Old Guy Learning To Ski

Winterized the boat a couple weekends ago. Was out in the shop this weekend getting it parked and the gear stowed.   Gave me some time to reflect on the season, which was my first time being on the water for more than a weekend or two.

Hard to articulate how much I enjoyed it. Hard to think there is a better way to spend a day with the family.

To wrap up our skiing progress:
Poorhouse - Continued to work on improving posture and accelerating across the wake. Never was able to really lean into the turn. All attempts on that front ended in epic wipeouts. Tried to get some video of the wipe outs to share and get some more pointers. A miscommunication with friend who was filming ended up those being deleted and only the glory shots were saved.

Mrs. Poorhouse - Did not get up on 1 ski. Gloves helped but we ran out of season before she got it figured out. She never quite got her front/back balance right.

Poorhhouse Jr. - Didn't make another ride. Got him in the skies for a shallow water start. Something spooked him and he didn't want to try. No pushing on our end. Skiing is suppose to be fun. I think he will be fired up to try next year.

Thanks for all the help, support and pointers this year.
Look forward to building on what I learned this year.
Will pick this thread back up summer 2017.

We knew that about the Yamaha, there is a reason for Direct Drive boats! HA.   
Skiing is fun with power or not but direct drives are hard to beat.
Now that you found speed and the wake does not scare you the next step is timing your turns. You are pulling hard through the wakes, it is time to set up for a turn. As you relax on the pull after the second wake you will automatically be pulled upright and then quickly you will need to lean towards the boat starting your turn.   Right at this pivot point stretch your arm towards the rear of the boat and lean into the turn. One arm stretching not two. The second free hand stays by your hip. This one arm stretch gives you about 3 feet of slack which gives you about 1/2 second to initiate your turn with no or little pull from the boat.
As your ski comes around and you have now turned and reversed towards the wakes again your one rope holding hand should be coming back towards your hip where it will join your second off side hand which is still waiting at the hip for this timing. This needs to happen before the full power of the boat hits again as you will need a firm two hand grip to handle the boats pull.
Doing the same turn with 2 hands will slow down your turn a lot and it will be a larger more rounded turn.   The one hand turn is necessary to make a quick turn as you do in the course on short line.   Watch some video of good skiing and think about the one hand stretch and how it works to provide that instant of slack to help you turn, it will start to make sense. The first time you do this it will probably shock you how quick the ski comes around.   Remember as the ski comes around you need to be leaning away from the boat to get ready for the pull . Glad you are having fun out there.

I admire your pluck and enthusiasm!

The instability you experienced is due to stance, basically your shoulders were leading your hips. Exacerbated by heavy bias on the rear foot.

Naturally after an exerting deepwater start, you are all out of sorts.

One must reset
With knees bent, roll forward on your ankles and thrust your hips forward and ahead of the shoulders that you now rolled back. Stand heavy on that front foot. I say that because your going to have to exaggerate the forward bias to overcome this.

That speed looks inconsistent and a bit slow, you should enjoy a pull behind your boat.

Oh, and when you are a bit exerted or conditions less than optimal, don't be ashamed to go out on two skis and enjoy the ride. One needs to spend some hours on 2 to get a 'water sense' that will pay dividends advancing your progress. Some aggressive cutting on 2 skis with good form is never lost time.

Definitely agree on the gloves, make a big difference. I held out for years but now realize the advantage they give.

Looks to me like you were being pulled too slow. That ski should plane pretty easily so I'm guessing they were only going 26 mph or so. Try 30 to see if the ski rides cleaner. Great progress!

Good Ski gloves will give you 50% more grip and help a lot. My set is 8 years old so I will let others advise you on what is a great glove today.
Thanks for the update it is fun to follow. Get your wife back on two skis, just skiing will make her stronger and she can work up to trying one later.

Watched your video, first time out crossing the wakes, nice work! You will improve very fast.   Now as far as listening to those snowmobile motors all day I think that would drive me nuts. Give him a ride in your boat he will be a believer in direct drive very soon.

Home from Winnie early this morning. Landed in MT at 1:30am home in bed at 4;30am. Long day, but a great trip. That lake is beautiful. The water was fantastic. We never got glassy conditions, it was windy all week, but still had a good time.

Brother-in-law's boat a 2006 Yamaha 23' bowrider with twin jet drives. A comfortable boat and fast on the top end. I don't think it has the hole shot of our boat and the wake/roostertail combo was pretty big.

He brought some kids trainer skies, short and wide with a cross bar. Got his 8 year old up and deep water starting, 7 year old up, my 6 year old up and a 5 year old up.

We gave the new P6 a good workout. Boat owner like it. At the end of the week he couldn't get up on his O'brien and tried it. Got right up and had a good run. He was impressed with how it performed. Other brother-in-law is a husky guy. He's waterskied since he was a kid but now wake boards as he can't get up on the slalom. He got up his second try and had a great run. He loved the P6.

I got up on my 11 try our first time out. Video below. This was my first run on a slalom and was pretty wobbly.   Note the spray off the front of the ski I was talking about earlier. That improved as I got centered over the ski and better balanced. I had another few runs over the week. Always took 4-5 tries to get up.    Didn't really get an opportunity to work on accelerating through the wake.
The repeated deep water starts tired out my grip. Wondering if gloves would help?

Mrs. Poorhouse was unable to get up. She couldn't hold on long enough. Hoping the better hole shot with our boat will get her up. If not maybe be her glove too?

Video of my first slalom.

Poorhouse's First Slalom Run


Poorhouse Jr's first ride. This was shot with an Iphone and the quality is not as good.

Poorhouse Jr's First Ski

Here's another little something to look forward to. I taught another friend to go on one ski last year. He is very solid now, and turns back and forth, but in broad sweeping turns. Really not cutting his turns yet. But that is where he is now, just learning to cut, and is just starting to get the hang of it. A side effect of really leaning into your turns and making a tight cut is your are going to rocket toward the wake. Its a cool feeling. My friend loves it. But it is also new territory. Keep in mind, I have a vintage boat with a much larger wake than a newer one, but at 32-ish, its not awful. But my friend has taken some good spills upon hitting the wake because hitting at speed is new to him. It is possible to ease out of your cut and not charge the wake, but you have to learn sometime. One of my philosophies about skiing is "if you aren't falling, you aren't trying hard enough"

My friend joined Greg Fossett and me to do some slaloming during Greg's and my LLBD sessions. Greg had a pretty good piece of advice for him, regarding learning to cut. Yes, you are going to practice your turns while skiing, but at the end of the run, as you are ready to release the rope, swing out, ditch the rope, and really lay down the ski to get a sense of how it feels.

Well said..

The turns are actually the easier part and come more natural. New skiers want to know all about the turns because that what looks impressive to them. The best turn is one that follows exiting the wakes at maximum effort.

Therefore focusing too much on the turn, and not the cut, its foundation, creates an imbalance.

Learn to stay stacked and maximize the rip across the both wakes. Start with small amplitude so your approach is an acceleration through that leaves you wanting more, not a decel due to approaching the wake at a speed that makes you hesitate.

Focusing all on the turn now, is like riding a bicycle too slow, its awkward.

Oh, and you should be skiing at 15 off if it hasn't been said yet. Too many bad habits perpetuate at 75'

Good to hear you are on your way!

Your stance should be neutral to front-foot biased. Water should be breaking in front of your front toes. If water is shooting ahead, you are rear biased and not standing on your front foot. Your a big guy and may need one more mph, but it won't fix a bad stance.

The start gets people so out of shape to ski, one needs to reset the stance once up.

Basically, thrust your hips forward,.no more forward. More forward than that. keep going.next roll your shoulders back and lock in the upper body. Roll forward on your ankles and keep knees and ankles, uhm, pliable.
When you think your hips are too far forward, they are halfway where they need to be.

Congrats, you mastered the deep water start!
Keep playing and having fun.
Look for some videos on learning to slalom a picture is worth a thousand words.

Success with the P6.

First opportunity to ski in NH this morning. Wife was not able to get up on the P6. She could feel the better float but couldn't hold on long enough to plane. She only tried 5 times. I think she will get it with more practice.

My turn next. I tried with rear foot in. It is much harder than getting up on 2 skies. I had the ski going right or left, went over the front, leaned to far back, etc. the advice here really helped. I kept my back foot pulled up to my butt and got the ski to plane. Then another over the front and to far back. On the 9th try I got up and had a good run. Felt much more natural on 1 ski than 2. Was able to cross wake and make turns.
Super fun morning.

Couple things I noticed, spray off the front of the ski if it isn't flat straight behind the boat or on a hard bank. Not sur if I wasn't weighted properly or if our speed was off. Speed was around 32 which is good or maybe a bit fast for this ski.
What is the technique for turning? I was able to lean the ski over and change direction but was not cranking turns.

Did shoot video but won't be able to upload until next week.

Hollywood wrote: Do you share underwear too?

We both go commando,too late for lunch hope you were at least drinking something

Hollywood wrote: Do you share underwear too?

You want to see a video of that?

Do you share underwear too?

Poorhouse wrote: Found a good deal on a Radar P6. Had it shipped there to try out for the week. Sounds like a good beginner slalom ski. Hoping the extra size helps us get out of the water.

What size did you get? No question that will be an easier ski to get up on, and get comfortable on in a short amount of time. I have a feeling you'll like it.