Good or Bad Practice Technique.

Phil2360

Ok,

Robbie, (16 next month, 50kg).

Running 36 relatively consistantly now, occasionally back to back, & then thru to 3 @ 22off.

Last Wednesday, I practiced him at 32 & 34 @ 22off. Ran them no problems. 36 brought his faults out.

Yesterday it was fairly choppy with about a 15-20km/h cross/tail wind. Running 34 was a struggle for him but could run it.

Dropped him back to 30mph & had him run some 22 & 28's at that speed. Probably did 4 at each length in both head & tail wind directions.

Is this a bad idea? Skiing the shorter lengths slower & working them back up.
Particularly in bad conditions?

Cheers

Phil

bishop8950

If its rough, I often ski slower rather than not ski. If its dangerous, or you cant possibly ski they way you want, probably should leave the dock.

Learning a shorter line length its sometimes helpful to slow down a bit, see the line you need to ski, get more confident, then ease the speed back up.

I think the most important thing is you know what you are working on. What part of your skiing are you trying to figure out and improve. If its easier to work on this at a slower speed or longer line then do it. Once you feel good, speed up or shorten to see how you do.

Just my 2 cents

A_B

I always slowed the boat down in choppy water, as I didn't like running longer lengths, so tried to keep the ski in the water and in good shape at slower speeds. Same for new rope lengths. Kris Lapoint put on a clinic at our lake many years ago and I remember asking him the same question. He said to slow the boat down.

Phil2360

Was thinking along the lines of learning the different angles & techniques associated with the length & doing it at a speed where the mistakes/techniques faults could be eliminated, as opposed to trying to improve the buoy count with the mistakes still present.

Phil2360

@AB,
Funny I must have still been composing my post when you replied & jumped above me.

A_B

Phil, Kris was pretty adament about the fact that there will be a speed where you can run a pass, and the angle and edge holding is needed at any speed, but easier at slower speeds. Just stay at that speed until you run it well, then start bumping speed.

Another tip he gave us was to run really crazy slow speeds, like 28 mph or less, because if you don't ski on edge, you will never run it, and if you do it right, you will.