Training For Slalom Water Skiing, Hollywood Style
How many of you saw the water skiing video of Rachel Ray on the internet? I know most people watched just to get a glimpse of her in a bikini, but I started thinking about how she was learning to ski in the first place. I thought slalom water skiing was just something daredevils in the 1970s did. Whoever was instructing Rachel Ray, however, had sure made it seem fun and almost effortless.
I tried water skiing only a few times and honestly it was mainly peer pressure (”Come on, you never get a chance to try this”) and even though I got up on the skis and they took me around a bit, it was a bit too daunting to want to try again.
When that water gets rushing fast underneath you, and they (the family and friends) decide to up the throttle on the boat, and you’re hanging on, hunched over, that can be pretty nerve racking. I never got to the point to even consider how to slalom water ski, since all of my focus was on just not making a faceplant into that high speed H20!
And I guess water skiing has kind of taken a place on the shelf for those summer holiday weekends for more “family fun” options like wake boarding, tubing, and jets kiing. But if you’ve ever seen someone who surpassed the learning curve, and knows how to slalom waterski, you’ll know that water skiing is one of the most elegant and exhilarating water sports. And now with some technological advances, as seen in some “Hollywood” training videos, it might be easier - and safer!
The secret in this video I saw was this aluminum “barefoot boom” or “Ski boom” that attaches to the front of the boat by two cables, and can allow the new water skier to learn proper posture and get the feel of moving on the water (proper weight balance) at slow speeds, these can be as little as 10 mph for kids, or 20 mph for adults.
This pole concept helps guard against the initial rope jerk that comes with an acceleration of speed, and allows the skier to lean back with the skis in front. Then the new skier can drag the rope behind them in order to figure out how it feels to be holding on to something that wonat even support you. In no time, youall be up on skis behind the boat and learning how to slalom.
The water ski boom is the perfect training tool for just about anybody, and if you have someone competent driving the boat who doesn’t take off too fast, you can practically learn this on your own. Good posture is very important, and a trainer can help you learn that, but by using the boom, I could easily build up enough confidence to learn how to do this.
What I do know is that you are supposed to keep your shoulders back with your weight on your hops. Then arch your back and allow your ankles to slide out in front of you as the boat picks up speed. Bear down on your ankles at this point and you will begin to feel lighter than air. With celebrities like Rachel Ray showing how much fun skiing is, it just might make a real comeback!
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Tags: family fun, slalom, sports, water skiing
