Water Skiing | Teen Ink

Water Skiing

June 2, 2014
By tommyboy19 BRONZE, Park Ridge, Illinois
tommyboy19 BRONZE, Park Ridge, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I was only five or six years old when I first learned how to water ski on two skis. It was like four years later when I learned how to get up and ski with only one ski. The reason being because my family didn’t have a summer house or any where to put our boat in at the time. So when I went skiing it was when I went up to my cousins camper for like three or four days once a year in the summer. But then my family got a summer house in Wisconsin. It’s not on the lake but it is like 75 yards away and you can see the water from my front porch. So now when I go up to my summer house and there is no ice on the lake my family will be out there water skiing. It’s really not a challenge to get up on one ski any more so now I want to learn how to barefoot water ski. It was a sunny Saturday morning and it was the day I was having my first lesson and I had to wake up at 7:00a.m. My sisters were doing it with me and we were all tired. We only had one waffle for breakfast so we were all hungry too. When we got there our teacher introduced himself to my family.

Then my teacher said “ The first thing you have to do is go and get fitted for your wet suits.” It was the first time wearing a bare footing wet suit for all of us so we weren't really used to it. The wet suits are like a inch thick and are really stiff. After wearing the wet suits for two or three minutes you get used to them. Before we went out his two daughters that are first and third in their age group for barefoot water skiing came out to help teach us. Then we went out. I was not the first to go but the first thing that you did is really easy and does not take any skill at all. All you do is sit in the handle of a ski rope handle that is hanging on to a boom. The boom is a big metal pipe that is sticking of the side off the boat. When you are learning how to barefoot or do some type of water skiing you can hang on to the boom on the side of the boat so that the person teaching you can talk to you and tell you what to do. After you do the handle thing you go to just holding onto the boom. When you are starting you just put your feet on to some cables that go from the end of the boom to the front of the boat. So when to boat starts you are just hanging in the air with your feet on the cables and holing yourself in the air by holding on to the boom. Then you put your butt in the water and then you take your feet of the cables slowly and place them into the water. Then you slowly rise out of the water and when you are skiing on your feet you have to keep your knees bent and your back straight.

One of the times I was just doing the bare footing on the boom and my teacher said “ bend your knees more” but I could not hear him so I looked to the left to try to see what he was saying and I fell and did a front flip when I hit the water. It hurt. After doing just the boom you go to the five foot line. That is just a handle with a five foot line attached to it that is tied on to that boom. How you start that one you have to lay on your back in the water and for that reason it is difficult for me because when you start your head is under the water for two or three seconds and that freaks me out so I always let go of the rope. When you get past that part you have to make sure that you are holding the rope pressed against your stomach or you will start to bounce in the water and it hurts so the you have to let go. If you make it past that part then what you have to do is lean your back up so that you are riding on your butt and not your back and then take your feet off of the rope and place them in the water. Then when you are standing up you need to keep your knees together so that there is not water spraying in your face. When you are riding like that you have to keep your back straight like when you are on just the boom alone. When you are done skiing the only way that you can let go is to just let go and fall on to your back. If you don’t let go like that then you will fall and do two or three front flips on to your face. After you are able to do the five foot line good you go all the way behind the boat which is called the long line. You do it the same way that you do on the five foot line.


The author's comments:
I have been water skiing almost all my life, but I resonantly just got the courage to take lessens and learn how to barefoot water ski.

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