How to Water Ski - Dry Land Instruction

Steve Lohr: Hi, I am Steve Lohr from Lohr's Lake in Sparta, Virginia here to teach you how to water ski. We have selected our skis, rope and life jacket, now we are ready for some dry land practice. So on the dock we going be taking the skis and putting them on and demonstrating exactly how we feel in the water. My assistant Courtney will be placing the skis on the dock and placing her feet in the bindings by placing the toes in first and then working the heel binding them around. She has already adjusted them so that they will be tight around her feet. Okay I am going to have Courtney hold on to the tow rope with both hands in the up position or down position and she will actually bend her knees, keep her arms almost straight and look at me or look at the trees. We always want to keep the head up so that the body doesn't fall down. She will stay in a rigid position so that I can function as the boat and actually pull her and almost slide her across the dock. In that way she is feeling the sensation of the boat without having to take falls in the water. So we will do this numerous times and each time that I stop she will pretty much stay in that position, this helps to teach the skier to avoid falling over backwards. There is tremendous tendency to want to stand up and to pull the arms in to help yourself up on the water. If you do that you fall over backwards. As you can see Courtney will stay in the knees bent, arms straight position with most of her weight on the balls of her feet. We will do this numerous times until she is very comfortable on dry land and then we will proceed to the next water skiing step which will be the deep water start.