Inliner
08-25-2011, 03:18 PM
A funny thing happened last weekend. My girlfriend's ex-husband when she said she wanted to learn how to wakeboard told her to grow up. Now that she is no longer with him, she decided that being a Toys R Us kid was a great thing. Now understand she was deathly afraid of fresh water after she saw a boy attacked by an alligator when she was 12. That was before I became a part of her life...
She approached me on July 4th about teaching her to wakeboard. She made it clear to me she had no interest in jumping after seeing some of the spectacular crashes I had done jumping on kneeboards, wakeskates and the trick ski. I picked her up a nice 2007 O'Brien Oasis 137 on Craig's List so she could "get her feet wet". After 2 weekends, she was on long line skiing around the Harris chain. But she was still insistent that she wasn't going to jump.
She got bored with riding behind the boat and loved the way I would slide my boards on the roller. She wanted to learn how to do that. So I took her fins off and started teaching her to slide.
Next to come was wake crossings. THAT she was afraid of after watching me send her wakeboard flying on the wake crossings. I have been teaching her edging technique so that was the next step. She finally crossed her first wake heelside last weekend. I have been teaching her toeside edging and she decided to try to come back. She launched the wakeboard on her first toeside wake crossing, landed it and promptly threw the handle! Everyone got a kick out of that one! But what really gave me a laugh was her response as soon as she set foot on the platform, she asked was the video camera running! The bad news is, it wasn't! Battery went dead!
So now her fear of jumping is gone, having been replaced with the spirit of an adrenalin junkie! I demonstrated an ollie when she decided to take the boat too close to the lily pads this weekend. Her and her teenage son both said "you have GOT to teach me that!" after I had a ball ollieing the lily pads as they went by. So I guess next weekend will be ollie lessons! So much for the fear of alligators...
She approached me on July 4th about teaching her to wakeboard. She made it clear to me she had no interest in jumping after seeing some of the spectacular crashes I had done jumping on kneeboards, wakeskates and the trick ski. I picked her up a nice 2007 O'Brien Oasis 137 on Craig's List so she could "get her feet wet". After 2 weekends, she was on long line skiing around the Harris chain. But she was still insistent that she wasn't going to jump.
She got bored with riding behind the boat and loved the way I would slide my boards on the roller. She wanted to learn how to do that. So I took her fins off and started teaching her to slide.
Next to come was wake crossings. THAT she was afraid of after watching me send her wakeboard flying on the wake crossings. I have been teaching her edging technique so that was the next step. She finally crossed her first wake heelside last weekend. I have been teaching her toeside edging and she decided to try to come back. She launched the wakeboard on her first toeside wake crossing, landed it and promptly threw the handle! Everyone got a kick out of that one! But what really gave me a laugh was her response as soon as she set foot on the platform, she asked was the video camera running! The bad news is, it wasn't! Battery went dead!
So now her fear of jumping is gone, having been replaced with the spirit of an adrenalin junkie! I demonstrated an ollie when she decided to take the boat too close to the lily pads this weekend. Her and her teenage son both said "you have GOT to teach me that!" after I had a ball ollieing the lily pads as they went by. So I guess next weekend will be ollie lessons! So much for the fear of alligators...