When soaking wet at 48 degrees, the only thing...

between yourself and severe hypothermia is child-like enthusiasim. Ok, and the drysuit helps too. I love getting up at 5 am to ski. I had the chance to go this morning. I was up at 430 without the alarm clock (Libby really likes it when I manage to wake up without the buzzer). By morning, the fivesome was down to a threesome; Cyrus was on call and Abe had to work all night at the genetics lab (no, I don't think he's ever seen a five-assed monkey). So it was just myself, and Christy and Leah from the Iowa ski team whom I have taken to coaching.

Behold, the University of Iowa ski rig: A 1997 Moomba with nearly 1300 hours, and a 1990-something Dogde Caravan with nearely 170K miles to pull it. It runs through the slalom course at 36 like it's being driven by Stevie wonder after a 12 pack. But it's allright for tricks and riding jump skis (No ramp on coralville lake, unfortunately).





Leah skied first, I'm teaching her how to do her forst wake back/ wake front, and she is just now doing both without coming out of the back position outside of the wake. Here's a shot



When I started to ski, I noticed that the chilly air stung my face. Note the distressed visage.



But I managed to get over the initial chill and do some halfway decent trick sking. I worked on hands and toes this morning, but I couldn't get any shots of the toe tricks because Christy lacks the talent to take pictures and hold a release rope at the same time. Not that it would be a smart thing to do for any one who actually had the talent..






Christy skied after me, but the camera ran out of memory. I had her mostly just riding the trick ski on one foot. Cross both wakes, then go to one wake, jump inside, outside, inside, outside, and switch to the other wake. Its a great drill to learn proper body position on a single trick ski, and it accellerates the learning curve for beginers.

Before heading home (or to class, in Christy and Leah's case) I rode my jumpers. I spent about half the set doing the coran drill at 26mph, then I just cut at 35. I was concentrating on keeping pressure on my left ski in the counter cut until right as I begin the ramp cut. Scot Ellis mentions this in his Fight School DVD, and it seems to help keep a tight line. Although at times I felt like the handle would not come all the way into my right hand, and I was gripping with my fingertips only. Oh well there's still time to iron out the early season kinks before cutting at the ramp full speed. the goal is to avoid jumps like this.



This was at regionals last year at Water's Edge Estates. I had the speed and direction to jump well into the 130's on that one, but I was on my heels and split my skis on the ramp. Future posts of jump pictures will look better, I hope.

That's all for now. I'm probably skiing at Eagle Lake this weekend with Clint and Rick, so I am anticipating some good shots. My goal is to get ski shots of everyone I ski with on this blog. That shouldn't be too difficult if I'm sitting in the boat with a camera.