Coach's Corner Answer to Question #1

Mike Seipel's Corner

Question #1: We are debating and are quite confused on which boat to buy an outboard Mercury or Yamaha Mastercraft or Malibu? My wife and daughter just barefoot. Now we are hearing that the inboard is the way to go. This will be a big spending for us and don't want to make a mistake. Could you tell us your thoughts?

Answer to Question #1:
Inboards and outboards can both be made to create the perfect barefoot boat if the hull is designed correctly. The perfect barefoot boat will have a smooth flat wake and will be designed to go fast enough to pull tournament barefooters at least 50 mph for wake slalom.

Most of my experience comes from running Yamaha outboards at my ski school. Yamaha outboards are very durable and have very few problems. Engines on barefoot boats must stand up to the constant fast speeds, quick starts, and quick stops that are associated with barefoot skiing. Yamaha outboards are very durable and fuel-efficient. Mastercraft and Sanger no longer make an outboard model due to the limited number of barefoot boats that they sell each year. Currently, Malibu is the only barefoot boat manufacturer still producing an AWSA approved outboard. It is the Malibu Flightcraft. They use 200 HP Mercury outboard engines. Rumor has it, the Malibu will be switching to inboards on their barefoot boats next year as well.

The Barefoot Sanger is currently the only other AWSA approved tournament barefoot boat, and it is an inboard. Sanger was the first manufacturer to switch from outboards to inboards.

The boat you buy may be more a factor of what type of barefooter you are. If you plan on skiing in tournaments, it would be best to purchase a Malibu Flightcraft or Barefoot Sanger since these are the boats that they are using at all the competitions. But if you are only a recreational footer, you can barefoot behind any boat that goes 35 to 40 mph. Whether it is an outboard, inboard, I/O, or V-drive, you can barefoot behind it in the curl, or along side it on a barefoot boom. The biggest difference between your typical ski boat and a barefoot boat is that the barefoot boats are designed to have the narrowest and smoothest wakes to cross. A barefoot boat will not have a rooster tail behind it. Instead, it will have a flat smooth table. Barefoot boats are also designed to go faster than regular competition ski or wakeboard boats. Skiing behind a regular boat and then skiing behind a barefoot boat is the best way to judge for yourself what boat is best for you.

Question #2: What do you think is an ideal prerequisite for learning back one foot slalom? And what steps would you take to ensure good back one foot slalom?

Answer to Question #2:
I use a multi-phase approach when I teach back one-foot wake slalom. By going through these phases, you will learn without hard falls and bad habits. You will also get to the final phase quicker and with the proper form. NOTE: I stress to all my students that they should go through all phases on shoe skis first before going through all the phases directly on your feet.

Phase 1:
This phase entails just being able to be relaxed while footing backwards in a straight line on the long line standing with even pressure on both feet.

Phase 2:
Phase 2 is learning to move across the wake by staying relaxed enough and leaning your body which ever way you want to go. If you relax and lean to your right enough, you will go to the right and visa versa. When you want to cross over to the other side of the wake for the first time, you first have to stay relaxed and lean away from the wake enough in order to get at least 6 feet away from the wake, and then if you stay relaxed and keep leaning enough towards the wake combined with the momentum you will get from starting 6 ft away from the wake, you will cross to the other side. If you get stuck and find that you just cannot relax and lean enough, don’t fight it. Go back 6 feet outside the wake and try again. Keep trying until you can cross without stopping. I advise my students to use at least 100 ft rope during this phase, and to keep their eyes open looking straight out behind them. You also need to keep even weight on both feet with your heals as close to the water as possible without feeling like you are going to catch. Relaxing your ankles while you ski will help you to do this. I don’t have my students worry about bending their knees, but stress more about keeping your legs relaxed and straight.

You should stay in this phase until you can cross the wake and pass it by 6 ft on each side with a nice rhythm. You should not be getting stuck once you learn how to lean your body while staying relaxed and your shoulders square and eyes looking behind you.

I don’t teach my students to turn the handle, turn their feet , or do anything other than stay relaxed and lean the way you want to go in this phase.

Phase 3:
In this phase, stay on at least a 100 ft rope and continue passing the wake up by 6 feet on each side without stopping. In this phase, I have you STOP leaning in the direction you want to go and instead have you push on the OUTSIDE foot towards the boat. This is the foot that is opposite the direction you wish to go, or the foot farthest away from the wake. Start trying to push your outside foot towards the boat when you start your cross. Start by pushing your outside foot an inch closer to the boat on each cross. If you keep doing this, by the time you cross 12 times, you will be pushing your outside foot a foot closer to the boat. If you are doing this correctly, you will feel more weight on your outside foot and less weight on your inside foot, even though your inside foot is still touching the water.

You will know when you are pushing your outside foot towards the boat enough because all your weight will be on it as you cross the wake and your inside foot will be touching the water but will have no weight on it. Remember to always keep looking straight out behind you, keep your legs relaxed and straight (do not bend your knees). Keep your legs a little wider than shoulder width apart with your ankles relaxed and your heels as close to the water as you can without feeling like they are going to catch. Do NOT move or turn the handle, or your feet, and don’t try to lean away from the direction you want to go. Just concentrate on pushing your outside foot towards the boat until you can cross the wake completely and pass it by 6 ft on each side without getting stuck keeping your shoulders square.

Phase 4:
Stay on a 100 ft rope during this phase. Phase 4 is a confidence building stage. In this phase you will continue doing all the steps of phase 3 enough to get the confidence that you know you could pick up the inside foot when you cross the wake on both sides. The more you practice, the lighter your inside foot will become because you will be perfecting the technique of pushing your outside foot towards the boat. Make sure that both wake crosses feel the same before going on to the next phase.

Phase 5:
Stay on a 100 ft rope during this phase. As your confidence builds in phase 4, don’t rush to pick your inside foot up. It will just start to automatically happen as you get better and better. When you start picking your inside foot up, don't pass the wake up by 6 ft anymore. Stay close to the wake as soon as you start to pick the foot up all the way. Continue to concentrate on keeping your arms straight, handle straight, legs straight but relaxed, eyes looking straight out behind you, and pushing your outside foot towards the boat with your shoulders square.

Phase 6:
The next step is to move to a 75 ft rope. If your boat is not an AWSA approved barefoot boat, you may find that the wake is very rough at 75 feet. Most inboard tournament slalom ski boats are not designed to create the optimum barefoot wake. If you plan to ski tournaments, you will need to practice on an approved tournament barefoot boat.

In this phase, you should add speed to your crosses by turning your foot that you are pushing towards the boat so your heel is pointed more and more in the direction you are going. As you do this, you will gain more speed and gain more crosses in a 15 second pass.

Phase 7:
Once you have become proficient at phase 6, the final phase is to have the boat go faster speeds while you are wake crossing. As the boat goes faster, the wake gets narrower. The faster speed will make you cross faster and the narrower wake will allow you make it so you don’t have as far to travel to complete a cross. This will all add up to more crosses in a set period of time. You should continue to increase your boat speed until you are comfortable going at the maximum speed the boat will go.

As the boat goes faster, you will find that you will not have to push your outside foot as close to the boat in order to get all your weight on it. You will also find that you will have to stand up taller as you ski. The water will become much more firm and feel slippery, so you will really need to concentrate on keeping your ankles relaxed and heels as close to the water as possible without feeling as though you are going to catch.

In this phase you should feel your foot set down slower and smoother and push it towards the boat the correct small amount that you need to feel stable and not feel as though your foot is about to slip out. You should feel your foot cut through the second wake, then slowly and smoothly set the other foot down to begin crossing back the other way. Your thought pattern should be:

Feel my foot set down slower and smother and drive through the second wake.

….and so on….

Remember never to turn the handle or do anything else. Anything else that you add or take away from this technique will only hinder your performance.

When you are doing wakes at a world record level, you will be able to see out the back just in front of the spray coming off your foot as you cross each time. Good luck.

Visit Mike Seipel's web site at www.barefootinternational.com