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The Morrison’s dropped me off at the Swzed’s on
June 20th and Laura Swzed was kind enough to give her bedroom up to me for the week. I didn’t mind the pink comforter because the bed was comfortable and I had my own room!
We started the week on Monday just warming up while getting everyone comfortable on their own two feet. I watched closely and started coming up with a plan for the week as everyone was skiing their hearts out!
I decided not to set the jump up on Monday and thought it was wise to have the people
that wanted to jump get solid on their feet first!
First thing
Tuesday morning we set the jump up with no problems at all! Started with several boom jumps with Laura, Kyle and Chris. The brother and sister duo showed their dad up with beautiful straight up and down jumps! Laura took her jumping to the next level showing me confidence riding into the jump while having
composure on the ramp as well! Kyle was right there too but I had to calm him down a little because he wanted to go inverted badly! He’ll be there soon enough! I think he gets it from his dad because dad was trying to catch up to his kids at a fast
pace too!
We continued the day working on toe-ups with Laura and back toes with Kyle. The both of them completed their goals with Laura being able to do several toe ups on the five foot and Kyle doing both back toes effortlessly! The Swzed family has it much like everyone else on their lake. Everyone knows they barefoot but don’t necessarily want to share the morning water. We actually had great foot’n water every morning with no boat traffic.
A couple afternoons we planned on going to Jim Youngblood’s private lake for smooth water and no boats. There was one little problem though that I’ll explain later on.
Wednesday we jumped again making more progress but instead of rushing to the next step, I kept Laura and Kyle on the five foot on shoes just to make sure everything was kosher. Chris kept working on his line front that he was making progress with but like any good father he gave all the perfect water up to his kids. Chris wouldn’t foot until later on or if the water got a little rough. He and I were on the same boat with not wanting to foot because the beginning of the week was freezing cold! One morning the air temperature was 46 degrees and “no” the water didn’t feel
much warmer!
Thursday we jumped first thing while the water was buttery smooth. It’s nice keeping the ramp in the water so we didn’t have to set it up every morning. Just pull the tire off to jump and when finished throw it back on as the blockade. I decided to let Laura jump behind the boat on shoes and then let her jump with the boom on her feet. She kept the same body position, lift and landing to secure some of her most superb jumps ever on her feet. She would be ready for the five foot line tomorrow morning! Kyle kept things going well but he was a little unpredictable so I kept him jumping on his feet directly on the boom for safe keeping.
I don’t think there’s any reason for young kids to jump at an early age!
There are so many other things to work on to be a stable footer that the better you are on your feet the more comfortable you’ll feel on the jump. My first jump was behind the boat at about thirteen years old on a home made jump that my father, Spray Danny (my foot’n partner) and I made. There was no such thing as jumping on the boom and learning correctly. I remember someone saying, “Just suit up,
throw on this Pro-Tec helmet and go try it out!” As I get the big pat-pat-pat on the top of the helmet. It feels good to say that it’s not like that anymore and many people are taking jumping seriously as well as having respect for the ramp. One of the best and smartest things my coach (Swampy) did for me was holding me back from learning how to jump inverted to early in my career. We knew that the focus had to be on slalom and tricks because the jumping would take too much training time away!
Now a days all the youngsters want to learn jumping at an early age just so they can look cool!
It’s too bad their slalom and tricks don’t compare to their jumping skills!
When I finally did learn how to jump at Kretchman’s I went “Jump Happy.” That’s what Swampy called it when I returned from Minnesota, because all I wanted to do was jump!
That’s exactly what I did too! That’s why at Nationals I looked cool jumping but scored my lowest trick score ever at 440 points!
Jumping might be fun but it’s not always the answer at the start of your foot’n days!
On Friday I finally saw that Laura was ready to jump behind the boat!
We just had to work on her cut out to make sure she’d go over the jump square. We took some drive by’s and I knew she was ready! She came up to the jump in a safe position that looked rock solid!
She road over holding position and skied away from her first jump ever behind the boat! That was a job well done on her behalf and a perfectly planned week on my behalf. See, that’s were the pat-pat-pat
came in again! Except this time around Laura and myself were a little smarter than my first time!
I could see in Kyle’s eyes that he wanted to jump behind the boat and keep up with his big sister but he started trying a little to hard and his jumping slowly unfolded. As much as I wanted to let him jump behind the boat the weather turned to crap and I knew he’d have another day to regain himself! The very next day Kyle was also jumping on his feet behind the boat! Job well done Kyle!!
That
Friday afternoon we decided to go to Jim’s private lake because of the wind and boat traffic on White lake. Jim’s private lake isn’t man made but you have to live on the lake to have access. We jumped in Jim’s FlightCraft and started idling out to the main lake. The water wasn’t too bad but there wasn’t any backwash so that made my day much easier! Everyone worked on slalom were there was plenty of work to be done.
As I’m driving the boat down the
3000 foot pass, I see ducks far ahead that are slowly swimming across my path. I’m not going to be able to hold a straight path unless the ducks move so I start to slow down. As I’m getting nearer I notice that one, my skier is going backwards and not letting go and two, “It’s a damn lady swimming across the lake directly in my path!” Ducks I’ll run over if they decide not to move but by the time I realized it was a lady I was only 60ft. off her lead arm while she was performing her breast stroke!
I guess the story goes further back. Jim isn’t liked on his lake too much mostly because he foot’s two to three times a week at around 6am. This lady doesn’t like it at all and thinks she can stop him foot’n on the lake!
Jim has read the covenant of the lake and there’s one rule that has been grand fathered in!
It states, “Ski boats and skiers have the right of way on the lake and by no means can any other person or vessel hinder them.” So, I think this lady is trying to commit suicide or something. From what Jim tells me this isn’t the first time she pulls this stunt off!
Note to self, “Watch for people swimming while driving the boat!” Never thought I’d have to worry about that before!
To top the week off, I hit up the Swzed’s family reunion just before my departure. I played catch, got a buzz, ate some crazy Polish food and was engaged for a couple minutes.
I was introducing myself to one of the brother in-laws and one of the younger cute cousins sat next to me. The man to my right asks if we came together? I said no and tried to explain that I wasn’t part of the family!
He said, “Well, of course you are now because you’re engaged to my niece!” Anyway, I left soon after and I think he figured it out!
KSO
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