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SLALOM SKI SET-UP AND TUNING GUIDE

"DESIGN - TEST - REFINE"

Here’s an interesting scenario, suppose you were to take a 1” x 6” the same length as your current ski, put a fin slot in it and then mount your fin, wing and bindings to it.  How well would you ski?  Most likely, you wouldn’t ski well at all!  What we have just determined is how vitally important a high performance ski is to high performance skiing.  Upgrading your ski and/or accessories to a model that benefits you is the fastest way to ski better.  Upgrading can mean replacing your equipment with something better or simply tuning what you have.  With a screwdriver and an Allen Wrench, you can add a ton of brainless buoys to your score or take them away if you are not tuning correctly.  I say “brainless” because you won’t have to learn any new skills to perform at a higher level.  The key to tuning is to identify what your needs are and then adjusting your equipment to address these needs.  Prior to making any changes in your equipment, write down the original position of whatever it is you are changing.  If you are moving your bindings, write down exactly where they are before you touch them!  If you are changing your wing angle, measure both sides and write down the angle(s).  If you are messing with the fin, WRITE DOWN EXACTLY WHERE IT IS OVER ALL THREE DIMENSIONS USING AT LEAST AN 8” CALIPER.  Write down the measurements to four digits past the decimal point as this is critical information to high end skiing and restoring the fin to its original position and performance.  Not doing this will cause you to be what I call; LOST IN SPACE” as you will be totally lost and the performance you used to have will be gone forever!  The three dimensions to measure are length, depth and distance from the tail.  If you ski and test a lot, get a Mititoyo 8” caliper.  If you are a weekend Wally, you can get away with a cheaper one.  I sell them both on my “SKIING TOOLS” page.

Once a change is made, you must test it.  You should make only one change at a time in order to isolate the change in performance.  One change means you must ski with the same boat, same driver, same rope, same handle, same gloves, etc., etc., with the only change being the one you made to the ski, fin, wing or bindings.  Once you have skied this change, ask yourself, is this change better or worse?  If the change is better, is it enough or could you use more?  Is it too much?  Was the change in the right direction?  If not, try going the opposite way.  Continually ask yourself, “if the ski could do something better, what would I want it to do” and then keep testing until you find the answer. 

I use the word “DESIGN” because you may have an idea for something new and revolutionary (like the wing and adjustable fin once were).  Design it, build it, then test and refine it.  Doing these things will force you to become a better skier!  Better skiing is what it’s all about, RIGHT?

Excerpted from Waterskiing and Wakeboarding By Ben Favret

Chapter 10;   A Lifetime of Fun 

In their article “Long-Term Athlete Development: Trainability in Childhood and Adolescence,” Istvan Balyi and Ann Hamilton describe what researchers call the 10-year or 10,000-hour rule: Talented athletes need 8 to 12 years of training to reach elite performance levels in their sports. The 10,000 hours break down into about three hours of practice every day for 10 years. Most of us can only wish we had three hours a day to train like the pros. Because most recreational athletes don’t, they may need a lot more time to reach the peak of their skills. This is great news because it means that you are likely still getting better.

Putting skill progression and learning into this long-term context forces us to reevaluate the idea of peaking for a weekend tournament or any short-term view of training and performance. Rather than emphasizing immediate results, we can refocus our training on a long-term plan for improvement. If you want to get better, continue to have fun, build on your success, and learn to win.

Benefits of Late Specialization

Some sports, such as gymnastics, are young people’s games. Gymnastics requires early specialization to reach elite levels. The gymnasts in the Olympics are as young as 14 and 15 and are at the peak of their competitive careers. After college, little or no competitive or recreational opportunities exist. Water skiing and wakeboarding, on the other hand, are late specialization sports, providing lifelong opportunities for skill development and fun. The physical requirements of these sports require you to be more developed physically to perform the movements at the elite level. Thus, water skiers and wakeboarders reach their peaks later in life and are likely to continue to participate for longer periods of time.

Thirteen-year-olds may dominate in gymnastics, but you won’t see them jumping 200 feet (61 m) or running 39 off on the slalom course. You will, however, see people 40 years old and older ripping it up on the water and still competing at elite levels. You will also see water skiers and wakeboarders participating in the sports recreationally well past their competitive peaks. This is great news because it most likely means that your best years are ahead of you. I am living proof of this. Although I had been a recreational slalom skier on open water, I did not get on a slalom course until I was 19 years old. Because water skiing is a late specialization sport, I was able to ascend to the top ranks of the sport

and have an accomplished pro career spanning three decades of competition.

Six-Stage Model of Skill Development  

Waterskiing and wakeboarding are sports that provide a lifetime of fun, and they require a specialized model of skill development. Balyi and Hamilton’s article presents a six-stage model of development for late specialization sports. I have adapted this model to help waterskiers and wakeboarders of all ages map out a lifetime of fun on the water. I have tailored the model to fit our sports skill development and to address the various points at which water ski and wakeboard athletes may begin the process. The model includes the following six stages:  

1. Learning to move

2. Learning to train

3. Training for improvement

4. Training to compete

5. Training to win

6. Training for recreation  

My book, Waterskiing and Wakeboarding provides the goals, tasks and training plans for each of the six stages but for this article I will focus on the most elusive to most athletes, Training to Win. Winning is a learned skill just like learning to do a flip, or run the slalom course.  It is about learning to put yourself in the right position at the right time and knowing what to do and how to do it to win.  

In the training to win stage, the objective is to maximize fitness and sport-specific skills as well as performance. This stage occurs in males 18years and older and in females 17 years and older. If there is one stage that is most needed by the overwhelming majority of water skiers and wakeboarders, it is training to win. It is definitely the most overlooked stage in our sports. Many compete, but few win, and even fewer learn how to win consistently.

This stage is the final frontier of skill development; in this stage you learn how to consistently and predictably perform your best, how to turn it on when it matters and make it happen. Training to win is about peaking for major competitions as well as knowing how to adjust, adapt, and dominate the competition even when everything is not set up for a peak or you are not at your best.

The training-to-competition ratio in this phase is 25:75, with the competition percentage including competition-specific training activities. Training to win mostly involves trial and error and testing precompetition routines and practice rituals. It takes great at attention to detail and precise tracking to find the consistently reproducible mix of training, warm-up, intensity, focus, and mental calmness so you can ski or ride your best.

In this stage, you need to keep and analyze a detailed log of everything to find Patterns of performance in both practice and competition. Think of all the statistics used in golf—driving percentage, greens in regulation, putts made and missed. The same is true of tennis—winners, unforced errors, serving percentage. Track your stats and know what your go-to moves are to win. Likewise, have a plan for situations that force you away from your strengths. So much of learning to win consistently is simply putting yourself in situations you know how to manage and having a plan to execute your skills. A plan helps you eliminate self-doubt and second-guessing and focus on execution. Following a plan, rather than leaving your performance to chance, gives you the best chance of winning.  

Great athletes constantly are evolving to stay ahead of the competition. Michael Jordan added a fall-away jumper and a three-point shot as he progressed in age and his ability to blow by defenders diminished. As he aged, Muhammad Ali learned that he could bully smaller fighters and took punches to wear down his stronger opponents in pursuit of victory. Michael Phelps began an overhaul of his stroke almost as soon as he returned from the Beijing Olympics so he could get faster. In each case, the athlete had a plan and a process that resulted in consistent improvement and winning. You too can have a plan and a process to chart your course to victory, read Watersking and Wakeboaring to learn how.