What should your starting position be, when doing a deep water start?
Your starting position in the water is super important for water skiing. A good setup is key to being able to pull yourself out of the water with ease. Your body position once you’re up and skiing is also important, but it won’t mean anything until you actually get up!
The perfect starting position in the water is called the cannonball position. It is so called because it’s very similar to what you would do if you were doing a cannonball or ‘bomb’ dive into a swimming pool or creek.
Below are the key elements of the cannonball position. I’m assuming here that you’re learning to get up on two skis, but the principles apply equally to a single ski.
You want to keep your:
- Knees bent and close to your chest, snug between your elbows
- Arms straight, hands gripping the handle palms-down at its outer ends
- Skis parallel with each other, at an angle of about 45 degrees from horizontal
- Ski tips close together, and well visible above the water
- Ski fins somewhere under your bottom (they’ll be roughly in this spot if you’ve done everything else in this list)
- Shoulders relaxed (not hunched) and square to the boat
- Eyes on the boat
You may find it hard to have all of these elements in place at the same time, especially since nothing seems to stay still for long when you’re floating in water.  If you need to, you can take one hand off the handle and use it like a paddle in the water to keep yourself stable and oriented. Just make sure you get both hands back onto the handle when it’s go time!
Your virtual water ski coach,
Todd
PS – Before you go, why not:
