I decided late in the season (like in the last 2 weeks) last year to give it a try after wakeboarding all summer, so I hopped on my dad's 65" EP from like 1980 and quite enjoyed it. So once the water warmed up this spring I decided that I want to actually hone the slalom skills. I've been out a hand full of times, and this is where I'm at - just looking for a little advice or direction I guess.

The ski feels perfect for me, as I said its an older EP, single boot, although I think I'm going to go shopping for a double boot setup this weekend. I get up with my back foot stuffed into the strap as tight as possible, and I hate the loose feeling of no binding on the back foot.

I have no trouble at getting up out of the water.

I am starting to get pretty decent control over the ski; I can "steer" (if thats what its called?) in any direction I want to go, and cross over the wakes on both sides, but not really at any sort of speed.

I am just starting to figure out how to cut when I go outside of the wakes - Is there anything I should be focusing on doing when I'm doing this? I feel like its mostly mind over matter?

My biggest fear is coming back across the wakes quickly, I can't seem to really fly across without loosing all control.


I must also say that as of right now my "comfort" speed is about 27, which I am hearing is the slowest slalom speed on the face of the earth. I'm 5'7" and weigh 125 pounds. I can stay up at 30+, but I just don't feel stable; is there something in my technique, or do I just need to get comfortable at the lower speeds and work myself up?

The root of this question stems from (what I feel is) a setback I gave myself in wakeboarding, and that is that I am absolutely terrible at toeside w2w jumps, because when I was learning I only really drilled myself on heelside, so to this day I still struggle with them. I don't want to give myself a bad habbit on the ski that will always bother me.