When I'm on the lawnmower or doing other stuff in the yard my mind frequently wanders
and it should come as no surprise that often times it's skiing thoughts, recollections and
other ski related stuff that it wanders to. So yesterday I recall certain ideas and thoughts
that people have relating to how to ski... lets say 28mph 15 off versus say 34mph 28 off.
Lets say you're working on trying to run 28mph 15 off, but you don't know what's
required technique wise to get through it. Johnny Swerver comes on here and says this
is what makes 34 mph 28 off easy for me....this is how I create space....this is how I hold
my direction after the wake, blah, blah, blah. There are people on this site that will think/
say that "Johnny Swerver is skiing at 39off, the things he's doing won't work for me here!"
The truth is (as I see it anyway) that everything I figure out, or remember, I try to apply
at the longer lines. Sometimes I'll try to "tip toe" through 22 because I want to ski "safe"
...often times when I do, I'll ski it like sh_t and get in trouble or even miss it. When I ski
it somewhat aggressively, I usually run a better line and have way more margin for error.

unrelated to above: Yesterday after I skied, one of the guys at the lake is getting ready
to ski, I ask if he minds if I ride because I feel like I can help him when he lets me. He
says "okay, but I've already got stuff I'm working on!". I understand this because I've
always got stuff I'm working on. So he does his thing with a couple of freeski warmups
and then starts running the course with an odd routine I won't even get into....and he's
struggling at 36mph 22off and 34mph 22off and various other speeds 22 off. I'm about
to come unglued because I'm sure I have something that will help him but I have to wait
until he has no hope left of running a clean pass. He's essentially done with his set, he's
tired from skiing "his way", the water and air have robbed him of any freshness he may
have had. I see an opportunity to get him to try what I want him to do, elbows tight from
at least spray line to spray line. He does his first attempt and comes into 1 early, wide
and with the tightest line he's ever had in his life...gets over to 2 and gums it all up.
We drop and discuss and he says he was just surprised where it put him and he didn't
know what to do. Next attempt he goes and runs the best pass he's ever run in his life.
It's the most dramatic difference I've ever seen in someones skiing in a set. That's it
for this set...we'll see how he does next time. I've got a few skiers working on this...
2 have caught on pretty well and one is struggling with it (mainly because he thinks
he's doing it, and he's just not grasping it yet.) One of the guys I ski with (very
accomplished) says we tend to coach what we're working on (which I believe to be true)
But I try to focus on what gives me the best chance to be successful.

This is also one of the key things I've ben working on this summer. KEEP THE ARMS IN! I actually was doing it better out of my off-side turn than my on-side.

So I've been skiing with my evolving "method" for about a month now. In the past couple
of years I've been trying a bunch of different things, a lot are my interpretations of what
people are saying or doing. West Coast, East Coast, Old School, New School, Foreign School,
Boarding School, you name it, I'll try it (If I'm stuck). I've often watched Andy Mapple and
felt like "it works for him, but it sure looks like he's on the edge all the time". Now you see
Will Asher skiing a very similar style, very, very aggressive and having a bunch of success.
I've talked to Andy before and quizzed him about skiing. His thoughts don't get into the
complications of twisting and softening the legs and stepping ahead and stepping behind.
His philosophy is fairly simple.....make space. Of course you can't make space without
being balanced and in a strong position. Does this mean I'm trying to not be light? I'm not
sure...I'm still trying to be light getting into position to handle the load.....but come load
time, I'm getting me some! I think the light part comes from being in a strong position
after leaving the wakes and riding the speed through the turn. It has a certain light feel
to it when it's done right. While my buoy count hasn't changed very much yet, I feel a
whole lot more confident in the direction my skiing is headed. A lot of what I'm trying to
do now has some old school feel/thoughts to it. I'm not really trying to do much West
Coast, but some of the results have a West Coast byproduct.

Good luck this weekend. Being nervous is completely natural. My ski partner is a former regional and national open/M1/M2 podium finisher who has run 2 and 3 at 41 off many times. He hadn't skied since 2006 until he and I started skiing together in April. His first tournament on Memorial Day he said his knees were knocking together so hard that they would probably be bruised. LOL

---

Shane Hill

Thanks guys! I done it enough in years past to know nerves are part of the game, if you're
not nervous you don't care, I've scored 0.5s before and I'm sure I'll score them again.
I plan to be aggressive though...100% in the squeeze, I want to be wide and fast!

Some more thoughts....after I skied yesterday, I noticed my top buckle was broken on my
front boot and the set didn't feel like the sets from the past week and a half. Later I drove
one of my ski partners who is open rated, he was on cloud 9 from an earlier set and
struggled this set, saying he couldn't get speed or get wide. After about 4 or 5 passes we
were talking and he told me they had switched props earlier in the day....he felt like he
was over powering the boat now. So I switched places and watched a couple of passes,
we talked and he told me he felt like there was nothing off the ball, we switched him from
b1 to c1 and he said it felt better, but by that time he was tired. My point here is things
change in skiing, especially tournament skiing, boats feel different, drivers feel different,
sites feel different, the more you can establish a consistent baseline for your skiing the
more you can feel little things that you can adjust to. That's why I love this elbow squeeze.
It allows you to get to the places you need to get to in the course with enough speed or
"carry out" in order to have time to make adjustments...whether it's slowing down your
reach or speeding up your reach, or finding your visual targets or whatever it is to make
things feel better. I'm not sure if my I had known about the prop when I skied, or if my
buckle was fine it would have helped me ski better, but I still had enough space to adjust
to the things that were making me feel unsettled. I kept thinking while I was on the water
I've got to stay connected longer and drive the ski out more (which you can't do without
being connected).

The lawnmower was down for a couple of weeks, after repairing it this weekend, I got to
spend lots of time on it yesterday (about 4 hours), which led to a lot of waterski thoughts.
One of the first thoughts was that I attended 2 clinics, judges and drivers, the most stressed
subject in both of those was safety. I don't know if AWSA stresses this for their clinics or
not, but it was satisfying to know that the people who taught these 2 clinics addressed it
often and in all types of situations.
After not being in the boat for tournaments for a few years, it was interesting watching
and driving. Observing peoples personalities as they ski or officiate, seeing how they
handle the conditions we had to deal with. Seeing different skiing techniques that are
successful or unsuccessful. Watching how some people are very calm in the spotlight and
others wilt. I recall from my early days skiing slalom tournaments in the early 90s, one
of the members of our club, who was a better skier than I was would get very, very
nervous skiing in tournaments, he was normally a quiet and calm person but put him on
the starting dock at a tournament and he was jabbering the whole time about how nervous
he was and how scared he was....I would have to get far away from him or I would catch
it as well.
Another thing is appreciating the officials who work the tournaments, the judges, the
scorers, the drivers and the organizers....especially the good ones. I saw some people
who worked very hard at the tournaments only to be criticized by unhappy people (yes,
I am guilty of the criticism as well) Which brings me to the driving.
After the drivers testing, I ended up driving the last round of the tournament for about
10 skiers. The driver who pulled me my last round ended up being my boat judge....
he never asked me how the pull felt or if I would have like him to do anything different,
he just complained that the driving testers were to hard on him and they were perfectionist,
and expected him to be perfect. My thinking was that he just wanted to be able to drive
tournaments not wanting to be a good driver....I'll address this more on the driver section.
I don't want to be the guy who doesn't want to ski behind the "not as good drivers"
but the truth is I am that guy....I don't want to do it, but I will. A really good driver
can make your day and a bad driver can end it early... sometimes very early.
The last thing for now - the blackdog who I borrow the handle from (his name is Zack)
was out being free yesterday, (he's always running free when I'm home) He likes to go
in the pond next to my house and the swamp that's around the pond, and chase frogs,
snakes, bugs and anything that moves. After he gets tired he comes and watches me
cut grass and it made me think about a bumper sticker I've seen before that says
"I wish I were the person my dog thinks I am". Well Zack is now 12 and he's slowing
down, I thought I'd better put him inside in the air conditioner for a while. I know he
rather be out with me, but I don't want him to overheat. It just made me start thinking
about the things he's done and seen. I was watching a tour stop at our lake from a
number of years ago, and there he is chasing the jumpers down the shore. He's ridden
in the boat while I've pulled some of the best slalom skiers in the world. He's not the
fastest, or the smartest, or the strongest....when he plays fetch, he just runs after
whatever is thrown until it stops moving, then veers off in another direction. But he's
the best dog in the world and when his time is up, I'm gonna be a basket case....as a
matter of fact, I'm getting a little choked up writing this.

I believe that in anything you master you will eventually do more with less. You ultimately operate in a much smaller window of effort with your effort directed precisely at doing only what needs to be done. But the catch is you need the skills to do things in different ways and that means going outside your comfort zone and discovering the edge of the envelope. BD, in your example, the buoy to buoy skiers might have only been able to do it that way. Since conditions were dictating another line they were unable to adapt. On the other hand the high angle skier who can handle the wind may or may not be able to ski buoy to buoy if they find themselves there. This reminds me of Andy Mapple running 35 or 38 without pulling out for the gates. He practiced putting himself in a bad situation just develop those skills rather than simply hoping he would never be in that situation. Another example is that once you can run 28 off, 15 off becomes easier. So I think your approach to creating a greater margin in your skiing is on the money. But I also think that in the long run, once you've covered that ground, you'll wind up doing more with less.

We have been using an Arm Guard all summer.

Do order those arm guards! It's not worth the potential outcome. I've been using mine since they started making them and never had any issues.

I've been swapping emails with Thomas Wayne and will be ordering some tomorrow once I get a chance to measure some handles.