Both Feet In

[brazosvet]

A lot of good advice has preceded this, but here goes anyway. The most, and I strongly believe the very most important problem that people have trouble with when going to double boots is, pushing with both legs. You must focus on totally relaxing your rear leg and only pushing with the front leg. Sounds easy, but can be tough to do this when starting out. Push with the leading leg, and extend your ankle as if you are pointing your toe at the boat. Use a deep-V handle at first to gain mastery of this technique. I struggled for years with this until I figured that out. I taught my CFO and my eight year old son to slalom in just a few tries using the deep-V handle and this technique. Yes, deep water starts in double boots. Once you figure out the tech., you can almost just stand-up when the boat takes-off, provided you have enough throttle. So get your ski wet and Rip it!

[brazosvet]

With some, all you can do is give them the handle and say "good luck". You know?

It doesn't matter how much mayo. you add, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken $h!^.

[ajdouglas]

Last year was the first time behind the boat for my 14 daughter. She skied 2 or 3 times and wakeboarded 8 or 10 times.

Yesterday we were out and I told her I want her to ski some this year. I asked if she wanted to try and salom, and she said yes. I had her try and drop a ski. This did not work. So went we went to pick up the dropped ski, I asked if she wanted to try and just get up on 1, sure enough she sad yes. Her cousin was in the boat and as we were getting ready to start the pull, I told her there was no way Katie would get up. Was I ever wrong. First try she popped up with no problem. My only advice to her was to push hard on her front foot and be strong. I stopped the boat after a couple hundred yards and gave her alittle more advice, more weight on her forward foot for a better balanced and we took off again. She popped right up again and we were off. She was crossing the wake back and forth, held the handle with one hand as she primped her hair and even was able to hang on through the rollers when we turned around. As you can tell, I am very proud of her.

She also had her best day ever wakeboarding, hitting the wakes aggressively and getting some air.

Looks like it might be a great summer.

[hbrew]

I got out on the ski yesterday. And I do need ski school!

Even though I lead with my left foot I do tip the ski to the right and have the rope on the left side of the ski. I tried the proper method also, ski tipped to the left and the rope on the right side of the ski, that worked too.

Hope you all had a great weekend

[Baddog]

OK, slightly dumb here, what's a Deep V Handle?

[hbrew]

Example of Deep V Handle

[Murf]

Forget everything stated and get the "V handle" until you get comfortable. The "v handle" keeps your ski straight while you are being pulled up so all you must think about is pushing with your legs. As you come up the rope comes off of the ski and away you go. Works great with little kids that do not have the strength to keep their ski straight. Our daughter was able to slalom at 5 yrs old with the handle, whereas she wouldn't have been able to do it without it. Once you figure it out its like riding a bike. Also, it is all about how you first learned to get up. I beach started for years in about a foot of water and few wraps of loose rope at your feet. Hard to do that with double bindings. I have since gone to double boots because of a ripped hamstring resulting from coming out of the toe plate just as I was throwing my weight going into a turn. Not pretty. The double boot has made it safer but not as much fun for beach and dock starts and it's a harder pull getting up.

[UWSkier]

Taught my little sister the double boot approach this weekend. She got up on her first try. She's the third one of us kids to get up on his/her first try using this approach. Front knee tight to the chest, back foot up close to your butt, ski slightly canted to whichever side your front foot is on. I actually tried getting up with a foot out yesterday and almost crashed in the process. Haven't had to do that in a while.

[jimncin]

Thanks all for the help. I will try again this week if the rain stays away long enough.

OK, knee to chest, heel to butt, arms out, progressive pull from boat, water up nose, try again.

I'll let ya know what works.

jim

[NorCaliBu]

Thanks all for the help. I will try again this week if the rain stays away long enough.

OK, knee to chest, heel to butt, arms out, progressive pull from boat, water up nose, try again. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't forget...push with your front foot.

[jimncin]

Success! First time, came right up. Thanks everybody. Even kept the shorts on, but they did get a little tucked in after one fall.

jim

[srud]

Success!    First time, came right up. Thanks everybody. Even kept the shorts on, but they did get a little tucked in after one fall. 

jim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Congrats! It must have been my advice right?!

[hbrew]

Woohooo! Congratulations!

[BREZ]

A lot of good tips hope to try out soon. Tired of dumping a ski.

[Slayer]

A lot of good tips hope to try out soon. Tired of dumping a ski.

Me too!

[jimncin]

Forgot all about this post

Update...

After beating the snot out of the tip of the ski from way too many handle pops, (can you say snot?) I went back to the rear toe. Just could not get consistent with the start, some days were fine and others left the ski tip in pieces. If anybody wants a CDX with a custom tip let me know.

[Guitarcarr]

"I just suck the tail of the ski under my butt as close as I can. I also stretch out over the ski to get it on a flatter plane."

The abpve the best advice to getting up using both feet in.

Stretch out so the ski hits your butt(or as close as you can get) and get your front leg out as far as you can go.

Being that I have been skiing slalom behind an underpowered boat for quite some time I can tell you that this is the easiest way to start off.

One other thing is for the skier to get to that postion with the line tight and then have the skier say "go" or "hit it" and then the driver hit the gas right away with no waiting around. That way the skier has the position ready to go and does not have to sit there in an akward position.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Guitarcarr