it (load) can be relocated at any time if you're paying attention to it. To me that's half the
ability to correct it....If you can become aware that it (line pressure/load) is misplaced
(on leading arm) and distribute it to the trailing arm between the ball and the wake
centerline you are well on your way to getting this right. If I can start a pass bad and clean
it up along the way and finish it early, that's almost as good as owning it in my book,
because quite often, that's what tournament skiing is all about.

You are able to apply back arm pressure, keep your shoulders level, head up, etc only when your hips are open to the boat. If your hips are not open to the boat, you can do some of these but not all. Same thing in the preturn/turn. You are able to keep your shoulders level and head up because of the rotation of your hips away from the boat. I always thought counter rotation was from the waiste up, when in reality it starts at the ankles, encompasses the hips, and finishes at the shoulders. I heard one of the higher rated Big Dawg skiers tell someone the other day that he didn't car what her shoulders did. He cared what her hips did. He said her shoulders would follow her hips because that is basic physiology. That was an interesting thought.

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Shane Hill

Do we talk about some awesome stuff on this board or what?

Deke, I'm glad to hear that you got something from my trials and tribulations. I hope that my explanations of how I have learned to apply these mechanics doesn't confuse anyone. One of my biggest struggles in learning was that a lot of "teachers" don't know how to break these mechanics down into something that can be understood by a skier on a lower level. It's one thing to say "you need to counter-rotate". But when you follow that with "and this is how you do that", it's completely different. I found with myself that a coach would say "do X" and I'd say OK, without really understanding how I was supposed to accomplish X. Even last night, a light bulb went off on the water and I got something new.

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Shane Hill

I was just rephrasing Shane about really getting up over the front foot with shoulders shrugged back and hands low. It's a proud position.

It's been almost a year since I posted on this last. I feel much more balanced now. Rather than being biased to the back arm, I have now gravitated to a very nuetral stance. Both on the ski and on the handle. I kind of think this is a natural progression. You almost have to bias to the back arm for a while, to get the muscle memory to allow your body to relax and go nuetral. I've found where you start with this balance before the turn in for the gates is very important. If I'm nuetral there, I'm nuetral the entire pass. If I'm on the front of the ski, the back of the ski, or don't square to 2,4,6 it's a teeter totter ride for the entire pass. Once you're in the course, it's almost possible to get your balance back, you'll almost always alternate from one extreme to the other.

BD, like you, I'm working on vision now. I've had moments of greatness and they almost always have a wide field of vision that go along with them. I think that's because as you spot that next turn ball in front of the boat, your entire body aligns itself correctly and your core mass goes that direction. Marcus has a short video clip where he talks about this on the waterski mag web page. It's something I had been thinking about a lot after skiing with Jodi Fisher last year and Marcus reinforced it.

That just goes to show you that these fundamentals are somewhat universal, no matter the style. I can see this after skiing with MarcusBrown a couple of times last year, Jodi Fisher a couple of times last year, and now Charles Mueller all this spring and early summer. They all have different styles, but the mechanics they teach are essentially the same. Balanced stance, balanced load on the handle, head up, shoulders level, core leading the way. Charles does add "Lean you pu$$y!!!" a lot, though. hahahaha

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Shane Hill