Basic Jumping help....

[smitty1258]

Im pretty sure I know what everyone is going to say, BUT i just want to confirm, and maybe youll see something else as well.

But basically Im not "standing tall" at the wake, im to bent and im pretty sure my legs are absorbing my pop.

vids are located here. 4 of them. Sorry about the horrid quality, my kid was recording

http://www.youtube.com/maumeewake

Only 3 will be uploaded tonight, Ill do the 4th in the morning. They take forever, is there a way to upload them all at once?

[Christobull]

smitty1258, I watched your videos, and I have a few things to point out, some of which I'm still working on. First of all, on your approach, you're initiating it too soon. It would be fine if you continued to edge hard the closer you got to the wake, but you continue to edge about the same which is causing you to lose line tension, and in turn lose pop. You're right about absorbing the wake, but a bigger problem is that you're flattening out when you get there. Without edging through the wake, you might as well be trying to jump a roller out in the flats. Your handle position could be a little lower, but it's not your main concern.

So, next time out, try working on these things one at a time, and see how each one improves your wake jump.

1) Make the same cut towards the wake, but stay on edge all the way through the top of it. While riding, you can tell that you're doing this because you'll also be landing on edge instead of landing flat. It might help you to think about it as if you're not trying to jump the wake, but rather to ride through it. Even in the air, think about holding your edging position so that you're leaning back against the pull of the rope.

2) Make a progressive cut that starts by letting the boat pull you back toward the wake, then adding more and more the closer you get so that you're on your hardest edge right as you hit it. If you keep taking video, you can tell that you're doing it right because the rooster tail will stay the same or should be getting larger the closer you get to the wake. In your videos, you can see that once you hit the wake, you're not hardly throwing up any water which is killing your height. You're still clearing the wake because of your speed, but not from your pop.

3) Like you said, stand tall off the top of the wake. Press your heels down hard to dig your board into the water, and distribute your weight evenly over both feet. What might help you remember that is to keep your legs straight in the air instead of picking your knees up. You may think you're standing tall and picking your knees up after, but if you keep your legs straight from the top of the wake all the way through to the landing, you'll know for sure.

4) Once you get those down, you can work on edging hard. Not harder, just hard. I'm at this point right now, and until someone pointed it out and I could see it on video, I really thought I was edging hard, but I wasn't. A hard edge will be throwing up water that's taller than you. And a good thing that I was told was that the people in the boat should be able to read the graphics on the bottom of your board when you're edging hard. Work on edging away from the wake at the point where your fins are just about to break loose. When you're not focused on jumping you can look back and see exactly how much water you're throwing up. When you are throwing up water higher than you, you're on the right track. Just remember what it felt like when you edged that way, and transfer the same edge to your progressive cut towards the wake.

Aside from technique, it looks like you're running an I/O. Try trimming the outdrive up to make the top of your wake peak a little better.

[pet575]

+1. Christobull has you pointed in the right direction. I always ask everyone with questions like yours this, "Why don't you edge TOWARD the wake with the same amount of edge you use when you are edging away from it?"

You are obviously capable of edging pretty hard on both your heelside and your toeside. You've got to be able to edge THAT hard right as you are reaching the top of the wake-while digging your heels into the water (on a heelside jump) right as you go up the wake. This will give you MAX edge while also helping you "push off" of the wake instead of letting your knees absorb the wake's energy.

Keep working on it and keep posting video. As you watch your own video and then take what you're learning onto the water, try to make your edge so hard at the top of the wake that your camera operator can see the graphics on the bottom of your board.