Off topic… A man is in trouble from Australian authorities for spending the day water skiing with his son on the Victoria River. The authorities have an issue with it because he wasn’t using a boat. He was towing his son with a helicopter.
A quote from the article…
Blooby nanny state. For gods sake get a life or get back under your rock you bunch of kill joy grannies. Piss off and let people be themselves, get a life or take the next plane out of here. Wankers.
I found this story via Slashdot. Read the full story here (it even has a little bit of video). I’m sure the creative writers over at The CRB will come up with a witty article about this.
Over on Karen Putz’s blog Barefoot in the Burbs, she has a nice article about Lauren Lindeman. Lauren learned to ski at 3 1/2, barefoot at 6 and is now a World class barefooter. Take a moment and check it out…
A little off topic here, but thought I’d pass this along anyways…
There’s a new world record (recognized by Guinness World Records) in water skiing… The most water skiers towed behind a single boat is 114 by the Horsehead Water Ski Club (Australia) in Strahan, Tasmania, Australia, on March 28, 2010.
I know it’s not barefooting, but it is still one hell of a record. If you check out their website, near the top the have a very wide picture that’ll give you an idea of just how many people 114 people are.
Also, (currently) near the top of the website you can find a link to download the footage taken from The Eagle (the boat that pulled the skiers). You can see that it was a very slow pull.
Old school videos keep showing up on the internet and making their way to my inbox. Here’s the Men’s Open footage from the 1993 Bareboot Nationals featuring footing by Don Mixon Jr, Lane Bowers, Jon Kretchman and Rick Powell. And yes there is some sweet wetsuits in the video…
This old article by Paul “Stokeman” Stokes just made it’s way across my desk. Here’s the beginning of it:
The front to back (F-B) is known as the trick that separates the men from the boys or takes women to the world level of the sport. Even at the National Championships there are many competitors that perform the back to front but very few outside of the open division perform the front to back. It’s a trick that every barefooter wants right from the start. This trick is also widely thought to be a very difficult trick. I’m here to tell you that this is an easy trick when #1 you’re ready for it, #2 you go about learning it properly, and #3 you have persistence.
If you want to read the rest of the article, follow the link. I think everything is current except for Paul’s contact info at the end of the article.
…but it’s not. You’ll need to read all the way to the end to find out why.
First, lets look at some behind the scenes footage of the Red Bull Depth Charge. Now you’re asking, what’s that? Well, it was the world’s first UNDERGROUND wakeboard event. They used a mine from 1864 that had since flooded with a whole lot of water, installed some features and put up some lights and whala, they had themselves a wakeboard course set about 120 feet below the surface of the earth.
Next up is the Dew Tour Mastercraft Wakeboard Rail Jam. One would think they’d hold a wakeboard event in a lake, right? Even in the Red Bull Depth Charge they were in a lake, granted is was underground, but still, it was a lake. The Rail Jam, they held it in a parking lot… on pavement… and built some really big pools. And by big pools, I mean ginormous (gigantic * enormous = ginormous) pools. In word, they were big. But not so big that if they jumped too high or too far, they might just hit pavement. Be sure to watch this one to the end because they managed to find a guy to explain everything for you.
By now you’re wondering why are there two wakeboarding videos posted here on a barefoot site? One might be OK, but two? Seriously? [just watched me some SNL] Well, both of these events had one Mr Peter Fleck involved in the planning of them. Who’s Peter Fleck? This guy…
That is Peter Fleck as he appeared some 26 years ago. It’s also this guy…
He’s had a lengthy career as a barefooter, skied professionally in ski shows and has even competed at Footstock in recent years. He also helped plan both the Depth Charge and Rail Jam events. In addition to everything he’s done on the water, he’s done a lot of stuff off the water to help promote the sport of water skiing and all is various disciplines, even wakeboarding. Here’s the video that was played at the Wisconsin Water Ski Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2009. It highlights some of the things he’s done both on and off the water.
Hopefully you’ve taken the nearly 30 minutes to read this short article and watch these three videos. Two highlight some spectacular water ski events and one highlights a truly spectacular water skier who helped make those events happen.
While browsing around the other footing websites, looking for something interesting about barefooting, I came across an article on Toes Up. That site, run by Teri Jones (aka Teri Larsen) and Scott Jones (aka Jonesy) who are currently training for Worlds, has some videos and stories about some of the original barefooters.
The one I’m going to talk about today is about John Gillette. He authored a book called Barefooting that sounds like it contains a wealth of knowledge about the sport. Based on the article, although he is a much more talented footer than me, it sounds like that like me, he really has to work on anything new that he wants to learn. I won’t go into too much more detail here, but be sure to go check out the article over on Toes Up. Here’s the direct link to the article.
Mad-City Wedge 