For maximum control, you need to get your weight forward on your slalom ski.
This principle might seem counter-intuitive, and it certainly runs counter to our usual instinct – which is to lean away from the direction of travel (or gravity, as the case may be).
But in slalom skiing, as in many other sports, the only way to fully control your ride is to have your weight over the front.
You will find this principle in cycling, snow skiing, snow boarding, and in fact almost every downhill pursuit. Anybody who has mastered snow skiing will be familiar with it: while it feels safer to lean back, you’re actually trading that feeling for genuine control, agility, and ultimately speed.
Why do you want your weight forward?
In a nutshell, the more you lean to the back of your ski, the less control you have. The less the ski will go where you want. The main point of moving your weight towards the front of your ski is simply to have more of your ski in contact with the water.
Having more of your ski in the water gives you more control over its direction and handling. Particularly the leading edges of the ski (to the sides and just in front of the front binder).
This is true in a general sense in pretty much all skiing situations, but is particularly relevant when turning around the slalom course.
Plenty of recreational skiers can produce an impressive wall of water on the outside of their turns, simply by stomping down with their back foot in the apex of the turn.
While this might look impressive, all it really does is make the ski corkscrew in the water.
With the pressure all on the rear of the ski, and the skier’s weight mostly at the back of it, the front of the ski rears up out of the water and the ski takes on more of a vertical orientation (i.e. pointing up and down). The ski rotates mostly around its long axis, while pointing up into the air.
A ski that corkscrews around like this can certainly rotate quite rapidly. But once the turn is completed, the front of the ski will generally remain up and out of the water.
The ski has turned in a sense, but it isn’t pointing to the other side of the slalom course with its length perpendicular to the boat path. Not only that, but the skier has little purchase on the water at this point, and thus cannot pull against the boat with enough force.
This inevitably results in both ski and skier tracking down course, which naturally makes it difficult (or impossible) to make it around the next buoy.
So now we know how important it is to have your weight further forward on your ski, and to keep your ski turning in the horizontal plane instead of the vertical.
How do you get your weight forward?
There are some subtleties to this seemingly simple concept, and simply hinging forward at the hip is definitely not the plan.
For the ‘how, check out the second post in this series. I’ve got a simple technique and a couple of handy cues for you, that will have you carving your ski deep into your slalom turns.
Your virtual water ski coach,
Todd
PS – Below are a couple of cautionary examples, from yours truly. Note the straight legs, and how much of the front of the ski is visible out of the water. Don’t be this guy.
PPS – Before you go, why not:
