How To Drop The Rope Wakesurfing, From One Beginner To Others
Hi,
I have only just learned to drop the rope and recover back into the sweet spot at will and so thought it would be useful to other beginners to document what helped me while its still fresh.
The biggest challenge I had was figuring out how to recover, like many others I could find and stay in the sweet spot for 20 seconds or so without the rope, but every time i left this spot it was a one way journey. The video at the end is from the day where I finally figured out how to get back into the spot by 'pumping'.
Here are the tips I can offer -
Once your up, spend some time to reposition your feet, you want to work you lead foot forwards on the board, ideally right up to the tip of the traction pad. Once your have your foot far enough forwards, wiggle, creep of do whatever works for you to get your toes nearer to the toe side edge of the board. I find it easier to do all of this far from the wake and leaning back like I would on a wakeboard. You can see me working to position my lead foot in the first 15 seconds of the video before moving back in towards the wake.
Why is this important ? - Getting your foot forwards allows you to put pressure on the front of the board helping it to slide down the face of the wake and generate speed, Getting your toes closer to the edge allows you to put more pressure on the edge getting it to bite harder into the face of the wave and convert more of the downward pressure into forward speed, it will also help to reduce the amount of board touching the wave face which reduces drag.
Pump before your need to - One of the biggest mistakes I was making for a long time was waiting until I knew I was falling back to start pumping, pump before you need to. Get one or two pumps in anytime you move around on the wake or even just for peace of mind while cruising in the sweet spot to maintain speed, this way if you do find your self falling back you will already be in the rythm of pumping and have a much better chance of staying on the wake.
The other big challenge I had was despite a lot of watching and reading, I had no concept of what pumping really was or how to do it.
Before trying to explain how pumping began to make sense for me, I will add one caveat - I am on a skim style board.
How to pump - use your head
I boat with two impatient kids 8 and 10 years old, I rarely get the chance to fine tune the wake so ride what I am given on the day - sometimes little more than calf high. Early on when learning to stay in the pocket with the rope I often had to hunch all of my weight over my front foot just to stay in the pocket. This worked by angling the board down the face of the wave, as the wave rolls forwards it wants to lift the board up, but by angling down the slippery face of the wave, we can move forward instead of being lifted. Lean back and the board will grip and dig into the wave, this does a few things we don't want yet - it creates drag slowing us down and it lifts us up the face of the wave rather than allowing us to slip along the face.
Lets image though that we have crept higher up the face of the wave 6-12 inches - this could be the start of us falling back and out of the pocket. What if we now pushed hard with all of our weight on the front of the board ? The board would be angled down the face of the wave but with even more pressure than from gravity alone, this would force the board to slip faster generating a small boost in speed for us. In practice, when you do this, the water feels somewhere between spongy and springy under the board and for me, the key to finally getting the idea of pumping was to quickly fall into a rythm with the natural rebound of the water.
If your not getting the spongy/springy feeling, make sure your feet are in position near the toeside edge of the board, front foot forwards and if the feet are right, remember to really bend your knees and push hard into the water each time you extend them - if your falling back, you really have to work your whole body weight into getting the board back up to speed.
In the video you can see that upto about the 18 Second mark I am working to get my front foot forward and closer to the toe side.
At 40 seconds and again at around 1:19 you can see me bring my head and shoulders low and forward directly over my front knee to really help and push as much of my body weight as possible into the front of the board, this generates noticeable boosts in speed that I would not get without bringing my full body weight into play. At around 1:23 I am back into a more relaxed upright position. Throughout the video I am pumping just not with the full intensity and rolled forward body weight that is initially needed to regain speed. This is an important point - when you are falling back, you are moving slower than the boat, to get back into the pocket you will have to accelerate to a speed faster than the boat, this isn't going to happen without you spending an awful lot of energy, get your whole body into it, remember your trying to catch a 300HP+ boat !
In summary -
Spend a minute to get your feet right once your up on the board before you start worrying about sweet spots, push and all the rest of it.
Visualise what you are trying to do as - I want to use my body weight, through my legs to force this board down this slippery slope
The more weight you have on your back foot, the more you are flattening the slope and defeating yourself, keep it forward and push your weight through your front leg into the board
The more you bend your knees in the pump the more energy you will have to push down with
The real key for me was using all the summary points above in rhythm with the spongy/springy rebound you will feel from the water under the board, its like pushing back on each rebound adds an extra little boost forwards - its like the rhythm of pushing a swing, once you feel the rebound its really easy and efficient to get in synch with pushing back on the high points.
Hope it helps, from one beginner to another
mpbanskie.
PS - I think a skim style board is easier to learn on and more forgiving of a mediocre wake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzuIMQCs9Q0
