School me on slalom

[NICKYPOO]

After about 4 tries I was up and skiiing, not really knowing what to do. Next day I decided to head over to the ski club and get an ez up rope, a good driver, and some tips. With all that it was almost like I knew what I was doing, first time up every time. Definitely a lot more work than surfing, but trying new things is always a blast.

Any luck mike?

Nice work! Wait 'til you really start putting on some speed. There's nothing quite like it.

[Bakes5]

Nothing quite like a great slalom set on glass as the sun is coming up. Put your surfboards in storage for a month or two and learn the classics.

Also, you can slalom when your old and on a large V Drive contrary to popular belief.

Here's my 73 y/o mom with artificial hip hitting it last summer

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[NICKYPOO]

^^^Rad. My mother still skis as well. Slalom skiing is a fountain of youth. They've done studies on elderly folks that still ski and they have the bone density of teenagers.

[Zenith]

Slalom is mostly what we do with our Tige. 96 direct drive so a bit different. I learnt by dropping a ski but that was 'self taught'. Lots of cruising around on one leg lifting a ski, followed by falling off when you shift weight back to get rear foot in. My wife struggled with dropping and went to deepwater start with a deep v handle in the end. Seems to be the best way. Regards which foot forward. Tends to be left forward for right hand. The other trick i heard is if you kick a ball, the planted foot is forward and the kicking foot is back. Some good advice above. Get confidence getting on edge through the wake. I used to flatten out on old boats wake and it took a long time to get rid of bad habits. You normally stop pulling past the second wake and then change edge while you are still going outward. This lets you slow down a bit and the ski will turn better. Else you can (I did) end up on the tail of the ski slowing down at the turn with poor results. When you hook up a good turn and get good acceleration out of the turn the ski takes off, pretty awesome feeling.
Still need to get some balast and a tower or pole and do some wake boarding. Not sure we will ever surf behind her.

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[boonecragun]

Bakes5, Mom isn't even breaking a sweat cutting to the next turn...that's impressive. This thread inspires a new thread of slalom pics....

[nmriordan]

As you can see in this thread, there is almost an endless list of tips for slalom.... if I were to narrow it down to one good piece of advice it would be this: find a good and experienced slalom driver!!!!! Priceless....


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[JLG]

@bakes that's badazz man!!

Also some have probably seen it but watch this video of Nate smith at 1hr 18 min or so. Not behind a Tige but who cares as this guys skills are insane!! Frickin incredible what these guys can pull off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7CPLwjd7s

[bsreid]

The driver makes a world of difference! I found that out the hard way...

[oldduke45]

It's been a long time since I was on a slalom ski, though we did have a few people up behind our 22v. With no ballast and about 28mph, it was decent. With a wake-oriented boat like your Z1 or my Z3, slalom is possible, just go into knowing it may be a challenge to do the hard back-and-forth carves -- it will be hard to get the wake flat. When you cross the wake, you'll want to really keep your knees bent to absorb the bump as much as possible to avoid popping up. I would agree, no ballast, try to keep the boat as flat and level as possible, taps to keep the rooster tail down yet not make the wake any bigger.

h20-ski's advice is good too -- I learned by getting up on two and then dropping a ski, you just point your toes and it will fall off. Just have to do it in an area that doesn't have traffic to run over your dropped ski. Deep water starts are tough for some people, the EZ up rope helps. I would tell the driver to hit it, take a deep breath, let it plow, and if I wobbled, let my back leg drag until I could come up enough to slide it in the ski.

X2 on letting your back leg drag. Takes all the work out og getting up!!

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