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Congratulations!
You've just purchased one of the fine products manufactured by O'Brien.
As the oldest and largest manufacturer of towable water sports equipment, we'd like
to make sure you get the greatest possible enjoyment from it.
Watch as our world-class team of skiers, kneeboarders and wakeboarders guide you through the features,
benefits and uses of O'Brien products.
I hope you found the road you wanted I could not find the words to say
The lies were spoken and the promise is broken A wave of illusion dismay
You want everything right there in May Senior wear has been gone for so long
We tried to make friends What have I given take the right turn
Our way ain't that wrong
But since the new day is falling I see the trouble in your eyes
I see the trouble in your eyes
What have I given take the right turn
Our way ain't that wrong
And all is not the price
You're cheatin' eyes
Here are some of the more common terms we use in wakeboarding.
Goofy foot is a surfing term used for which foot forward you are.
Regular foot is left foot forward and goofy foot is right foot forward.
To determine whether you are regular or goofy foot, picture sliding sideways on a slab of ice.
Whichever foot you have forward is the foot that will go in your front boot.
Switch, backwards, fakie, they all basically mean riding in your reverse stance.
If you're riding left foot forward and you're riding switch, you're then riding right foot forward.
In some of the instructions we'll be giving you, we'll talk about a heel side and a toe side edge.
This is your heel side edge, the side that your heels are on, and this is the toe side, the side that your toes are on.
Learning to get out of the water on a wakeboard is quite simple.
You'll start in the water, floating on your back, your life vest will keep you floating.
You want your board in front of you and sideways to the boat.
Your knees will be bent and up to your chest with your elbows on each side of your knees.
Once the boat starts to go, rock up into a squatting position.
Stay nice and low until the boat comes up to speed.
Don't stand up too early, let the boat pull you up and turn your front hip towards the boat.
When driving for a beginner wakeboarder, you want to start off with a nice gradual pull out of the water
and pulling them between 15 to 18 miles per hour with a rope length of 22 off or 53 feet.
To start making turns inside the wake, you want to transfer your weight either to your heels or to your toes
and make small little turns back and forth.
When venturing outside the wake, you want to remember to absorb with your knees and keep your weight centered over the board.
One of the first tricks you'll want to learn on your wakeboard is a one-wake jump.
Pick the side that's most comfortable for you, it'll probably be your heelside edge.
Get outside the wake three to four feet, make a slow progressive turn, and set your board on edge.
Keep your knees stiff all the way through the top of the wake, and then when you come down,
absorb the landing with your knees and keep your rope low down at your head.
Now that you're comfortable landing your one-wake jumps, it's time to move on to your two-wake jump.
A two-wake jump, all you need to do is edge a little bit further out, pop off the wake, and land on the downside of the second wake.
After you've learned to jump the wakes and you want to learn to jump a bit bigger,
you're going to have to put yourself out a bit wider from the boat than you're used to pulling out.
Once you're alongside of the boat, you're going to have to make a nice big arc turn
so that you can stay in a good body position when you finish the turn.
When you're popping off the wake using your legs, it's really important that you don't use your upper body.
If you use your upper body to jump, you'll actually get off your axis and won't be over your board anymore.
So your cutting position is the start of your jump, and you never move your chest from that position on.
You just straighten your legs a little bit, just a couple inches is plenty.
One of the easiest 180s to do is a toe-side 180.
Standing toe-side to the wake, only about a foot away, you're just going to ride up the wake without any speed.
You're just going to use the top of the wake as a place to pop.
So riding up all the way through the top of the wake, it's best to hold the pressure of the rope in your back arm.
If you're left foot forward, this is your right arm. If you're right foot forward, this is your left arm.
Naturally holding all the weight of the rope in the right arm will make you spin naturally.
It'll turn you into the position.
So simply ride up to the top of the wake, releasing the left hand with your pop, and let the rope naturally turn you to the boat.
Music
Today we're going to learn the fun way to start water skiing combo doubles. With the new
Amigo combos, great way to start, great stability.
What we want to do is we want to be in the water and in a sitting position with the ski tips
up in front of you, knees bent up to your chest, arms straight. And once you're
ready to go, you signal the boat to go. Even weight on both skis is very
important. The boat's going to take off and you're going to be into the squatting
position, arms straight, knees bent, head up and then just slowly
come up a little, a little at a time. And once you're up there, head up,
arms straight, knees bent, even weight on both skis and then you're
ready to go.
Music
Once we're out on the right hand side of the wake and we want to go across,
now this time we have to go across both wakes. So we make our turn, again
de-weighting the left ski and you want to press on the right. So we're going,
we go across the first wake, keeping our arms straight, knees bent, leaning a little
bit in the direction we want to go. Then the next wake again, once you're
outside, we want to be comfortable and we turn and we do the same thing again.
Back and forward until we get a nice momentum going and once you're comfortable with that,
we'll move on to the next step.
Music
To progress to slalom skiing we need to determine which foot forward we're
going to be. I want you behind the boat, knees bent, arms straight and you practice
de-weighting one ski at a time to determine which one is the most comfortable.
We de-weight one, we ride along for a little ways, then we put that one down
and we de-weight the other one. Whichever one feels the most comfortable will be your front foot.
Now that we've determined which foot forward we are, what you want to do is make sure
the ski with the two bindings goes onto that leg, then the other binding
you need to make it large, very large, so that it's easy to get out of
as you're skiing along. Put all your weight onto the determined foot forward
and make sure that the other ski, the other leg has no weight on it, slowly lift
the heel, point the toe and let that ski slowly trail behind until it
falls away. Once it's gone, leave that leg out there for a rudder and
stability. Once you're comfortable, slowly, very slowly place it onto the back
of the ski and then again when you're comfortable just slowly
put it into the back kicker, then you have it, you're just cruising along in a skiing position
don't forget, go back and find that other ski.
On the trainer skis which we use for teaching children,
we have a short piece of rope or a small bar which is approximately
two to three inches long attaching the front to the back and what that does, that stops the skis
when the children get up on the water or coming up out from kind of going away or start doing a spread eagle.
The handle that the skier will hold onto is attached to this rope or bar down at the front
that way they don't have as much pull or as much strength required to get themselves out of the water.
The rope which is pulling them along is attached down at the bottom here next to their rope but that is
attached to the boat which what we do for the first few times is we have one of the parents or an adult
moving on the back of the boat so that when the skier falls all they have to do is just let go of the handle
and the ski will just sink into the water.
One of the biggest fears to overcome for a child first time on a pair of water skis is that forward motion
and how much pull and feel is there going to be. One way we can overcome that is we can
teach a child by pulling them on the grass or pulling them on a beach just so they get the feel
they can practice on keeping their head up, looking at the boat and they can just kind of be pulled along
and get a feel of how much pull they're going to have. Now we've got the forward motion and the skier
knows what to expect and what kind of feeling he's going to get by pulling along the grass here.
We need to know how to get from in the water up on top of the water to that skiing position.
Here we have Bryce set up here for a deep water start sitting on the back of the skis and then as the boat starts to pull him
up on the handle and he's up and skiing right along.
With life jackets on, get into the water with the child and help them get into the proper sitting position.
Explain to the child that he or she should allow the boat to pull them up and to stay in their tucked position
until they are on top of the water. Once the child is ready, the driver should accelerate smoothly
to 15 miles per hour. Go slow. Children pop out of the water easily and you don't want to scare the child.
It may take a few tries, but soon your child will be skiing the lake with ease.
Tubing is far and away the most popular behind the boat activity, but just because it's relatively easy
doesn't mean it's for everyone. No small children and no frail bodies.
When you buy your O'Brien tube you need to get familiar with the instructions to make sure everything is safe and nobody gets hurt.
You need to make sure when your tube is inflated it's nice and firm, but not too hard.
You want to have a little bit of cushion in it, but not much. You don't want it to be mushy.
At this point in time you should be ready to go.
When you purchase your tube you should also get a rope with it that is designed for pulling tubes only.
Make sure it doesn't have any knots in it and that it's not frayed.
It should have an easy connector that goes along with it.
Make sure it's securely fastened before you start your ride.
Boat drivers are very important when tubing because they are in total control.
Make sure you communicate with them and make sure you get the kind of ride you want.
You can make it as wild as you want or as sedate. I prefer the wild.
When you ride your tube you can ride it any way you like, any way you feel the most comfortable on your knees, laying down.
You can bounce on it, jump on it, just have fun, be safe, make sure you wear an approved flotation device.
You'll want to hold on to the tube, but never grab the tow line, attach yourself to the tube or cover,
or push your arms or legs through the straps or handles.
Also don't wedge your feet or hands between the tube and cover.
You never want to be trapped if the tube should flip over.
The
Basically there are two ways of coming up out of the water on a slalom ski.
A lot of it kind of relies on which way your ski is set up,
whether you have a double boot situation or a slalom ski with a rear tow plate.
For coming out with two boots, we'll deal with that first.
It's very similar to when you start learning with combo skis,
where the knees are up to the chest and the arms go around the outside of the legs.
But you're going to have both feet in the slalom ski, one behind the other, obviously.
The slalom ski, for instance, if your right foot is in the front,
the ski will be to the right side of the rope.
Therefore, when the ski starts to go, it's going to be at a slight angle.
So don't worry about the ski being at a slight angle,
because when the boat pulls, it's going to straight up.
When you go to pull, there's a resistance.
The harder you pull and try to push against the boat,
the more drag you're going to create. It's going to be harder on the arms.
Allow the boat to do the work for you. Keep the knees bent.
And as the boat pulls, you will eventually just pull right up over the top of the ski.
But when you're there, try to keep this chest up.
Keep looking forward. Keep looking at the boat.
That way you have the instant balance as soon as you get up and planing.
The other way of doing it is with the rear toe plate.
You're only going to have, obviously, one foot in the ski.
Again, the knees come up, the arms go around the outside of the leg,
but this leg is not attached to the ski,
so this leg is going to stay more a little bit down by the back of the ski.
Same thing, arms around the outside.
If you have the right foot forward, the rope is going to be on the left side of the ski.
Exactly the same principle as coming out with two feet is you allow the boat to do the work.
You have some resistance. You keep your chest up. You keep looking for the boat.
And when the boat pulls, let it pull you right up over the top of the ski.
But keep this chest up so that when you're up,
you do assume the position with the chest up and the arms are down.
There's really not a lot of movement.
And then the spare leg, which is hanging out the back of the ski,
use that as a rudder. Use that in the water to create some balance.
Now that we're up on the water and we still have this foot trailing in the back,
it's important not to have a panic situation
that we have to get this onto the back of the ski
and get right into our slalom position immediately.
Trailing this foot along the back,
you could ski around the whole lake on one foot, trailing this leg.
You'd have a good quad burn by the end,
but it's not a panic to get the back foot in.
But let's assume that we're really up on the water,
we've got the chest up, we've got the arms down,
we're skiing along in a nice position.
What we need to do is we need to lift the back leg up
because off the side of the slalom ski,
we've got a spray coming off like this.
And if we go and put the foot through that,
it's going to throw the ski off and throw your balance off a little bit.
So try to lift the back leg up,
touch it on the back, on your calf or the back of the knee,
and then take it down the back of the ski.
You'll feel the binder.
And then all you have to do is touch the toes on the ski.
And you can ski along like that in that position for a little while.
Then when you feel comfortable in that,
then you can slowly start to feel the toes back,
feel the opening for the toe plate,
and gently push the foot in the back,
kind of sink down in the knees a little bit
so you kind of, just a touch of a sitting position,
making sure we keep the chest up,
keep looking at the boat, you're ready to go slalom.
The difference in driving for a slalom skier
as opposed to bringing a combo skier out of the water
is the same smooth action of the throttle, what you want to do.
For a slalom skier, obviously he's only on one ski,
so he's going to have a lot more drag coming out of the water.
So you're going to have to same apply the throttle all the way down,
but put the throttle all the way down into the hole.
And then when the skier is up on top of the water,
then you can bring the throttle back to his cruising speed.
Probably for slalom skiers, obviously depending on the size of the skier,
you can bring anything from 22
all the way to a maximum slalom speed of 36 miles an hour.
Length of rope for slalom skiers,
when we learn to slalom ski,
we usually learn on a 60 or a 75 foot line.
As we get more into slalom skiing and competition skiing,
we hear more of 35 off, 32 off, 28 off.
Basically what that is, is the 75 foot line is the baseline,
and the off, like 15 off, means 15 feet taken off the line.
22 off means the boat is taken 22 feet off the line.
Basically the off is off a 75 foot line.
Now that we've got the deep water, we're up on the water,
we need to assume a position that's going to give us maximum strength,
maximum leverage to the body without putting a lot of strain on the body.
Basically what we do is we've got both feet in the binder,
one in front of the other, and what we do is push forward in the ankles,
kind of bend forward at the ankles, push the knees forward,
that way we don't have to move the upper body,
that the shoulders, the hips, the knees, and the ankles,
we're all going to stay in one line.
It's also important to keep the handle down.
The arms can stay out and relatively straight, but just down.
We're taught to combo ski with both palms down.
For slalom skiing, it's a much stronger grip and a better balance
if we go like a baseball grip.
It doesn't really matter if you go left palm up or right palm up.
Whichever one feels most comfortable and strongest to you.
This is your basic deep water start.
Boat's this way.
You want to lay down on the board.
Very important, keep your butt down.
As you're starting out, use your elbows for leverage.
As the boat drivers accelerate, you want the board to begin planing out.
Once it gets to about a 45-degree angle on the water and starts to plane,
you want to slide up into the knee wells, keeping your butt low.
Use your elbows for balance.
Pull up into the knee wells, straighten your back up,
and adjust your scent strap across your knees.
And you're rolling.
Your body position is very important on the board.
There's two things that can happen.
You can either face plant or bounce a lot.
If you're too far back on the board, such as this,
you're going to get a lot of bouncing.
If you're too far forward and your arms are extended out,
you could possibly do a face plant, which is no fun.
So you want to stay in a neutral position
with the handle slightly pulled into your waist.
Beach start, really, really easy.
If you're learning, this is the way to go.
Make sure you're strapped in tight,
your scent strap up around your thigh area.
You want to lean slightly back when your heel's keeping the handle in
with your elbows slightly bent when you tell the boat driver to go.
Glide right off the shore, coming into a neutral position
once you're on the water.
First of all, boat drivers, very important.
When you're pulling up your boarder,
you want to make sure you have a slow start.
Boat speed should range between 16 and 21 miles per hour
with a rope length of about 40 feet.
This will give you a good shaped wake.
If you measure your rope out at 40 feet,
tie it up, and hit those boat speeds, you should be ready to go.
Basic turns are very simple on a knee board.
Basically, you want to pull against the boat,
pulling your handle in to your waist around your belt line
and pulling away from the boat and edging away from the boat,
whichever direction you edge is the way you're going to go.
As you're crossing the wake, be sure to keep the handle in
and keep your body in a neutral position.
You don't want to let your arms out because you will do a face plant.
Side slides are one of your more basic tricks.
It's very, very easy.
Keep both hands in a palms down position.
Pull the rope handle into your waist
and spin your upper body looking away from the boat.
Wherever your head goes, the board will follow.
360 is very simple also, but momentum is very important here,
and the momentum comes from the handle pull and the body rotation.
You want to do it in one smooth, fluid movement.
Running to jump the wake is a blast.
Basically, you want to keep the board on edge, keep the handle low,
and keep your head and your shoulders pointed in the direction you want to go.
As you're coming up the wake,
make sure you're on the little bit of the tail of the board leaning away from the boat.
Once you're in the air, neutralize your position, keeping the handle in always.
As you land, keep your eyes on the horizon and ride it out.
Thank you for choosing O'Brien.
Your decision to buy from the leaders in the sport
guarantees many long and enjoyable years on the water.
We've taught you everything you need to know.
Now get off the couch, grab your life jacket, and go ride.
I see the one I've been yearning to meet
The time I opened my eyes to see that
You're my darling on the house in Baltimore
You broke my heart
Spinning around in space
You told me life was short
Now we're left unsaid
Before you whispered all my time
I'll give you a little piece of my mind
I'll see you down the road
And I'll be fine
Oh, you know, you gave it to me
I walk up in a tub of ice
Not enough
Kidney
You're not a friend
You're too deep
The time I opened my eyes to see that
You're my darling on the house in Baltimore
You stole my sheets
Played a skit in my cat
You stole my seat
And they pulled my gown