Guest Post - Greg Scherer - 7/8/2008
Greg sent me this writeup he did a while back for the folks on another site in case it would be helpful to our readers here at FifteenOff.com. I think it's an awesome narrative of a trip from wake to wake given by a shortline competitive skier and coach. Hopefully you find it helpful!
Figure 1. Right after the second wake: The elbows are in tight and I’m resisting my upper body getting pulled forward. I’m going to keep this position almost out to the buoy line, the thing that will change is my body's angle to the water. Here I am setting up my body to allow the ski to swing under me and continue outward on the trajectory I set up off the last ball. I will use my arms to start making up the increasing distance between my ski and the boat.
Figure 2. Same time period of the above picture but form a different angle. You can see how the ski is already starting to swing under me as the boat is progressing down course, the ski is going to keep going outward. My elbows are in tight, so, the pull is coming through my center of gravity. This is important because it means that I just have resist.
Figure 3: I have now let go with my down arm and am slowly reaching because I want to use my arms to bridge the distance from the boat to my ski. I want to allow the ski to keep going as far outbound as possible to maximize my angle on the next ball. If I reach too quickly here I will make up more room than the boat has progressed away from me and the ski will stop going outbound and start turning in. I will also start to fall forward because the rope isn’t there to keep my arm pulled tight. This will drop my shoulder closer to the water and get my balance off and move my weight forward on the ski driving the tip down and increasing the sharpness of the turn.
It’s important to know at this point that these shots are at 32 or 35 off and that the only difference is the degree of lean away from and toward the boat. At 15-22 off the same principles apply only the degree of lean/leverage changes.
Figure 4: I am still just slowly reaching out trying to keep allowing the ski to go outbound. You can see though that the ski is starting to come back in and look where the buoy is! Notice where my arm that’s not on the handle is. I want to keep it tucked in tight so that my shoulders stay level and my head stays level. This keeps my weight form coming forward and that keeps the ski from biting too hard and getting either too much angle or getting the angle too quickly before I’m in a position to hang on to it.
Figure 5: This picture shows my off arm coming away from my body and now there’s not a straight line that can be drawn through my body. My shoulders are starting to come forward and notice the water is starting to climb up higher on the ski tip. The one good thing I’ve got going for me here is that my shoulders are still counter- rotated.
Figure 6: I’ve finished the turn now and am waiting for the boat to progress down course. I’ve kept my lean that I established coming into the ball and I’m just going to maintain that. I don’t want to over turn here by pushing on the ski and I don’t want to start rotating my shoulders cross course. I’ll wait for the boat to pick me up and then I’ll evaluate what I need to do then, hopefully nothing but enjoy the nice acceleration cross course.
Figure 7: I wanted to use this picture to demonstrate how early the ski has changed edge and where the arc of turning back in starts. The spray off the ski starts just behind the boat from this perspective. I’m skiing 38 off in this picture so I picked up speed quickly and you won’t need to start your edge change this early but I wanted you to get the idea that even at 15 – 22 off you want to start you edge change 6-10 feet after the second wake so that you can have a bulk of you turn completed before the bouy.
Figure 8: Right behind the boat! Elbows are in tight to my vest, I’m looking down course and the handle is right next to my hips. The further away the handle gets from your hips here the more the boat is loading your upper body and the more forward you are going to have to ride on the ski- the boats are too strong.
Comments:
Blackdog, 7/9/2008: Wow!! great writeup! You can't make that much simpler with that kind of detail, great job GregTerry, 7/9/2008: I agree, great description with pictures to illustrate the key points.
east tx skier, 7/9/2008: Great work, Gregg. Thanks!
BobMac, 7/9/2008: Great job of describing just the very thing I an trying to master !! position behind boat is strong, now working the getting wider part, and the turn. This post is extremely helpful. Bob Mac
h2oski1326, 7/9/2008: Great Post!
This hits on a lot of things I have been working on this summer.
It just goes to show you, it isn't necessarily a monster pull that will make the passes easy, it's all in the pre-turn!
GottaSki, 7/9/2008: nicely done.
But i maintain in the last paragraph, forcing elbows to the vest should not be the main point. That is affect, not cause.
When the hips come up, the elbows will be in the right place.
The only way to keep the handle at the hips without folding and loosing leverage is to bring the hips to the elbows, not the coverse.
greg scherer, 7/9/2008: Gottaski- The point is that without your elbows tight, you won't ever get your hips up because the pull will be coming from your upper body. That will pull your upper body first and to maintain balance, your hips will have to drop back, to drop back they rotate around your knees and that means that handle is a long way from your body.
Terry, 7/9/2008: GottaSki and Greg, isn't the point to keep the force of the pull of the boat as close to your center of mass, i.e belly button, for as long as possible. This allows you to use less effort to achieve the same result. Greg makes a really good point about releasing the handle to allow the ski to maintain its outbound direction. The handle is moving in an arc and at some point its path changes from being more outbound to being more down course. This is when you have to release to keep the outbound direction. At least that is what seems logical to me.
greg scherer, 7/10/2008: Terry- yes that is the objective- pull close to CM. The subject is how to achieve that, and what are the practical details in getting to that position. Each skier will develop slightly different methods but they will all have commonality.
Falcon Eddie, 7/10/2008: You touch on a lot of issues I'm having as well. Especially on my offside, I bend forward at the waste. This causes me to snap off a super fast turn but then end up late to the next buoy. In general, I feel that I'm turning too fast and not getting across the wakes fast enough. Looking at this video, would you agree? This is actually one of my better passes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOsng_-hB4k
greg scherer, 7/10/2008: Maybe we should move this into a thread... I'm happy to help but wonder if a thread format is better then comments on the front page.
Falcon- I'll get to your video when I have a little more time...
Joel, 7/10/2008: Well Greg, what can we say- the article was a hit!
GottaSki, 7/10/2008: I find your points valid for someone stuck at 28+ off, where the sheer geometry from the boat generates the bulk of the acceleration. But to view someone stuck at 15 off, where you have to generate your own speed out of the turn, my bet is the last thing that needs correction during the cut, is the elbows.
Falcon Eddie, 7/10/2008: thread has been taken off home page to:
"Thread for Edge Change Article"
http://www.fifteenoff.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3407#3407
Thanks
GT, 7/15/2008: I'll disagree with anybody that argues against Greg's comments about elbows. He coached me at a clinic a couple of years ago and the elbow advice is the most important thing I took from that day. The elbow thing allows other position things to naturally work themselves out. I'm still working my way through speeds at 15off and this writeup is spot on. Maybe it's not for everybody, but many in my boat have benefitted from it. Thanks Greg.
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