teaching kids to ski

[butch]

I'm going to be teaching my 7yr old niece to ski in a couple weeks. any suggestions as to speed, length of rope and anything else. I learned to ski later in life so i dont know what it takes to get a smaller kid up. should I buy some of those skis that are tied together.

thanks for your help

[jbar]

Teaching kids

The best setup is a pair of small skis with a rigid connector between the tips (I have a pair of HO and a pair of Connelly with the same setup). I use about 1/2 to 2/3 the normal rope length attached to my ski pylon to keep the kid close to the boat for instruction. Set your speed at about 12-13, taps 1, until the kid can stay up. Once they can get up use a full rope and 17-18 mph. Great feeling to get a kid hooked on skiing!

[philanum]

Rope

The MOST important thing is the rope you use. Use a rope that has a handle at both ends and have someone in the boat holding onto the handle. They can let go of the rope as soon as the skier falls. Sometimes kids will instinctively not let go of the rope and can be dragged through the water. Also, the kids setup has the rope attached to the skis as well as a handle for the skier to hold on to. Definitely use the skis mentioned above and have an adult in the water to help stabalize them and give her a little push out of the water as you begin the pull. Set speed to 15mph. I'm inserting a pic of my daughter when she was 4! So proud of her! My son (now in the Navy) is helping her. So proud of him too!

[bigdaddy_houseboater]

Arms straight - Knees bent. Let the boat pull you up.
Been saying it since 1969.....

[dingleberry]

Here is a pic in which you can see the rope attached to both the skis and the handle, as philanum mentioned. Once they get their balance figured out, then they can learn to take the full pull from the handle only.

[Mouse3]

You can make it easier if you change the rope set up on the trainer skis. In the picture in the previous post you see the handle the kid holds is attached a few feet up the rope toward the boat. This connection can allow the kid to sit back and the skis shoot forward. Instead, move the short rope to the cross bar on the toes of the skis. This way they can stand up straight legged and lean back on the handle and be locked in more solidly.

Best start for a young newbie is for someone to stand in shallow water and hold the kid upright on the surface so they launch without needing to stand up.

Later, as you use a regular rope connected to the boat, a kid can start by sitting on an wake tube. As the boat speed picks up, the drag of the water on the tube leave the kid standing on the water.

When the rope is connected to the boat, shorten it and hook it to your tower, not the tow post -- this provides lift and helps a person get out of the water. BTW -- same with a wakeboard, shorten the rope and there will be more up pull to help getting up.

Final comment on speed -- for a kid around 50#, I've found 8mph to be just about perfect

[butch]

thanks everyone I'll let you know how it goes...

[Bakes5]

For any of y'all that regular take kids out, a boom is invaluable. Probably one of the best kid (and adult) investments you can make for getting people on the Lakeland not on tubes. Instead of drowning some poor, never been on a boat before, kids at 60 feet behind he boat for 20 minutes I make sure they are rock solid on the boom. It's nice cause they can talk to their friends while they are skiing. I never use 2 skis on my boat...ever. I think they are a waste of time and really don't teach the kids how to slalom. Here is my guaranteed method. Don't progress to next step until they have mastered the one prior

Get them in the water and not afraid of it
Tow them on the tube
Tow them on a kneeboard (*get the kneeboard with a handle hook. Generally no probs with kids over 2 years of age. We use 2 kneeboards at a time so I have one of my kids back there coaching and helping them float)
Put them on a boom with a wakeskate (*i never wakeboard on the boom. I think the risk of a head injury from an edge catch is too great)
Boom with slalom ski (make sure they can use a very short handle, squat, and handle slow down/speed up drills)
Behind the boat wakeboard.
Behind the boat slalom? They go back to the boom if they don't get up in 3-4 tries

Generally, I can progress any motivated kid 4 and up to slaloming behind the boat with this method in about 3-4 sessions. Lighter kids do better/progress faster than heavier ones....weird.

Most younger kids stay at the kneeboard stage for a while and then progress up as they get more time behind the boat and want to do what the other kids are doing. I never tire of watching a kid struggle to learn something new and foreign to them and then feel the excitement when they finally get it.


Y09_4804-23 by Troy & Priscilla, on Flickr