Did some more heli’s before our practice tonight and I think I’m finally comfortable throwing them… before it was a thousand things going through my head as I approached the ramp. Now I’m actually thinking about the trick. Making it around pretty consistently now, but if you watch the videos below, my feet come apart on the last 90 degrees of the rotation and that causes my landing to go to crap. Here’s the footage…
Hit the lake after work tonight (with Joey, Paul, Ronée and Scott) and did another jump set…
Jump number was a planned ride over… lets just say I landed… on my back. Went off on my heals and it was a complete yard sale on the landing. Wish I had this one on video.. it would have been good.
Jump number two was suppose to be heli attempt number one. Well, I was still working on getting the wrap done as we approached the ramp and it finally got to the point where I wasn’t going to be wrapped so I just did a ride over. Nothing special, but I did have the feeling that I hate where it feels like I’m going to go out the front, which is in reality good, because then I’m over my skis. Anyways, landed it and received a standing O from the crowd on the Betty Lou that was going by.
Jump number three was my first heli attempt of the night, and third overall. I made it 270 degrees around and had an ugly fall from the boat’s perspective. Nothing bad from mine. It seems that I’m starting the heli way late. Need to initiate it just before I leave the ramp, not eight feet later. Here’s the video…
Jump number four, heli attempt number two. Hit the ramp, initiated the spin at the very top of the ramp (still late, but earlier than before)… started spinning and saw the ramp and then I saw the boat again. Yes, I had finally spun 360 degrees. Had a landing I could have skied away from (according to Paul – skis flat, but they were in front of me), but didn’t. So close. Never been so happy after a fall. Instead of coming up with just a wave that I was OK, I came up with both fists pumped in the air.
I try to limit myself to 4 jumps (5 if I’m skiing away) per set so I called it after that one. Don’t like to get too tired and then injure myself. I had taken 3 pretty good falls.
Ended the night with a little wake surfing. I need more weight in the boat to make a bigger wave. Joey swiveled, Paul instructed, Ronée did some toe turns and Scott acted as our third after J &P left for v-ball. Fun night all around.
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I now have a camera that can take relatively decent videos so I’ve been making good use of it the last few days… here are some videos of some jumping and barefooting featuring John, T-Bell & myself. There are some good wipeouts on some of them.
[Update 7/11/07 @ 215pm] Some of the videos have been moved onto Google Video… I’ve been using that instead of Picasa to hold videos. Still working on my master plan for storing videos both on my computer and on the web.. Questions… let me know. -W
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By now, everyone has that damn water skiing squirrel. I won’t even mention him by name. You search for water skiing on the net, you find the squirrel. He is every where! Well, I found a video that is way better than that squirrel that goes around the baby pool. I found MONKEYS!!! Check this out…
First on the dock, a “chick” named Amber. She’s a good footer…. does a back deep on the boom and everything. The coolest part? She’ll fix her hair. Worth the wait.
Next on the dock, some random guy that is a little crazy, I’m guessing his name is Andre and apparently people think he’s going too fast. But anyway, dude does some pretty mean tricks. I’ll give away a little bit of his secret…. besides a shit load of speed, he’s on a boom and that boom is up very high and it provides a lot of upward lift and I know that is helping out a lot*. Still the tricks are pretty sick, so enjoy.
*I know this is helping out a lot from a little experiment I did… I’ve been doing one foots long line for a while now… not a problem. Go to do them on my boom and they just didn’t work very well. Raised the boom up about a foot from waist level to just above waist level and now one foots are easy as cake on the boom. This dude’s boom is above his head. That’s gotta help big time.
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This past weekend I competed in the Mad-City Dual. It is a small figure 8 barefoot tournament held in Monona Bay in Madison. I believe there was approximately 30 footers in the tournament. For those that don’t know, here is a brief description of a figure 8 tournament. Two footers are behind the boat going at the same time, the boat drives in a figure 8 pattern. What that means is as the boat goes around it crosses it’s own wake each time it crosses the middle of the eight. The two footers continue until 1 falls and then the other wins.
The bay was, as usually, very weedy. Here are some pics showing just how nasty it was.
Of all the people in the tournament, my first run was against Bugsy. Neither one of us had designs of winning the tournament, but we both wanted to put on respectable shows. I’ve been making my slalom starts this year so far (all 3 of them) but opted to go out on two skis and no worries about the start. My step was clean and since Bugsy won the coin toss and picked the outside for the first corner, I had the inside. I held the corner nicely and then make it through the “chop” in the middle of the eight. Second corner arrives and just as we’re coming out of the corner, somehow my inside foot catches and my run comes to end. Going in, I had three goals… make it around the first corner, make it through the middle and then finish an eight. 2 out of 3 on the first run. Pretty good even though I had lost. Our run had been the longest run so far and held for a few more runs which made me feel good even though I had lost.
Before I head out on my first run
Heading out for the first run
About to make the step
Footing
Coming out of the first corner
Coming back to shore
Bugsy & Me
I did get a kick out of a comment I received after my run. It went something like… “It takes a lot of guts to go out there on two skis and then you put on a good show.”
Me and my trusty skis
My second run didn’t go so well. Missed my step. Needless to say I was a little pissed off about that. I hadn’t missed a step in good water in a long time. My day was done.
Bugsy did pretty well in the tournament. T-Bell was happy she made it through the first set of rollers once. Beau kicked some ass, knocking off some big names and skied for quite a while on Saturday.
Don’t know who’s footing, but I love this shot. I wish there was one of Bugsy and Me like this.
At the end of the day, it came down to a 52 year old vs a 50 year old for the championship. Mike Netzer, the 52 year old won. Here’s a video of the final run.
After the tourney and grabbing some dinnner I’d eat, I headed downtown to meet up with a bunch of friends for dinner at Edo’s to celebrate Sandy’s birthday. They serve sushi. I don’t do sushi so that’s why I ate ahead of time. After dinner, we headed to the terrace and had some more beers and then to Brokah’s on the square for more drinks. Everyone had a good time and I was glad I wasn’t driving.
Bugsy, his man bag, two pitches of beer and smoking a cigarette.
One of my Google searches found the following video out on YouTube. Some people did a promo video for the Mad-City Ski Team in 2003 which is the year our theme was The Resurrection and finished 2nd at Nationals. OK, it really isnt’ that old, but it’s amazing how much the ski team has changed in 4 years. Enjoy!
I think there are just a few collegiate water ski teams that could use this guy on their team. Not sure if he can ski or anything, but if they get into a beer pong challenge the night before a tournament, the other team won’t be feeling too well.
Blades of Glory is a movie I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. Will Ferrell doing for figure skating what he’s already done for NASCAR.
First, a little background about me… People are probably going to give me crap for this, but I’m a fan of Olympic quality figure skating. Granted I only watch it about every four years, but I still like to watch. I just think back to the day when in a youth hockey practice our couch had us try some of the stuff. It isn’t nearly as easy as they make it look. I fell on my ass… a lot. So I appreciate the sport. Not a big fan of “judged” sport, but done well, figure skating can be really good.
Simply put, I loved this movie. I laughed my ass of and so did the rest of the theatre. I occasionally felt bad for what I was laughing at, but knowing they were doing just for that effect made it a little easier. They rip on every aspect of figure skating there is (kids enslaved as youths, living weird lives, the guys aren’t that interested in girls, the costumes, the coaches, the announcers, everything). You name something that people make fun of related to figure skating, the do it. And they do it well.
Ferrell nails it. Heder hangs right with him. We get Craig T. Nelson reprising his role as coach, albeit it is coach of a different sport. And we get the creepy FBI agent from Prison Break playing the creepy figure skating parent. (Note, not all figure skating parents are creepy, for lack of a better word, but like any other type of parents, there are some.)
I won’t go into details of the plot because I don’t want to give away what little there is (think Tanya Harding) but there is enough where they can seamlessly work lines like “I put the bone in Zamboni” without it sounding contrived, and that takes some work.
The most amazing part of the movie is the number of real life really famous figure skating people that are in the movie that is ripping on their sport. They know what people say and they know the movie is being done in jest and they eat it up. Much props to Scott Hamilton, the voice of modern figure skating, for even poking fun with his announcing in the movie at how he announces in real life.
Finally, with the name of the movie, the first thing that comes to mind is the Bon Jovi song Blaze of Glory from Young Guns II. I so wanted to here this song in the movie somehow. But sadly, no dice. However, they do have Bo Bice, of Idol fame, singing a song that sounds somewhat similar to Blaze of Glory (video) called Blades of Glory (video). The song was different enough where it isn’t the same, but has that same sound to it (mainly the refrain). Oh, how low Mr. Bice has already sunk.
Horrible movie, incredibly funny and I loved it. If you want to laugh your ass off, go watch it.
Mad-City Wedge 