I’m a firm believer that sometimes you get better advice from someone who is just learning and has figured things out than experts who may have forgotten what it’s like to be a novice.
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But if you’re trying to teach a beginner to ride a horse, you don’t put him on a horse and have it gallop. Then when he falls off, it’s Oh well, try again. And again, and again…
No, you first have the horse walk. Then when the beginner masters that, you have it trot, then canter (or lope if you’re from the west), and then finally gallop.
Learning the deep water start should be the same way.
I’ve really been analyzing what I did and I can divide it up into a few distinct stages.
I’ll also mention a couple of tips:
- Learn it first on a combo ski. It’s more stable than a slalom ski and the extra stability will help. Once you master this, you can move on to a slalom ski.
- Get the driver to give you a ‘soft pull.’ More on this later.
- It really helps to focus on getting up, not just trying it and if you succeed, keep skiing. When I finally got up, I let go of the rope and did it again. And again. And again.
- It seems to me that different things work for different people depending on their body shape, if they’re male or female, if they are doing a 1-foot or 2-foot start, etc. I’ll mention that I am female, 5′ 10″, and start with both feet in the ski. I can’t tell you my weight because I honestly don’t know, but the last time I checked which was decades ago, I was 140 lbs.
Stage 1: Waiting for the Pull
To me, this is the most crucial part of the whole thing; the step that makes it or breaks it.
They key to success is how you are positioned in the water before the boat even starts to move.
[Update: I now think the most important thing is the way the boat pulls you. See Three months later–what I’ve learned.]
First I’m going to tell you what things that DON’T work for me.
Most important: keep your butt down and your feet high. I say that to myself every time I’m in the water waiting.
They key to success is how you are positioned in the water before the boat even starts to move.
[Update: I now think the most important thing is the way the boat pulls you. See Three months later–what I’ve learned.]
First I’m going to tell you what things that DON’T work for me.
- I’ve read a lot of websites that say the key is to be tucked so tightly that you should be able to take a bite out of your knee if it were an apple just by moving your head slightly. But I found this NOT to be the case for me. I tuck as much as I can, but not nearly as much as is described.
- I had three different experts tell me that I should be hunched over…shoulders forward, head pointing to the tip of the ski, like I’m trying to touch my toes. One person even said some men put their head in the water. This position helps to be hidden by the ski and reduce the water drag.
Again, this did NOT work for me. It had exactly the opposite effect: the second the boat started, I immediately flew over the top of the ski and face-planted. My friends tried to give me more advice such as concentrate on pushing on the ski, etc., but nothing worked. I did a lot of flipping over the ski that day.
Then someone who was more of an intermediate skier said he was told to do just the opposite: have his butt down and feet high. Lo and behold, this was the key I was looking for. When I did that, I got right up. -
Also, I used to be hung up on having the ski straight, that is in a totally vertical line. But I don’t anymore. I read another website where people say they actually intentionally put the ski off at an angle: 2:00 for a right-foot forward skier (as I am) and 10:00 for a left.
Now I don’t intentionally do this, but based on this advice I don’t get scared if my ski starts to slip at an angle. I do try to have it flat, however, in other words the bottom of the ski pointing flat to the boat instead of on an edge. The ski should be flat whether it is rotated along the imaginary clock or not. (If it’s slightly on edge, you’ll start to drift to the side as you’re trying to get up).
It used to be that if my ski started to fall out of the vertical right before the boat started, I would panic. But I found that when the boat moves, the movement pulls the ski right back into line again, so I don’t worry about it.
Most important: keep your butt down and your feet high. I say that to myself every time I’m in the water waiting.
Stage 2: The Initial Pull
This is when the boat starts to go. You immediately feel the push of the water on the bottom of the ski and you are dragged through the water.
When the boat starts to move, I know right away whether I had enough of the ski out of the water or not in the previous stage. If it’s really hard to hold on, I didn’t. But when I did have enough, this stage is almost effortless. I do feel the drag and it does require me to hold on, but it’s doesn’t require a huge amount of strength.
The best thing to do is to practice stage 1 and stage 2 by having the driver give you a slow pull at this point for a few seconds. Not enough to get you out of the water, but just enough to have you feel the sensation of being pulled this way.
Try to keep balanced so that you don’t drift from side to side, but stay as directly behind the boat as possible.
If you find it really hard to hang on, try to lean back more and put your feet higher. I don’t remember if you can adjust while you’re being pulled. You may have to have the driver stop and then go back to stage 1.
Practice this a few times until you’re really comfortable with it before moving on.
To Summarize:
If it’s really hard to hang on, you didn’t have the correct body position from stage 1. But if you were in the right position, this stage is almost effortless.
When the boat starts to move, I know right away whether I had enough of the ski out of the water or not in the previous stage. If it’s really hard to hold on, I didn’t. But when I did have enough, this stage is almost effortless. I do feel the drag and it does require me to hold on, but it’s doesn’t require a huge amount of strength.
The best thing to do is to practice stage 1 and stage 2 by having the driver give you a slow pull at this point for a few seconds. Not enough to get you out of the water, but just enough to have you feel the sensation of being pulled this way.
Try to keep balanced so that you don’t drift from side to side, but stay as directly behind the boat as possible.
If you find it really hard to hang on, try to lean back more and put your feet higher. I don’t remember if you can adjust while you’re being pulled. You may have to have the driver stop and then go back to stage 1.
Practice this a few times until you’re really comfortable with it before moving on.
To Summarize:
If it’s really hard to hang on, you didn’t have the correct body position from stage 1. But if you were in the right position, this stage is almost effortless.
Stage 3: The Continued Pull
Once you feel really comfortable with stage 1 and 2, it’s time to have the driver speed up a little, enough to get you out. IMPORTANT: the driver should still start out with a slow pull but can go into a faster pull pretty quickly. It doesn’t have to be super fast. The easiest time I ever had getting up was when the driver kept it a little slow.
When he does speed up, it’s a very interesting sensation. I feel my body being pulled forward over the ski, almost to the ‘touch your toes’ position my friends described. But there’s nothing I do consciously; it’s effortless. I’m just concentrating on hanging on and trying to stay balanced from side to side.
And magically I start to rise out of the water.
From a technical perspective, what’s happening is the ski is planing, which means it’s flattening out on the water and taking me with it.
Some of my expert friends say that they intentionally lift their heel out of the back binding to help this happen. But I don’t think about this. All I think about is hanging on, and it just naturally happens.
I found an interesting phenomenon when I did all this on a combo ski. At this point I was out of the water and it felt like I should stand up. BUT I felt very unstable side-to-side, kind of wobbly.
My expert friend said at this point I should relax and just wait before standing up. And you know what? He was right! When I waited just a moment longer, all of a sudden the ski got very stable and stopped being wobbly.
Interestingly when I mastered all this on a combo ski and then tried doing the same on a slalom ski, I did not notice this wobbly-to-stable stage.
When he does speed up, it’s a very interesting sensation. I feel my body being pulled forward over the ski, almost to the ‘touch your toes’ position my friends described. But there’s nothing I do consciously; it’s effortless. I’m just concentrating on hanging on and trying to stay balanced from side to side.
And magically I start to rise out of the water.
From a technical perspective, what’s happening is the ski is planing, which means it’s flattening out on the water and taking me with it.
Some of my expert friends say that they intentionally lift their heel out of the back binding to help this happen. But I don’t think about this. All I think about is hanging on, and it just naturally happens.
I found an interesting phenomenon when I did all this on a combo ski. At this point I was out of the water and it felt like I should stand up. BUT I felt very unstable side-to-side, kind of wobbly.
My expert friend said at this point I should relax and just wait before standing up. And you know what? He was right! When I waited just a moment longer, all of a sudden the ski got very stable and stopped being wobbly.
Interestingly when I mastered all this on a combo ski and then tried doing the same on a slalom ski, I did not notice this wobbly-to-stable stage.
Stage 4: Stand Up!
The only thing left is to stand up. But keep in mind that as you’re doing it, bring your hips up to the bar. In other words, get into proper form right away as you’re standing.
This will put weight on the back of the ski and make it really stable.
A couple of times when I wasn’t concentrating on this, I lost my balance and fell almost immediately.
So that’s it!
This will put weight on the back of the ski and make it really stable.
A couple of times when I wasn’t concentrating on this, I lost my balance and fell almost immediately.
After I got this mastered on a combo ski, I used my friends slalom ski. It was an HO System 8. I was surprised at how different it was (I fell again), but it didn’t take long before I got the hang of it.
As I mentioned, different things work for different people. Most of the people who told me to point my head to the tip of my ski from the start were men, but one was a woman (who starts with only one foot in).
My friend who told me to keep my feet high is a guy.
Recently I watched another guy get up effortlessly. He didn’t have very much of his ski above the water. If I had started in the same position he did, I would have just flopped over the ski top, but he got right up.
So find what works for you. And remember to try to work on it in stages instead of having it be an all or nothing thing.
UPDATE: The type of throttle the boat has and the skill of the driver also seems to make a difference. See my post on going back to the drawing board.
I hope this was helpful. If you feel so inclined, I’m happy to accept donations to cover the cost of keeping this website afloat.